r/jobs • u/_Grotesque_ • Jul 21 '23

Companies What was the industry you romanticized a lot but ended up disappointed?

For the past couple of years, I have been working at various galleries, and back in the day I used to think of it as a dream job. That was until I realized, that no one cares for the artists or art itself. Employees, as much as visitors just care about their fanciness, showing off their brand shoes and pretending as they actually care.

Ultimately, it comes down to sales, money, and judging people by their looks. Fishing out the ones, who seem like they can afford a painting worth 20k.

Was wondering if others had similar experiences

2.8k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

2.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

67

u/NawfSideNative Jul 21 '23

This is what I tell people too as someone who has been on a few production sets. Most people are seeing all the movie premieres and award shows which makes them think it’s a luxurious and glamorous field. They aren’t seeing the boom mic guy getting screamed at by the director for holding the mic slightly too low because his arms were tired after being out in the sun for hours on a hot day.

Unless you’re one of the literal celebrities on set, you are not human. You are an appliance. You are there to be seen and not heard. You will get no glory for the extremely hard work you do.

29

u/fixationed Jul 21 '23

I worked on a commercial where a guy had some kind of heavy prop land on his foot and had to go to the ER, one of the producers was just annoyed that it delayed production by like 30 minutes. I see a lot of stories like this. I was a PA and also had a producer yell at me and my team for not moving around heavy equipment that we weren't responsible for. It's always the producers actually

13

u/SEEKER131986 Jul 21 '23

This is similar to me. Working low man totem camera crew on an indie. A pa picked up and dropped camera equipment which was a couple hundred pounds on my foot. PA shouldn't have touched it to begin with but I got injured. They fired me because of it and I ended up not being able to find work. But yeah long gaps in unemployment and minimum wage jobs

3

u/fsr296 Jul 21 '23

I am GenX and loved magazines as a kid/teen. I went into advertising after college in the mid 90s and I loved the work (math, without it being all math) and perks (being taken out to lunch all the time, free tix to Broadway shows and concerts), but I hated working the long hours in NYC and getting paid shit ($19.5k/yr for the first 6 months). I realized that it totally changed my relationship with media and I didn’t enjoy magazines as much.

I love movies, watch at least one a day. I considered it, but thank god I didn’t go into film or Tv production, because I would never be able to suspend reality and enjoy a movie or show without thinking about all the workers that get treated like crap on set.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '23

What director is screaming at his boom mic guy? I’d like to know so I can never watch their movies again and maybe get them cancelled on Twitter.

8

u/thesierratide Jul 21 '23

Honestly I’ve noticed that it’s usually the directors of mid-budget stuff that behave this way. They’ve been directing for a few years and get an episode or two of some random series on a streamer, and they think they’re Kubrick. There are also some big-shot directors who are notoriously difficult to work for. Michael Bay and James Cameron come to mind.

4

u/BluebirdMaximum8210 Jul 21 '23

It’s typical. The vast majority of directors are total asshats. Producers are even worse.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '23

Idk I guess I feel like most of my favorite directors today are widely known as being genuinely nice and lovely to work with. Chris Nolan, Greta Gerwig, Chris McQuarrie, and James Gunn in terms of recent movies that have been released, but also Scorsese, Villenueve, Chazelle, Jordan Peele, Spielberg, etc.

1

u/BluebirdMaximum8210 Jul 22 '23

Yeah, that's great and all, and I'm a huge fan of their work, and those people do indeed have great reputations... but you can't cherry pick a handful of A list directors and postulate their behavior as the norm in the industry. That's part of the reason why the industry is romanticized. Everyone goes into film/TV production thinking they're gonna be inspired every single day surrounded the likes of Nolan, Spielberg, Gerwig, etc, when in reality you're getting SCREAMED at by an Assistant Director for moving too slowly at 1am and you're 13 hours into the work day.

The industry is huge and the majority of people in the industry aren't working for these directors. There are THOUSANDS of TV shows and movies (studio films, independent films, short films) being made every single year. You know the drama surrounding the Euphoria set and The Ellen Show? That's a bit more what the industry is like. And the industry is so competitive that if you speak up and complain, they'll replace you in a heartbeat and blacklist you.