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Originally Posted by 2pairsof2s
Fyi I worked in the film industry for over 15 years as a Location Manager, AD, and Production Manager (first project was a studio feature film in 1987 as a PA, last was a 13 episode T.V. series in 2003 as PM, not picked up alas...)
The effect that the industry has on your personal life can be devastating. There was a period during my career when I did 4 seasons on a network series. I worked 12 to 16 hour days for 10+ months each year. I related to almost nobody who wasn't my Boss or my employee. Everyone I met either wanted something from me that I didn't want to give them, or had something I wanted that they didn't want to give me. And meanwhile, all my friends turned into acquaintances.
From the little bit you shared your resume far outweighs mine. If I looked at my "career" in Hollywood from an outside perspective I would say I didn't work hard enough or sacrifice enough personally to obtain the jobs and the success you did.
I did get in and do some stuff and maybe that's all I actually wanted for my life experience, was to spend my 20s wading through the tidepool of Hollywood; because I never really wanted fame but I did things like comedy and comedy writing that require being known and earning a level of celebrity/fame to earn a living. That's a curious bit of hypocrisy, you don't want to be famous but you want to pursue something that requires some level of fame in order to be successful?!?
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I worked 12 to 16 hour days for 10+ months each year. I related to almost nobody who wasn't my Boss or my employee. Everyone I met either wanted something from me that I didn't want to give them, or had something I wanted that they didn't want to give me. And meanwhile, all my friends turned into acquaintances
THAT is the sacrifice that making TV and Film requires of the crew to make the content that we all so very much enjoy. From Big Bang Theory to Sharknado there isn't a person on that crew that isn't putting in 12 hours+ a day for MONTHS straight without a break. There are some union rules in place that say that you have to give crew and cast members at least 12 consecutive hours off between shifts. However, that doesn't mean they can't work you 12-16 hours a shift, at which point 12 hours off before going back to work feels like nothing. You can barely get any life errands or task done and rest for a few hours before you're getting up, showering and going back to the location or the studio to put in another shift.
They can do this to us because there are hundreds if not thousands of people coming out of school and interning/doing PA work waiting to take your job and be used and abused until you're road hard and put away wet. How can 2Pairof2s protest the stress and time consumption of his job when they just drop his ass and hire someone else to be the Location Manager or Line Producer or in my case just get any other hack of a writer to piss all over the script with his skunk piss?
You show gratitude for having the job and hope that one day you look out over your property in Beverly Hills or the Hollywood Hills or the Valley or Malibu or the South Bay and go, "Second Wife who I have 2 kids with that my first wife and kid despise because I was broke and struggling, over worked and had ZERO time for them so they divorced my ass (ya the kid did too) but now I have the money and the property and the time to spend with you and the new kids and
it was all worth it."
Writing all that was really kind of a downer :/
Anyway 2Pair is also dead on about relationships. My close friends from HS and College I've mostly let drift away if we weren't already doing that naturally and my friendships started to become with co-workers or bosses. I've had a taste of what 2Pair has gone through both in relationships and with people wanting stuff from you that you don't want to give and wanting stuff from others that they don't want to give you but his career has been much longer so he's seen a larger spectrum of the effect that the industry has on your personal life.
There was a time period when I was doing stand up where I only met/dated girls who were also doing stand up or who were stand up groupies (perhaps the craziest and worse type of groupie) and that **** was Dysfunction City. A beautiful female "comic" (many of the younger ones are really not talented and are quite unfunny, but they get stage time because they are hot) is like possibly one of the most unstable types of women I've ever come across (or inside of). A few of them are cool people (Sarah Silverman is an awesome person and great person to hang out with, just a lot of fun and laughs) but you know there are exceptions to every rule.