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Welcome To The Dream Factory: Thoughts On Film Jobs
Dreamers, drifters, and the driven. These are not purely segmented types or personalities - most of us have a bit of each. Even drifters follow dreams, and dreamers can be as driven as any hard-charging corporate CEO. There are as many reasons why they end up in Hollywood as there are people living in the shadow of that big white sign perched high in the parched hills at the crest of Los Angeles. Some had no choice in the matter: as their place of birth, "Hollywood" is a name they'll be scrawling on job applications and endless government forms for the rest of their lives. The rest came here with direct intent - forty-two percent white, thirty-nine percent Latino, and the remainder a stew pot of Asians, Blacks, and a smattering of Native Americans. Many are noobs, having forded the southern border one way or another to seek work in the homes, gardens, kitchens, and construction sites of Los Angeles. An entire generation arrived in the great westward migration after World War Two, including those whose intentful drive to make it in "the movies" doomed any hopes for a happy life behind the white picket fences and optionless small-town routines back home. Others were driven here by sheer desperation, fleeing the horrors of dysfunctional lives and terminally crazy families, rolling the dice on a fresh start at the far edge of the world, on the very lip of darkness. Once in Hollywood, their options evaporated, there was nothing else to do: one way or another, they had to make it here. Some turned out to be gritty survivors who succeeded despite - or because of - past failures, while others ended up victims of the myth, riding the death spiral of drugs and dissolution all the way down. But no matter how many the streets swallow up, however slim the odds of success, there are always more where they came from. The moths-to-the-flame allure of Hollywood ensures a steady inflow of young aspirants from all over the Country and from around the globe. It's this neon-lit face of the American Dream most folks want to hear about - the young Actors who come to Hollywood burning with desire to hit the jackpot of wealth and fame, to be a star. Like the plurality of these American Idol wannabes, only the barest handful bring the talent and drive it takes to succeed - and even that's not always enough. The importance of luck, that fickle and mysterious confluence of talent and opportunity, cannot be overstated when it comes to making it in Hollywood. While a select few make the most of their chance, the rest - many just as talented and driven, if not quite so fortunate - will eventually face the difficult choice of adapting to reality or heading back home. Those able to roll with the punches and stay balanced can usually find a job somewhere in the Dream Machine. It's never easy, but people do it often. There are others who arrive carrying equally ambitious (if more understated) agendas tucked under their arms: to become a hot, can't-miss director: the next Cameron. Theirs is a daunting quest, but at least the trial they face isn't as mercilessly insulting or denigrating as that suffered by aspiring performers - and the rip-cord options (Plans B through Z) are more numerous and somewhat less soul-crushing to accept. There's a very wide spectrum of "achievement" in Hollywood. If nobody will hire you to direct boffo feature films, there's always the world of Television. If TV won't have you, there are commercials and music videos to be made. If those doors remain closed, maybe you can put together a nice little low-budget movie to trot around the Indy circuit. Should that tank, maybe it's time to beg, borrow, or steal enough cash for a decent video camera and start making a living making infomercials for late night Television, or educational and training clips for schools and business. At that point, you won't even be a blip on the Hollywood radar screen, but maybe it's better than becoming homeless - or getting a normal job. But navigating the journey can be tricky in an industry where a bit success is often the most perilous thing of all. Once aloft, it's all too easy to catch an updraft and fly a little too high here in Hollywood, where sooner or later, everyone learns that even the most rare pair of custom wings are held together with nothing more substantial than wax. Success doesn't come easy, but most people find a way: it's all a matter of shifting one's outlook and the skill to broadly define "success." And really, what's the alternative? After coming this far - all the way to the very edge of the world - slinking back home just might be the worst disappointment of all. At some point, the very nature and process of the journey itself seems to morph something inside, making it nearly impossible to give up. Besides, hope dies last, and there's no telling when those golden doors might swing wide. Yes, the system is rigged against wannabes right from the start, but opportunities occasionally manifest themselves - a long-suffering writer, performer, or would-be director plodding along in the dark corridors of obscurity finally catches that once-in-a-lifetime show and is thrust into the glare of the spotlight. It doesn't happen often, but just enough to keep everyone else from giving up hope. I didn't come here with ambitions of being any kind of a star, in front of or behind the camera, but simply to give The Business a try. After falling in love with so many classic American films in college (and making a few decidedly non-classic student films of my own), I wanted to see what making real Hollywood films was all about. At the time, anything else sounded far too much like a Real Job - the slow, steady cadence of the dead man walking. Work as a drone in a cubicle? Put on a suit and tie every morning to battle the twin nightmares of office politics and the white-collar status quo? No thank you. And so after a tremulous period of post-collegiate avoidance, I inhaled one last breath of clean Northern California air and plunged south into the hazy morass of Hollywood. The transition was difficult, the learning curve daunting, but in time I found work, worked a few low-level film production jobs, and met people who eventually hired me to work on lighting crews. I worked my way up from juicer to best boy to gaffer - and then, like so many others before and since, I too sailed a bit close to the sun. Before I knew it, my own seemingly indestructable wings had come apart in mid-air, sending me on a deep plunge right back to where I began. Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. But if the jail was only a metaphor, there was still no going home. Bent but not broken, I dusted myself off a lot older and maybe - just maybe - a little bit wiser. I've been existing in The Biz for more than three decades now, through the ups and downs, all the while returning to the SF Bay Area often enough to claim it as my true home. In every way that matter, it is - family and the oldest of friends are still there, and I'll root for the Giants to my last dying breath - but after thirty years, LA has a way of getting under your skin. One lesson you learn fast down here is that things are rarely as they first appear, and although Hollywood is in many ways a horrendously ugly sewer, it's not All Bad, All the Time. There are pockets of interestingness here too, stowed away amid the vast urban sprawl. And although The Biz, as we call it, is nothing like the alluring playground so many civilians often think it is, there are occasional flares of insight and clarity here as well. Floating like surfboards amid the daily tidal surge of greed, ego-stoked absurdities, and staggering excess, are the occasional gleaming, un-expected, and oh-so-ephemeral moments of grace. The trick lies in keeping your soul open so you can relish those moments before they flit out of existence. I'll do my best here to peel back the shiny shrink-wrap and offer a glimpse of film jobs as I've experienced them: the dirt-under-the-fingernails side of the Industry you don't read about in school books. What you won't find here is any sort of spin. Most of us who work in the Business see and hear things that would indeed make juicy news fodder, but only a fool or trust-fund brat has the luxury of wrecking his own career by talking out of school. The Business has long enough tentacles that a little loose chat could easily put my so-called career on the rocks, and at this late date, I don't have enough time to fashion another pair of wings. Accordingly, names will be changed to defend the innocent and guilty alike. If you want to hear the straight skinny as I've seen it, stay tuned. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com ACTORSa ndCREW is a great employment as well as networking web site that assists just about all entertainment specialists, from Actors to Editors, Costume Designers to Hair Stylists, Agents to studio Executives, and everyone else. It's an engine designed to improve the number of Film Production Jobs. |
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