Since the beginning of the year, Brandi Hernandez has applied for nearly 200 entertainment jobs.
“For most of these requests, you have never heard-or even rejection. When she conducted the interviews on a follow -up, she was always a ghost after that.
“I knew that I would not be a famous screenwriter or anything directly outside the college,” said Hernandez, who graduated from the Faculty of Film Arts at the University of Southern California in 2024.
“This should not be difficult,” I thought.
Since the Covid-19s has caused a widespread slowdown in production, the recovery industry has been delayed Double Hollywood strikesSome of The most expensive forest fires in the history of California and Reducing industry level.
The studios that are scrambling to reduce costs amid the turmoil quickly in reducing low -level situations that have historically obtained young people in the door.
“I felt almost a feeling,” said Ryan James, who graduated from the Dodge College of Arts and Media at Chapman University in 2023.
Although the script writing has always been a competitive field, the veterans in the industry have witnessed that the conditions were rarely more severe for the young writers.
“In the past forty years of doing this, this is what I have ever seen,” said Tom Nonan, founder of Bull’s Eye Entertainment and a lecturer at the theater, cinema and television school.
The landscape is especially dry in TV writing, according to Junction Report It was published last month by the book of America.
The report said that the roles of television writing decreased by 42 % in the 2023-2024 season, coinciding with the strikes. About a third of these cuts were the low levels of the level.
It is far from the TV works that broke out Liz Alper 15 years ago.
Alper, a producer and co -founder of the #Payuphollywood workers ’movement, came in early 2010, when the opportunities on written TV were still abundant.
Alber said that CW, for example, was putting three original offers on a night, or about 18 to 21 original pieces of programming per week. That was translated anywhere between 100 and 200 employee writers.
But in the past five years or so, the emergence of broadcasting mainly has been the opposite of this-who subscribed to overfishing, which led to the dismantling of accidental programming with a series of requests upon request and reduce writing functions in this process.
The scarcity of the job has pushed those in the junior positions to stay there for a longer period than they used to. Survey 2021 #payuphollywood I found that most of the support staff were in late twenties, and he was several years old, who were on average a decade ago.
Without these employees move and create vacant jobs, new graduates do not have any place.
“I think if you have a job, it seems that you got one of the survival boats on Titanic, and you are not ready to give up the seat.”
The entertainment market has also suffered from the continuous migration of California productions, where the costs are high and become low tax incentives.
Legislation would raise the state’s tax credit to 35 % of qualified spending – up from their current rates to 20-25 % – waiting for after that Win with voices unanimously From the Senate Revenue and Tax Committee and the Association and Entertainment Arts Committee. Supporters say this step is crucial for California to remain able to compete with other states and countries, Legislators in the states argued.
Meanwhile, young designs are wondering whether Los Angeles is the right place to launch their career.
Peter Gerard.
(Robert Hanashiro / for times)
Peter Gerrard, 24, moved to Los Angeles of Maryland, two years ago to follow the TV writing. After graduating with the degree of data from the University of Maryland, he felt that it was his last chance to chase his dream.
Within weeks of reaching Los Angeles in April 2023, he got a handful of job interviews and even felt hope for a few.
Then the book union went to the strike.
He said, “I came moments before the disaster, and I had no idea.”
During the slowdown, Gerard filled his time by working on independent films, attending the classrooms and building his wallet. He said he was well without disturbing full -time, with the discovery that Los Angeles would ultimately make her charm on him.
She said that “Cosmic Dancing Design” touched the writer and producer Jel Goldsmith nearly 30 years ago, when she left her job as a general defender in Chicago to follow TV writing. Seven months after my witness in Los Angeles, her luck turned when she met “NYPD Blue” with the start of the co -founder David Milch at the chocolate store in Santa Monica. Goldsmith sent him to a text, bought it and bought it and got its first balance in 1998.
Goldsmith, a lecturer at the University of California program in Los Angeles at the theater, cinema and television school, said that she tells her students that these opportunities come only when they meet in the middle of the road.
But hearing veteran writers grieves for their missing jobs, and Los Angeles’s glory to Gerard has skeptical of his own success.
He said: “I felt sorry for them, but this made me also realize, like, Wow, there are many people who want to do so, and many of them exceed me a lot, with anything to show it.”
Lore Olivra.
(Robert Hanashiro / for times)
As the youngest writer in her current book room, Lauer V
She said, “I definitely think they are a little romantic, but there is some truth there.”
Olivra obtained her first job in 2023, after a year of graduation from Stanford University. This process was clear: its same cold representatives made her eyes to one of the shows, and she loved her, and she conducted an interview with her and got the job. But Olivra said these success stories are rare.
She said, “I was lucky to resort to.” However, getting the staff is not the finish line, as it added, a temporary stop for only 20 weeks from panic to find the next party.
Olivra is also the only employee writer in her current room, where all her colleagues hold higher titles such as the editor or product. It is a natural result, among the contestants who face pressure to fill the limited positions with heavy strikes that have already proven to be able to create visits.
Olivra said that she does not know every 26 years of age was appointed a few decades ago, but even her older peers agreed that the industry had lost a previous atmosphere.
“It is definitely a slap in the face when you get here and you love,” yes, it will be a few miserable years, and then I may not do that. “Not because I am good or bad … but just because the industry is dead and very afraid of taking opportunities.”
Jolaia Giles, who graduated from Dodge Dodge College in 2023, said her separation has a talent in the gastone. But the industry did not give them anywhere to put it.
Instead, studios flow money ReshapeThe 24 -year -old said, even with consumers View their appetite for the original materials.
“I hope we will move to the era of the film, where they are new and new ideas and new views and to have an open mind on the voice of our generation,” Gillas said.
Until then, the director said she would continue to create a job for herself.
During the strikes, Gillams and a budget production team “SinCero”, which won the Audience Award for the Short Documentary Film at the New Port Beach Film Festival 2023. As it continues to search for a DOC distributor, it already has another business project.
Hernandez, boredom of the “black hole” for work applications, said she also focuses on re -working to life. In an ideal world, this leads to a cinematic festival or two, and perhaps even representing the agency. But mostly, what drives her is the pride in the same work.
Hernandez said: “If you are successful in my mind, I am satisfied with it.”
