10 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About Working in Hollywood

Sorry to Spoil the Magic

Some people think it’s rude to ask what someone does for a living, but I actually look forward to the question. “I’m a Location Scout for TV and movies,” I say, and then anticipate the usual reactions. Often, I get a story about the one time there was filming three blocks from their house or, more commonly, “You have the coolest job in the world!” If I had a penny for every time someone said that to me, I could buy myself a pretty good bottle of wine. There’s no real way to quantify if that statement is true but I like people thinking it, so I never disabuse them of the notion. But the reality is very different than what people assume (or think they know) about how Hollywood works. So here are ten things people get wrong about this industry.

1. We all go to Red Carpet events. We don’t. And even the handful of people who are invited often dread going.

2. Location Scouts just find cool places and get them used in the project. It’s the opposite. If it’s not in the script, it’s not in the movie.

3. Producers pay for the movie. Generally, they don’t. They do find the funding, but unless it’s a vanity project for someone rich and/or famous, a regular producer finds the cash elsewhere.

4. “Is that famous actor you worked with cool?” I have no idea. We really don’t talk to them unless we have to. A good day for me is if I never see the camera.

5. Money. You can make a good living (with relatively little formal education) but that mostly comes from overtime, which means, yes, you can make six figures without finishing high school, but you are going to be working twice as many hours as a regular job. And certain jobs don’t get overtime: some department heads and anyone in Locations, for example.

6. That it’s not hard work. The hours are long and it’s a very physical job. Also, most of the crew works freelance and moves from job to job on a regular basis, which adds a level of instability that can be either exhilarating or stressful, depending on the year you’re having.

7. Hollywood Teamsters are not what people think of when they think of Teamsters. Whatever stereotypes you see in movies about illicit deals and mafia ties is nonsense. They are not those guys. And they are not always guys.

8. The Director runs the show. They lead the visual creative, sure, but they have almost no hand in the nuts and bolts of running the show. It’s the 1st Assistant Director who sets up the schedule and tells the Director what they need to do to make the day.

9. That because it’s creative it’s chaotic. What looks like chaos is really choreography. There is an incredible amount of money on the line and a good crew works with surgical precision and the schedule is regimented down to the minute. It may seem crazy that one page of a script takes an hour to film but that’s only if you’re doing it right.

10. The weather is perfect all the time. People will roll their eyes when you say it’s cold out in LA, but those people don’t go to work at 4 am and do their job outside for fifteen hours at a time. People forget, but this is the desert. Trust me: it gets cold.

Overall, it is a hell of a lot more interesting than most people’s jobs and, like most people’s jobs, most of joy and pain comes from the people you work with. Whether you’re making movies or digging ditches, if the people you work with suck, the job sucks and vice-versa. In that way it’s a regular job. Although most people’s jobs aren’t projected into the homes of millions of people every day.

I will give people this, though: they are usually right about the constant food. This must be the only job in the world where you have to go on vacation to lose weight.

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