Tagged: Jobs

Jun 30

Courage to take that chance

 

TAPA has a blog post up yesterday that really made me sit back and think.  TAPA explained how he currently has a job as an office pa on a movie that will last him until the end of the year.  Recently he got an offer to work as a director’s assistant on a low budget horror film which he was ecstatic about.  When he went to the interview he found out that the job would only last him 8 weeks, and he sadly had to turn down this dream position because he couldn’t afford to have that job and he decided to stay in his current position as office pa.

I started to think what would I do if I were in this position?  It made me think of my predicament of being stuck on a hamster wheel and how I would love to be offered a different position.  Would I bite the bullet and take the job knowing it would help further my career or would I stay at the steady job so I could pay all of my bills?

This is such a tough decision that I feel that a lot of people in our industry have to make.  At what point do we need to start thinking about moving up in our careers and taking the gigs that don’t last that long over taking the steady ones in positions we have done countless times before?

I completely understand TAPA’s decision and I have to say I don’t blame him for staying in the longer gig, however, I think I may have taken the director’s assistant position and dealt with finding money to pay my bills afterwards.

Walt Disney said “All of our dreams can come true- if you have the courage to pursue them” and I agree with Mr. Disney 100%.  We have to have the courage to take the chance for our dream jobs to happen.  If we do not then we will remain in the dreaded hamster wheel and never truly get to where we want to be.

9
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Posted in Being a Production Assistant, Career Path

Jan 11

This just makes me love Pixar even more

 

Check out this article from Geek O System on how Pixar’s bosses Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull saved their employees from getting fired:

How Pixar Bosses Saved Their Employees from Layoffs

by Robert Quigley | 10:07 am, January 11th, 2011
Today, Pixar may be a multibillion dollar company seemingly capable of doing no wrong in the box office, but in its early days as Lucasfilm’s computer animation division, its future was far from certain. Indeed, in the mid-’80s, some at Lucasfilm doubted the value of computer animation, and the division faced deep layoffs. Then, its two heads, Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull, saved it in a positively Pixaresque way.

The Harvard Business Review recently spoke to 25+ year Pixar vet Craig Good, who recounted the remarkable story:

[Lucasfilm president Doug] Norby was pressing Catmull and Smith to do some fairly deep layoffs. The two couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Instead, Catmull tried to make a financial case for keeping his group intact, arguing that layoffs would only reduce the value of a unit that Lucasfilm could profitably sell … But Norby was unmoved. As Craig tells it: “He was pestering Ed and Alvy for a list of names from the Computer Division to lay off, and Ed and Alvy kept blowing him off. Finally came the order: You will be in my office tomorrow morning at 9:00 with a list of names.”

So what did these two bosses do? “They showed up in his office at 9:00 and plunked down a list,” Craig told me. “It had two names on it: Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith.”

The gutsy move worked, and not a single employee of what would soon become Pixar was fired. Not long afterwards, Lucasfilm spun Pixar off as its own company under Catmull’s and Smith’s leadership, selling it to Steve Jobs for $5 million; two decades later, Disney would buy it for $7.4 billion.

http://www.geekosystem.com/how-pixar-bosses-saved-their-employees-from-layoffs/

Seriously guys..please hire me

3
comments

Posted in Movie News

Aug 04

The Infamous UTA Job List

 

In Hollywood there is a magical job list that everyone talks about, the UTA Job List.  On this list there are highly sought after positions in the entertainment industry.  So how do you score this amazing list?  Well technically you don’t..unless you know someone who gets it.

Originally the list was created internally at United Talent Agency, for people looking for new assistant positions.  The list was only sent by email and only those that knew the creators of the list actually recieved it.  Today the list has expanded and includes more than agency positions.   There are many people that say they get the list and will repost it online, which can be good and bad.  This is good because you can easily find the list and apply for these jobs.   The bad is now more people are getting the list so these open positions do not stay open for very long.

Another thing to note is that the jobs that are posted on the list are not usually production jobs.  They are mainly assistant positions for producers, directors, executive and even sometimes celebrities.  So if you are starting out in this wonderful industry and want to go the assistant route then this list is the best place for you to start.  Keep in mind though your job may end up being more of a dog sitter than an actual assistant.

If you’d like a copy of the list email me at rachelmmarks@gmail.com and I will send it to you.

Happy job hunting!

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Posted in Job Hunting