To Live & Die in LA — Or Not
That’s the name of a movie and I use it facetiously but there is a question behind it…
Do I have to be in Los Angeles to make it in the entertainment industry?
What about New York? Austin? Minneapolis? Don’t they have their own entertainment communities? Detroit now has sound stages and New Orleans had hosted quite a bit of location shooting, especially for the past few years, since their film board has more aggressively courted studios and production companies.
Yes, the tax incentives and other cost breaks offered in areas outside of Los Angeles have resulted in enough location work that film crews and other entertainment personnel can make a decent living based in other parts of the country. And New York has always had a decent amount of TV work available, and some could argue that it’s the base of the indie film world.
But the fact remains that though there is a New York film scene and an Austin film scene and a Minneapolis film scene and a New Orleans film scene and it’s possible to become a bigwig in one of those, the entertainment industry is based in LA. The film and TV studios, the TV networks, the bulk of the pitch meetings, the auditions, the development of projects… all in LA
So while you can (and often should) get your entertainment feet wet by working on crews or at film boards in other part of the country, if you want to make it in THE entertainment industry, you need to be in LA.
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Photo courtesy of ktafoya.
About JennyYM
Jenny Yerrick Martin is a veteran entertainment hiring executive with 20+ years in film, television, and music. She created yourindustryinsider.com to give students, recent grads and others a true picture of the layout of the industry, and how to break in, transition to a new area, or achieve more success on their current path.
