The highway to seek out regular work in Hollywood is extra fraught now than ever earlier than. The leisure trade is within the throes of a seismic transformation, as conventional jobs are vanishing, and AI threatens to utterly upend the best way visible media is made and consumed. Happily, Ada Tseng and Jon Healey are right here to assist.
The writing crew, each former Instances editors with intensive expertise protecting present enterprise, have written “Breaking Into New Hollywood,” a how-to information like no different. Healey and Tseng interviewed a whole lot of insiders each above and under the road — gaffers, casting administrators, actors, writers, stunt folks and plenty of others — to offer an intensive, wide-screen view of the right way to break in, and what it’s like if you really do discover that dream job.
I sat down with Healey and Tseng to debate their new e book.
Ada Tseng, left, and Jon Healey.
(Ricardo DeAratanha; Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Instances)
That is probably the most complete how-to information for Hollywood careers I’ve ever learn. The place did the impetus for the e book come from?
Ada: The e book began as a Hollywood careers collection on the Los Angeles Instances, when Jon and I had been editors on a crew that specialised in writing guides and explainers. As we had been fascinated with the right way to be helpful to L.A. Instances readers, I pitched a challenge to assist individuals who had been enthusiastic about getting a job in Hollywood. Lots of people come to L.A. starry-eyed with large goals, however the movie and TV trade might be fairly brutal.
Jon: A number of of us I interviewed had comparable origin tales on this respect: They knew that they needed to work within the trade in some capability, however they didn’t know what precisely they might do. So it made sense to do a e book for that type of particular person — a information that may present an array of potential profession paths to individuals who didn’t know what function they needed to fill.
I really feel like “How to Break into the Business” books up to now have tended to give attention to constructive outcomes moderately than the battle. Did you wish to mood expectations, or a minimum of ensure folks assume issues by very totally earlier than leaping in?
Ada: We simply needed to be trustworthy. The glamorous fantasy of Hollywood is so intoxicating. However in case you’re going to work within the trade, it’s good to navigate the day-to-day actuality of it. I don’t assume we had been making an attempt to encourage or discourage anybody. I’d hope that some folks would learn the chapters and assume, “This seems doable, and now I can make a plan,” whereas others would learn it and assume, “If I’m honest with myself, I’m someone who needs more stability in my life.” As a result of it’s not only a profession selection. It’s a way of life selection.
Jon: Proper, this was about expectation-setting and reality-checking. The very first interviews I did on this challenge had been of Foley artists. An knowledgeable I interviewed stated there have been 40 to 50 established Foley practitioners within the U.S., and 100 to 200 of us making an attempt to get into the sector. That’s a really robust nut to crack. Then there are the Hollywood unions, which current a catch-22 to anybody making an attempt to hitch their ranks — they need to do a sure variety of hours in jobs lined by union contracts, however union members get first crack in any respect these gigs.
Your e book additionally covers jobs above and under the road. I feel many individuals don’t even notice what number of completely different profession alternatives exist.
Ada: There are two issues we heard over and over. Individuals would say, “It’s incredibly important to understand what all the different departments do.” And so they’d additionally say, “So many people — even our own colleagues in the industry — don’t understand what we do.” So we needed to encourage newcomers to find out about all several types of jobs in Hollywood and the way they work collectively.
Jon: Speaking in regards to the emotional elements is about setting expectations too. The overwhelming majority of people that work in Hollywood, from A-list actors to entry-level grips, are freelancers. That’s a troublesome lifetime of highs and lows, and it’s important to put together for that mentally in addition to financially. Individuals need to hustle for years to ascertain themselves, and that takes an infinite capability for rejection. On high of that’s the bodily toll the work can extract, particularly on the parents concerned in organising and tearing down units. A part of the purpose of the e book is to inform folks with Hollywood goals that they’ll must gird themselves emotionally and bodily for the work.
You additionally broach the topic of cash and who makes what. One other novel thought for a e book like this.
Ada: We constantly heard from people who it takes 5 to 7 years to make a dwelling — and that’s in case you’re profitable. So until you come from wealth, the way you pay your payments if you aren’t reserving gigs is an integral a part of breaking into — and attaining longevity — in Hollywood.
Additionally, the cash varies broadly — relying on expertise, how large the challenge is and different elements, but it surely’s good to grasp the fundamental minimums dictated by the unions, in addition to whether or not you’re enthusiastic about a profession path the place you’ll be able to anticipate to have yearly full-time work – or if 30 weeks of employment a 12 months is taken into account a extremely good 12 months.
Jon: The toughest components to jot down for me, and doubtless for Ada too, had been the sections telling folks in sure fields that they had been anticipated to work without cost. Fortunately, the trade appears to be getting higher about that, albeit as a result of it’s been pressured to take action.
Ada: Though, it’s not even that you simply aren’t making a living. It’s a must to spend some huge cash, whether or not you’re taking courses, shopping for gear, submitting your work for fellowships — getting your individual airplane tickets and lodge rooms to go to occasions to community or promote your work. You’re mainly investing in your self as a enterprise.
Your sections on AI are eye-opening. It isn’t essentially a profession killer however, in actual fact, may enhance employment, proper?
Jon: I like to present a brilliant lengthy reply to this query that cites the lengthy historical past of business revolutions, however for the sake of brevity, I’ll simply say that expertise has all the time been essential to the movie and TV trade, and improvements through the years have ended some livelihoods whereas creating others. AI instruments can enable filmmakers to be extra environment friendly, simply as digital cameras and LED lights have performed. That inevitably means fewer jobs per challenge, but additionally ought to end in extra tasks being green-lit. And as digital instruments and streaming companies eradicate limitations to entry in music, so can AI eradicate limitations to entry in movie. Advocates of AI imagine there shall be a web improve in jobs, and time will inform whether or not they’re proper. However there’s no query that the roles in movie and TV shall be completely different.
Ada: This was one other exhausting half to present recommendation about, as a result of AI is quickly evolving and there’s a variety of well-founded worry in regards to the jobs of our generations that shall be eradicated. However this e book is for the following technology, and aspiring creatives must deal with AI as a part of their toolkit.
Was there any widespread thread that runs by all the interviews you carried out with professionals?
Ada: Everyone seems to be deeply dedicated to their crafts, however what they’re most enthusiastic about is storytelling. What I imply by that’s: A dressing up designer, in fact, is enthusiastic about clothes, but when their major precedence was lovely clothes, they’d be a stylist or a dressmaker. Costume designers are enthusiastic about utilizing clothes to create a personality and inform a narrative. Equally, if a set decorator’s major ardour was creating lovely houses, they’d be an inside designer. However a set decorator needs to make use of the furnishings, decor and objects that can assist you perceive the protagonist’s backstory.
Jon: Even probably the most achieved crew members and producers we talked to stated they checked out their jobs as advancing another person’s imaginative and prescient, not their very own. They realized early on to not get invested emotionally of their finest concepts as a result of another person — the director on a movie, the showrunner on a TV collection — can be the decide of which concepts to make use of. That’s actually humbling.
What do you assume is probably the most profound change in Hollywood because it continues to transition from theatrical and TV into streaming?
Jon: Streaming has confirmed to be an enormous boon to long-form storytelling, a minimum of from the viewer’s vantage level. You’d nonetheless have “Succession” with out streaming, however you don’t have the amount of “Succession”-level reveals with out the funding and competitors from the likes of Netflix, Apple and Amazon. However the economics of streaming collection are very completely different from these of a long-running broadcast TV present. There are fewer episodes, which implies much less pay for writers, actors and crew members over the course of a 12 months. And residuals are decrease for individuals who are entitled to them. In the meantime, after a gradual rise within the variety of scripted reveals launched within the U.S., the quantity fell sharply in 2024. So it seems that peak TV might have peaked.
For motion pictures, the pandemic gave studios a preview of the post-theatrical world to come back. Nonetheless, the trade remains to be struggling to provide you with a coherent method to streaming. A lot of a film’s advertising remains to be tied to theatrical releases, and multiplexes and studios proceed to battle over how lengthy a brand new film ought to wait earlier than it hits the streamers. And I ponder if there isn’t a lingering stigma for motion pictures which might be obtainable instantly for streaming, much like the one for motion pictures that went straight to DVD.
Ada: It’s not simply streaming. Every thing that we eat from our telephones — from social media content material to podcasts to gaming livestreams — just isn’t solely competing with mainstream Hollywood but additionally changing into a part of the identical large leisure ecosystem.
However on the flip facet, it’s by no means been extra potential for aspiring creatives to bypass conventional gatekeepers, make their very own tasks, join immediately with audiences and construct their very own income streams — even when it’s by no means going to be straightforward.
Preorder “Breaking Into New Hollywood” and browse Tseng and Healey’s authentic Instances reporting that led to the e book.
