Working In Hollywood: Bend Over
by Tara Rubano
-----
So you think you want to work in Hollywood? Oh Christ, not another clueless empty vessel to be filled with lunches, drinks and bad taste, but if you must, I will enlighten you on how to climb your way to the top o’ the coke pile by one of the most widely used methods: working at an agency.
-----
Everyone has an agent: models, actors, musicians, athletes, writers, producers, editors and, most likely, coke dealers. (This is LA). If you want a job that puts you in a position of power to make films that are worthwhile, educational, meaningful and poignant, then go to fucking Europe; but if you want to regurgitate mundanely vapid diarrhea, then “Hurray for Hollywood!”
In order to work at an agency you need to meet a few qualifications:
- You must have really bad taste in film and music but not realize it. Favorite movies should include, but are not limited to: Glitter, The Mighty Ducks 3, Leonard Part 6, Woo and Booty Call. Favorite music should be anything that your mother listens to, preferably Top 40 crap like Jessica and Ashlee Simpson.
- You should, but are not required to, be a living-breathing human being.
- A college degree is mandatory; though if your parents are friends or coke buddies with someone on the inside then you only need the educational level of a sock puppet. If you are an outsider with no connections, then a B.A. in anything is a must, even if it’s Physical Education. Additional degrees shine like diamonds on your resume. Half of Hollywood’s agents have law degrees. It comes in handy while getting sued for stealing an idea, usually a bad one.
- Own decent apparel. Guys, it doesn’t matter if you wear the same tie and shirt everyday, as most agents won’t look you in the eye. But ladies, dress to impress. If your tits are buoyantly displayed and you don’t look like a hyena, you’re in.
- You should be fresh out of college or still in your 20’s. Losers who had one career and decided to try to make it in the “biz” later in life are fucked. They usually had good high-paying jobs, are married and might even want to own property someday. On $11/hour, you ain’t buying anything but Red Bull.
- You must like to “network” and meet people for “drinks”. If you are shallow, arrogant, pretentious and phony, with no possession of talent then this should be a piece of cake. If you are an actual decent person who doesn’t like the whole competitive, backstabbing feel of this town, rethink your ambition and save yourself before it’s too late.
- You must watch Swimming With Sharks and vow to never become Kevin Spacey’s character. And then you must become him.
- Once you attain your goal of power, you must forget how desperate and hungry you once were and take pleasure in pissing on all those below you. (See above).
Once you have morphed into proper agency material, let’s discuss who you will be working for: Agents. Most agents can be scary. They yell, throw things – usually at your head – berate, condescend, abuse, ignore, expect Jesus-like miracles and spit. This is considered normal. You must make friends with The Agent and learn how to make them happy, how not to get fired, and most importantly, how to get a good recommendation. There are a few things you must, must, must understand the importance of:
PUNCTUALITY
You will be arriving anywhere from an hour to a half-hour before your boss. Why? So you can do all the tasks that their incompetent ass forgot. Once you achieve the status of an agent, something happens inside your brain. The part that allows a person to do things for themselves (make calls, get food, read, wipe ass, etc.) has been destroyed. It’s an industry secret, but once you’ve been crowned an Agent, that part dissolves and is replaced with a new part. Let’s call it The Baby.
The Baby cannot do many things. They cannot use their computer adequately, fax, make copies, fetch materials, check messages, return them, read scripts, shop for their wives/husbands, make reservations, plan family vacations/parties and, most of all, learn your name. This is why it’s crucial for you to arrive with enough time to make sure that all they have to do is stumble into their office, sit on their chair, point and grunt.
COFFEE
An immediate task upon arrival at the office is to brew coffee. Most agencies have the standard, cheap, generic coffee in the kitchen. This is not good enough for The Agent. They have their own fancy-pants gourmet coffee that, of course, you will buy. On the off-chance that The Agent buys it, they usually get it in whole beans. This means you, in your personal time, will grind it.
Once the coffee is brewed and steaming, The Agent will drink none. Sometimes they’ll have a cup, but usually they stop at Coffee Bean or Starbucks on their way to work instead. What’s the point of making coffee if they don’t drink it, you ask? Because the day you decide not to make it is the day they want 5 cups, and if it isn’t steaming on their desk when they walk in, expect to get a coffee mug to the cranium.
Speaking of mugs, the regular ones in the communal kitchen are for peons, not The Agent. They (you) will purchase their own from Ikea, Bed Bath & Beyond or Pottery Barn. They (you) will keep it in a separate, special place and they (you) will conduct a thorough investigation when it goes missing.
Remember: Coffee is crack to The Agent. If they do not have access to it, they will go into epileptic fits of rage on your face. It will happen in front of The Agency partners, your fellow assistants and other co-workers. Avoid it at all costs.
THE PHONE
Learn to love the phone, for The Baby does not know how to operate it. Sleep with it, eat with it, shit with it and make love to it. Think of it as a cancerous tumor in your brain. It cannot be removed without severe damage; you have to live with it, and it will end up killing you.
Here is a simple breakdown of your phone duties:
Making all calls:
Most agents like you to monitor their calls so you can be privy to the details of various deals they close. Really, they just don’t want to have to remember anything. By putting you on the call, they can space out and click on porn while you take copious notes.
Conference calls:
These are fun, especially when you are trying to conference more than 3 people. Usually The Agency has extremely archaic phone systems that like to falter ONLY when you are trying to connect a very important call. If you drop someone of importance, expect to be treated like a pre-schooler who just smeared feces all over their mother’s very expensive sofa. Sometimes two agents of the same agency will share a client and want to talk to them simultaneously. You will orchestrate a conference call between them - in offices directly next to each other with a client who is off-premises. You may wonder why The Baby is such a lazy bitch. If you do, your head might explode from perplexity.
Rolling calls:
This is when The Agent is not in the office but needs to make calls; meaning you must conference them in. This is beneficial to the agent in a few ways: they really don’t have to do shit, and you are on every call. Once The Agent is connected to a call, you put yourself on mute (very important if you want to call your boss an asshole), or place the call on hold while you answer other calls. This can get uncomfortable when The Agent is on personal calls, especially with their spouses. You will hear them haggling over money, what to get for their daughter, or how The Agent doesn’t care about their needs. This will be followed by a, “I’ll call you later” so The Agent can call them back privately. Why they didn’t do this in the first place is not a question you will ask.
On the upside you get to hear some juicy gossip about how so-and-so has no talent, how this person is a bitch / has a coke, alcohol or pill problem / is getting fired / got fired / is in rehab / is getting divorced / is gay / likes to molest collies.
One downside to being on the phone the entire day is that when you get home, you have no 
what to do when it rings. Often, you will answer your home phone by saying things like “Buddy Ackerman’s office.” Or, when you’re taking a message for your roommate, you’ll probably say “I don’t have her at the moment, can I take a message?” My personal favorite is when you call a friend – who is not home – and you want to “leave word”. This will happen. When it does, you will be reminded that your life completely sucks.
READING
As stated earlier, The Baby cannot do many things, reading included. Under no circumstances should you assume that The Agent can read. If they can, they will not admit it, as it makes them look very unprofessional.
All entertainment agents, literary or talent, have to read scripts. They read their clients’ work, submissions from wannabe clients and any “fresh” scripts they can get their clients to act in, direct or re-write. What this means to you is simple: You will read each and every thing that is 
sent to your boss. They will read nothing, but expect a report from you so they look knowledgeable at the weekend read meeting. Your weekends and evenings will be spent reading really, really awful work that makes you scream in awe that someone could create such crap. You will want to stab yourself with a dull #2 pencil when one of those horrendously nauseating scripts gets bought for $300,000 and your boss can’t stop licking the ass of the author. Then you will wonder who would watch this stupid piece-of-crap-movie, as you look around your office and feel lost in a sea of mongoloids.
Tip: Since most agents can’t / won’t read, here is a little time saver. You can tell a few pages into a script if it will suck or not. If you think it sucks, tell your boss you didn’t know how this movie 
could be “marketed” and you had trouble figuring out the “audience” for it. This means only one thing to an agent: money, or lack thereof. If a movie has no built in audience (i.e. Stupid Teenyboppers) it will tank. If it can’t be marketed to a designated audience, or marketed to FIND an audience, the movie will tank. Once the word “pass” has exited your boss’ mouth, you are home free. Unless of course, some other agency/studio buys this script and it goes on to kill at the box office. My advice then is to consider a sex change.
If all goes according to plan and you are a success at The Agency, here is what you have to look forward to:
-You will be abused, overworked, yelled at and beaten for only $11/hr and no thanks.-You will most likely quit the industry after this job to become a dentist.
-You might succeed and actually enjoy the abuse enough to perpetuate the cycle of violence.
-Your people skills will diminish, but your level of bullshit and mendacity will rise.
-You will have a substance abuse problem at some point in your career, and your tastes will rival those of a donkey.
-If you stick to it, you will become very rich, but spend your money on therapy and pills.
-You might get to meet Tom Cruise or Madonna, and hopefully convert to $cientology or Kabbalah.
I wish you well. I hope my little guide can help on those dark, cold nights when you find yourself freezing (you can’t afford heat), starving (you can’t afford food), and horny (you can’t afford to waste-any-time-jerking-off-due-to-the-huge-fucking-pile-of-scripts-you-have-to-read). Just remember: if you are on the verge of suicide, call a friend for support. If they’re not there, just “leave word.” I’m sure they’ll call you back, unless they work at an agency.
ICM Beverly Hills
Creative Artists Agency9830 Wilshire Boulevard
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
Tel: 310-288-4545
Fax: 310-288-4800
www.caa.com
William Morris AgencyOne William Morris Place
>Beverly Hills, California 90212
Tel: 310-859-4000
>Fax: 310-859-4462
www.wma.com
United Talent Agency9560 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 500
Beverly Hills, CA 90212
Tel: 310-273-6700
Fax: 310-247-1111
www.unitedtalent.com
-----
Tara Rubano is the co-editor of Duct Tape & Rouge, and no, she is not stuffing her bra with watermelons. She's stuffing them with mammaries.
<< Home