How does one reconnect with old bosses or colleagues if one didn't make much of an impression in the past?

I have worked in film and TV production. After the last TV show I worked on moved away from New York, I didn’t do any networking. I didn’t know how to do it and I had some pretty irrational ideas of what other people thought of me as a person. I never made any waves or got to know anyone on the jobs I managed to get. I’d do my work seamlessly, almost like you wouldn’t know I was there, and then go home. No socializing or anything. I don’t think anyone on the shows I worked on would remember who I was if you asked them now, and I worked on some pretty major stuff.

I thought that if I asked people where I might find the next job, they’d say, “Why are you bothering me? Go away. I don’t like you.” Completely irrational, I know, and I know exactly where that mindset came from, so we don’t have to go there. I want to get back in film and TV in NYC, but I don’t know how to reconnect with people in the industry here. I feel like to ask them about how to get back in is using them, even though I don’t mind helping others at all if I can.

Maybe you had to get into (or back into) some other industry. I reckon that the methods are the same. What would you do in my place? I didn’t move to NYC or get a film degree to be a secretary, but I have no clue as to how to get back on track.