MBA Admissions Consultant
Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 2457
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Re: Media and Entertainment Careers
[#permalink]
28 Apr 2010, 15:31
The biggest problem with MBA students looking to get into film/tv/music is that they're hoping to get jobs that don't really exist.
Most are interested in film/tv/music for the creative side. They're not interested in accounting, finance, hr, etc. but the reality is that is where most of the MBA type jobs are -- they aren't really any different than any other Fortune 500 office environment of cubicles, office parks, and so forth.
And so they look for jobs that straddle the creative and business sides - and frankly those jobs don't exist as traditional "jobs" so to speak.
The reason is, the majority of the creative or artistic work is done by freelancers and contractors. That's how the industry is structured. Whether it's a film, tv show/program, or music project (live tour, album, etc) -- everyone who works on the creative or production side is employed by the "project" and not by the company or companies funding the project. So the folks who work on the "project" are everyone from producers (some of whom straddle business and creative, depending on the type of producer), to the artists (directors, actors, writers, musicians, etc.) to the production/technical crew (sound engineers, camera operators, electricians, etc.) -- virtually everyone on the production is a freelancer or contractor. And their benefits (health, retirement/pension, wage/salaries, etc.) are taken care of by their respective guilds and intermediaries (agents, managers, lawyers). Moreover, since film/tv/music is so project-driven and is a marriage of freelancers and financiers (studios/labels) on a project-by-project basis, the heart of the "business side" lies with the agents and managers. If you want to be at the heart of the business and where the deals get made, you want to work at a talent agency - the thing is, most MBAs are scared away from having to work their way up from the bottom for next to nothing to do that.
To use an analogy, if the technology/software industry were structured like the film/tv industry, none of the engineers or product managers would be full-time employees of any company. Rather, they would be repped by "agents" who would shop them around to different tech companies on a project-by-project basis, with the engineers' health/pension benefits and salaries/wages dictated by a "software engineers guild" or union. So an engineer wouldn't be working at Google exclusively, but could end up working on Google's Android phone 2.0 for a 6 month project, then on a MSFT X-box feature for another 3-4 months, and so forth.