I sat down with Healey and Tseng to discuss their new book.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ada Tseng, left, and Jon Healey.<\/p>\n
(Ricardo DeAratanha; Jay L. Clendenin \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
This is the most comprehensive how-to guide for Hollywood careers I\u2019ve ever read. Where did the impetus for the book come from?<\/b><\/p>\n
Ada:<\/b> The book started as a Hollywood careers series at the Los Angeles Times<\/a>, when Jon and I were editors on a team that specialized in writing guides and explainers. As we were thinking about how to be useful to L.A. Times readers, I pitched a project to help people who were interested in getting a job in Hollywood. A lot of people come to L.A. starry-eyed with big dreams, but the film and TV industry can be pretty brutal.<\/p>\n As journalists, we\u2019re Hollywood outsiders, but we had access to hundreds of professionals who were generous enough to share what they wished they knew when they were starting out. We see it like this: On behalf of the people who don\u2019t have connections in the industry, we cold-emailed people, asked for informational interviews, picked their brains, listened to stories of what they did to build a career \u2014 and did our best to consolidate their most practical pieces of advice into an actionable guide.<\/p>\n Jon: <\/b>A lot of folks I interviewed had similar origin stories in this respect: They knew that they wanted to work in the industry in some capacity, but they didn\u2019t know what exactly they could do. So it made sense to do a book for that sort of person \u2014 a guide that would show an array of possible career paths to people who didn\u2019t know what role they wanted to fill.<\/p>\n I feel like \u201cHow to Break into the Business\u201d books in the past have tended to focus on positive outcomes rather than the struggle. Did you want to temper expectations, or at least make sure people think things through very thoroughly before jumping in?<\/b><\/p>\n Ada: <\/b>We just wanted to be honest. The glamorous fantasy of Hollywood is so intoxicating. But if you\u2019re going to work in the industry, you need to navigate the day-to-day reality of it. I don\u2019t think we were trying to encourage or discourage anyone. I\u2019d hope that some people would read the chapters and think, \u201cThis seems doable, and now I can make a plan,\u201d while others would read it and think, \u201cIf I\u2019m honest with myself, I\u2019m someone who needs more stability in my life.\u201d Because it\u2019s not just a career choice. It\u2019s a lifestyle choice.<\/p>\n Jon: <\/b>Right, this was about expectation-setting and reality-checking. The very first interviews I did in this project were of Foley artists. An expert I interviewed said there were 40 to 50 established Foley practitioners in the U.S., and 100 to 200 folks trying to get into the field. That\u2019s a very tough nut to crack. Then there are the Hollywood unions, which present a catch-22 to anyone trying to join their ranks \u2014 they have to do a certain number of hours in jobs covered by union contracts, but union members get first crack at all those gigs.<\/p>\n Your book also covers jobs above and below the line. I think many people don\u2019t even realize how many different career opportunities exist.<\/b><\/p>\n Ada: <\/b>There are two things we heard over and over again. People would say, \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly important to understand what all the different departments do.\u201d And they\u2019d also say, \u201cSo many people \u2014 even our own colleagues in the industry \u2014 don\u2019t understand what we do.\u201d So we wanted to encourage newcomers to learn about all different types of jobs in Hollywood and how they work together.<\/p>\n Jon: <\/b>Talking about the emotional components is about setting expectations too. The vast majority of people who work in Hollywood, from A-list actors to entry-level grips, are freelancers. That\u2019s a tough life of highs and lows, and you have to prepare for that mentally as well as financially. People have to hustle for years to establish themselves, and that takes an enormous capacity for rejection. On top of that is the physical toll the work can extract, especially on the folks involved in setting up and tearing down sets. Part of the point of the book is to tell people with Hollywood dreams that they\u2019ll need to gird themselves emotionally and physically for the work.<\/p>\n You also broach the subject of money and who makes what. Another novel idea for a book like this. <\/b><\/p>\n Ada: <\/b>We consistently heard from people that it takes 5 to 7 years to make a living \u2014 and that\u2019s if you\u2019re successful. So unless you come from wealth, how you pay your bills when you aren\u2019t booking gigs is an integral part of breaking into \u2014 and achieving longevity \u2014 in Hollywood.<\/p>\n Also, the money varies widely \u2014 depending on experience, how big the project is and other factors, but it\u2019s good to understand the basic minimums dictated by the unions, as well as whether you\u2019re interested in a career path where you can expect to have yearly full-time work \u2013 or if 30 weeks of employment a year is considered a really good year.<\/p>\n Jon: <\/b>The hardest parts to write for me, and probably for Ada too, were the sections telling people in certain fields that they were expected to work for free. Happily, the industry seems to be getting better about that, albeit because it\u2019s been forced to do so.<\/p>\n Ada:<\/b> Although, it\u2019s not even that you aren\u2019t making money. You have to spend a lot of money, whether you\u2019re taking classes, buying equipment, submitting your work for fellowships \u2014 getting your own plane tickets and hotel rooms to go to events to network or promote your work. You\u2019re basically investing in yourself as a business.<\/p>\n Your sections on AI are eye-opening<\/b>.<\/b> I<\/b>t is not necessarily a career killer but<\/b>,<\/b> in fact<\/b>,<\/b> might boost employment<\/b>,<\/b> right?<\/b><\/p>\n Jon: <\/b>I like to give a super long answer to this question that cites the long history of industrial revolutions, but for the sake of brevity, I\u2019ll just say that technology has always been crucial to the film and TV industry, and innovations over the years have ended some livelihoods while creating others. AI tools can allow filmmakers to be more efficient, just as digital cameras and LED lights have done. That inevitably means fewer jobs per project, but also should result in more projects being green-lit. And as digital tools and streaming services eliminate barriers to entry in music, so can AI eliminate barriers to entry in film. Advocates of AI believe there will be a net increase in jobs, and time will tell whether they\u2019re right. But there\u2019s no question that the jobs in film and TV will be different.<\/p>\n Ada: <\/b>This was another hard part to give advice about, because AI is rapidly evolving and there\u2019s a lot of well-founded fear about the jobs of our generations that will be eliminated. But this book is for the next generation, and aspiring creatives need to treat AI as part of their toolkit.<\/p>\n Was there any common thread that runs through all of the interviews you conducted with professionals?<\/b><\/p>\n Ada:<\/b> Everyone is deeply committed to their crafts, but what they\u2019re most passionate about is storytelling. What I mean by that is: A costume designer, of course, is passionate about clothing, but if their main priority was beautiful clothing, they\u2019d be a stylist or a fashion designer. Costume designers are passionate about using clothing to create a character and tell a story. Similarly, if a set decorator\u2019s main passion was creating beautiful homes, they\u2019d be an interior designer. But a set decorator wants to use the furniture, decor and objects to help you understand the protagonist\u2019s backstory.<\/p>\n Jon:<\/b> Even the most accomplished crew members and producers we talked to said they looked at their jobs as advancing someone else\u2019s vision, not their own. They learned early on not to get invested emotionally in their best ideas because someone else \u2014 the director on a film, the showrunner on a TV series \u2014 would be the judge of which ideas to use. That\u2019s really humbling.<\/p>\n What do you think is the most profound change in Hollywood as it continues to transition from theatrical and TV into streaming? <\/b><\/p>\n Jon: <\/b>Streaming has proven to be a huge boon to long-form storytelling, at least from the viewer\u2019s vantage point. You\u2019d still have \u201cSuccession\u201d without streaming, but you don\u2019t have the quantity of \u201cSuccession\u201d-level shows without the investment and competition from the likes of Netflix, Apple and Amazon. But the economics of streaming series are very different from those of a long-running broadcast TV show. There are fewer episodes, which means less pay for writers, actors and crew members over the course of a year. And residuals are lower for those who are entitled to them. Meanwhile, after a steady rise in the number of scripted shows released in the U.S., the volume fell sharply in 2024. So it appears that peak TV may have peaked.<\/p>\n For movies, the pandemic gave studios a preview of the post-theatrical world to come. Nevertheless, the industry is still struggling to come up with a coherent approach to streaming. So much of a movie\u2019s marketing is still tied to theatrical releases, and multiplexes and studios continue to fight over how long a new movie should wait before it hits the streamers. And I wonder if there isn\u2019t a lingering stigma for movies that are available immediately for streaming, similar to the one for movies that went straight to DVD.<\/p>\n Ada:<\/b> It\u2019s not just streaming. Everything that we consume from our phones \u2014 from social media content to podcasts to gaming livestreams \u2014 is not only competing with mainstream Hollywood but also becoming part of the same big entertainment ecosystem.<\/p>\n But on the flip side, it\u2019s never been more possible for aspiring creatives to bypass traditional gatekeepers, make their own projects, connect directly with audiences and build their own revenue streams \u2014 even if it\u2019s never going to be easy.<\/p>\n Preorder \u201cBreaking Into New Hollywood\u201d<\/a> and read Tseng and Healey\u2019s original Times reporting<\/a> that led to the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The road to find steady work in Hollywood is more fraught now than ever before. The entertainment industry…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":130024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[79231,691,13978,1022,171,16507,1020,14107,8042,79232,6459,3196,3546,8744,79233,6584,67,132,68,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-130023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-ada-tseng","9":"tag-ai","10":"tag-book","11":"tag-books","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-entertainment-industry","14":"tag-film","15":"tag-hollywood","16":"tag-job","17":"tag-jon","18":"tag-money","19":"tag-movie","20":"tag-people","21":"tag-project","22":"tag-steady-work","23":"tag-streaming","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114995197793936120","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}