Hollywood Entertainment Jobs

Hollywood is a non-profit organization that assists individuals from historically underrepresented communities in Los Angeles to effectively compete for and gain access to jobs and business opportunities in the entertainment industry.

The entertainment industry and community leaders, who realized that there were large numbers of people in greater Los Angeles who were disconnected from the industry workforce, founded Workplace Hollywood in 1998. They saw a lack of access to information about career opportunities, trainings and internships. And, of course, they understood that these people did not have the connections necessary to pursue careers in Los Angeles' signature industry.

The goal of Workplace Hollywood is to provide critical services to individuals who are trying to break into the economic mainstream of Los Angeles' society.

The life of a Hollywood executive may seem fast paced and glamorous, but there are hundreds of entertainment jobs in the film industry that go unnoticed and unknown. From the humble PA's, to the tech savvy effects editors, to the agents and managers, Hollywood is a multi-clogged machine that seems to have a job for everyone. The secret is, finding out how you fit into the machine, and finding a way in.

Types

1. It seems as if everyone dreams of fame and fortune at one point or another, but honest, nine to five, everyday jobs are also the norm in the entertainment capital of America. The most visible type of entertainment job in Hollywood is the performer. Actors, actresses, singers and other performers flock to Hollywood by the millions to find their big break, and some actually make it. Directly on the other side of the camera is where you will find the second kind of Hollywood entertainment job: the crew. The crew encompasses a vast amount of jobs, ranging everywhere from the properties manager up to the director. The third kind of job to be found in Hollywood is often thought of, ironically, as the most underrated and overlooked. That is the job of the Hollywood writer. The fourth type of job in Hollywood entertainment is, perhaps, the most notorious and scandalized, but indispensable none the less. That is the job of the Hollywood executive.

The Actor

2. Being a part of the Hollywood entertainment machine as an actor has more to do with chance than anything else. That is why there are so many down-on-their-luck stories out there about starving actors working tirelessly at day jobs, dreaming of their big break. The key to surviving in this field is perseverance. There are a handful of stories about the boy from the Midwest who moves to LA with five dollars in his pocket and lands the role of a lifetime at his first audition, but these are fairy tales. While they do happen, it is just as realistic to think that the next time you purchase a lottery ticket, you will win the million-dollar jackpot. Taking classes, networking and, more than anything else, constantly auditioning, is the only chance to make any headway in this profession. When a job is landed, one must be absolutely professional and grateful. Word travels fast in Hollywood, and if you are difficult to work with, you'll find it hard to land consistent work.

The Crew

3. For those who love to figure out how things work, and want to find a way to make them work better, this is the field for you. Within the world of the crew, there are subsets. There is the audio crew. They not only mic the shoots that take place, but also mix and edit any audio during and after the shoot, as well. There is the video or film crew. These are the camera operators, the assistant camera and the dolly operators. They are the muscles behind making the visual ideas the director has come to life. Then there is the "post" crew. These men and women spend the majority of their time in front of banks of computer monitors in dark rooms editing, recoloring and adding CGI special effects to film and television after it has been filmed or recorded. There are the directors of the crew, as well. This does not literally mean the "director," proper, but more specifically, the people who are the leaders of the crew. These people include the cinematographer, the key grip, the director of Photography and, of course, the director. Last, but certainly not least, are the Production Assistants. A film or television shoot would be a disaster, were it not for these tireless, underpaid laborers who do everything that no one else wants to do.

The Writers

4. The writer spends almost all of their working time completely alone. In motion pictures, it is often common to see three or four people listed in the credits for writing the screenplay. This does not necessarily mean that they ever worked together. If the names of the people listed are separated by an ampersand (&), this indicates that those people are a "writing team," and worked in tandem on the script. If the names are separated by the word "and," that means that the script was passed from writer to writer to do "rewrites," and these writers most likely had no contact with each other. Oftentimes, rewrites are done to shorten the script or to give the script a certain "feel" that the production team thinks only a specific writer can give it.

The Executives

5. There are two main types of Hollywood executives: studio executives and representatives. The studio executives work for companies like Warner Brothers, Sony and Disney. They not only decide which movies get to be made, and which don't, but they are saddled with the task of finding the money to actually make these movies. In the last two decades, movie making has become more and more complicated as the films being made have become more and more expensive. Finding a million dollars is one thing. Finding several hundred million is something else, entirely. The executives now must go to the world financial markets and source the money for these would-be blockbusters the same way companies that go public on the stock market do. The representatives are the high-powered agents and managers that represent actors, writers and directors. They negotiate contracts, set up auditions and meetings and cultivate their client's careers. Agents generally take 10% of everything an actor makes, while managers make around 15%. This, of course, is not the case with actors and directors that make hundreds of millions of dollars. Those contracts are negotiated separately.