Stop, don’t do it!
"You wanna work in the movies? Don’t Do It!" This is the most common response that people who work in film give to people who want to work in film. Why? It’s not because we don’t want the competition (though in some cases that might be true), it’s actually a very real warning of things to come. You see, employment in the film industry is a numbers game as well as a business of rejection and failed attempts. This is simply because the film industry is relatively small and jobs are few and sometimes far between. To make matters worse if you’ve chosen to work outside of Hollywood proper, you’ve diminished your chances of employment even more.

You see, on the average film there is only one Director, two or three Assistant Directors, a few Production Assistants, two or three makeup and hair people, a small handful of costumers, etc. When you look at the numbers of people who are trying to get those jobs… Well, let’s just say that there are more people looking for jobs than there are jobs available. To make matters worse some of the people vying for the same jobs that you are will be better qualified, some will be sneakier, and some may have an “in” with production, like some kind of history with the Director or a Producer.

To frost the cake, when you realize that an average time frame for the actual, physical production of a movie is 2-4 months. You’ll realize that there is a very real possibility that you will spend more time looking for work than you will working. This, in turn, means that there will be an ebb and flow to your income that may very well net out to a lower overall number than if you took a real job. Add to that the hardship of horrendously long hours and travel and you have a career cocktail that can ruin relationships and cause you to live out your days deep in debt.

If you apply all of this to a two column balance sheet that has pluses on one side and minuses on the other it all adds up to a whole lot of job insecurity which leads us back to our starting point of “Don’t do it”. But if in the other column you have the fact that you’re a little crazy, a lot passionate about film, and you truly can’t bear the thought of doing anything else with your life maybe, just maybe, you should give it a shot, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

As I re-read this column I’m reminded of the joke about the guy who cleans up after the elephants at the circus. One day he was complaining to a friend about shoveling gigantic piles of elephant crap 5 days a week. His friend wisely suggested finding a new line of work, to which he replied “What, and give up showbiz?!”