Jobs - Careers in film and television

First, there's the obvious. Acting. These people get most of the credit for not doing that much work. If you are good enough and you have the connections, then this is where you want to go. It is, as I said before, really tough to get into a position where acting will pay the bills. This is a dream job for a reason. You need to build fan support, make sure you have directors and producers that like you, and for most people, you need to know how to act.

The behind-the-scenes jobs start with writing, producing and directing. These are also kind of hard to break into. For the most part, you are going to want some sort of college education for these. There are exceptions. Some writers are talented enough without school to get paid. Some directors luck out and show enough style to not need the knowledge of "how to make movies make sense." As for producers, they really just need money.

Writers come from all over. You can write a script and shop it around to different studios and producers, but really, you need someone other than your mom to say that you're good. When you find that person that backs you up, you're made. Writers don't get paid much, though. There are only a handful of famous film writers.

Directing is a different story. Directing is the hardest job in the TV and movie industries. You have to know the basics of how film works and improve on them to add your own style. You also have to make sure that the hundreds to thousands of people working under you are doing their jobs right in order to successfully bring your vision to the screen. If you are trying for this, some sort of condensed learning is necessary, whether in the field or in a related field, like broadcasting. You also have to make a film and show it to people to inspire them. You need to get someone famous or someone with pull in the field already to help you step into it.

With producers, it's almost like a different field altogether. Producers can be within production companies or independents. Independent producers (not from independent film companies) are basically rich people that want to make movies their own way or just become even richer. If you get into a company (more than likely with a business degree, but there are other options), then you can also help to choose films, find talent, and make sure that the show or movie is up to your standards.

The four main jobs offer little job security (dependent on talent) and are extremely hard to get a hold of. There are thousands more, though, and all are completely different from the other ones.

If you are a computer person, you might consider going into special effects. This field has exploded in the last 20 years. Special effects allow you to be creative but at the same time, they are still technical jobs. There are companies set-up just to handle this stuff. They basically work for hire. Of course, this is just the computer-generated effects. There's another field within special effects. Some directors don't use computers for these kinds of things. Some want realism. Sometimes it's cheaper to use the old school, real effects. These are things like animatronics and miniatures. There's something for the engineering crowd.

There is also set design and costume design. Not every film is made on location. As for TV shows, most are shot on sets. Production designers get to make up where the actors are supposed to be. There's some art involved here. Then, they have a whole crew working under them to build and make real these environments. Costumes are also important and usually have some significance either in relation to the characters or the setting of the product.

There's still music production, cameras, animation and storyboard artistry, advertising, promotions, location scouting, casting, make-up and hair, and food services to deal with, too.

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