This book teaches you how to break into Hollywood

This week, we are chatting with Ada Tseng and Jon Healey about their new book, “Breaking Into New Hollywood.” We also take a look at what our critics read, and visit a bookstore that has become a social beehive in Culver City.

The entertainment industry is experiencing a massive transformation, as traditional jobs are vanishing and artificial intelligence increasingly upends the way media is created. Thankfully, former L.A. Times editors Ada Tseng and Jon Healey are here to help. The duo, with extensive experience covering show business, have written a new book for anyone who’s ever dreamed of working in Hollywood. Tseng and Healey interviewed hundreds of insiders who work in front of and behind the camera to provide a thorough look at how to break in, and what it’s like when you do find that dream job.

I sat down with authors to discuss “Breaking Into New Hollywood.”

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

✍️ Author Chat

Tseng and Healey are here to help you pursue your Hollywood dreams with their book, “Breaking Into New Hollywood.”

(Ricardo DeAratanha; Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

This is the most comprehensive how-to guide for Hollywood careers I’ve ever read. Where did the impetus for the book come from?

Ada: The book started as a Hollywood careers series at the Los Angeles Times, when Jon and I were editors on a team that specialized in writing guides and explainers. As we were thinking about how to be useful to L.A. Times readers, I pitched a project to help people who were interested in getting a job in Hollywood. A lot of people come to L.A. starry-eyed with big dreams, but the film and TV industry can be pretty brutal.

As journalists, we’re Hollywood outsiders, but we had access to hundreds of professionals who were generous enough to share what they wished they knew when they were starting out. We see it like this: On behalf of the people who don’t have connections in the industry, we cold-emailed people, asked for informational interviews, picked their brains, listened to stories of what they did to build a career — and did our best to consolidate their most practical pieces of advice into an actionable guide.

Jon: A lot of folks I interviewed had similar origin stories in this respect: They knew that they wanted to work in the industry in some capacity, but they didn’t know what exactly they could do. So it made sense to do a book for that sort of person — a guide that would show an array of possible career paths to people who didn’t know what role they wanted to fill.

I feel like “How to Break into the Business” books in the past have tended to focus on positive outcomes rather than the struggle. Did you want to temper expectations, or at least make sure people think things through very thoroughly before jumping in?

Ada: We just wanted to be honest. The glamorous fantasy of Hollywood is so intoxicating. But if you’re going to work in the industry, you need to navigate the day-to-day reality of it. I don’t think we were trying to encourage or discourage anyone. I’d hope that some people would read the chapters and think, “This seems doable, and now I can make a plan,” while others would read it and think, “If I’m honest with myself, I’m someone who needs more stability in my life.” Because it’s not just a career choice. It’s a lifestyle choice.

Jon: Right, this was about expectation-setting and reality-checking. The very first interviews I did in this project were of Foley artists. An expert I interviewed said there were 40 to 50 established Foley practitioners in the U.S., and 100 to 200 folks trying to get into the field. That’s a very tough nut to crack. Then there are the Hollywood unions, which present a catch-22 to anyone trying to join their ranks — they have to do a certain number of hours in jobs covered by union contracts, but union members get first crack at all those gigs.

Your book also covers jobs above and below the line. I think many people don’t even realize how many different career opportunities exist.

Ada: There are two things we heard over and over again. People would say, “It’s incredibly important to understand what all the different departments do.” And they’d also say, “So many people — even our own colleagues in the industry — don’t understand what we do.” So we wanted to encourage newcomers to learn about all different types of jobs in Hollywood and how they work together.

Jon: Talking about the emotional components is about setting expectations too. The vast majority of people who work in Hollywood, from A-list actors to entry-level grips, are freelancers. That’s a tough life of highs and lows, and you have to prepare for that mentally as well as financially. People have to hustle for years to establish themselves, and that takes an enormous capacity for rejection. On top of that is the physical toll the work can extract, especially on the folks involved in setting up and tearing down sets. Part of the point of the book is to tell people with Hollywood dreams that they’ll need to gird themselves emotionally and physically for the work.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Karin Slaughter’s new book series, which launches with “We Are All Guilty Here,” is not for the squeamish.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Mark Athatakis finds much to like in “Ready for My Close-Up,” David M. Lubin’s book about the classic 1950 film “Sunset Boulevard.” “Though the book has its shortcomings,” he writes, “[Lubin] rightly sees the movie as a kind of passkey into the history of the first half-century of Hollywood itself.”

Robet Allen Papinchak weighs in on Phoebe Greenwood’s Middle East satire “Vulture,” finding it “a darkly comic, searing satire grounded in historic politics.”

Emma Sloley’s novel “The Island of Last Things” envisions a future where animal life, and then entire ecosystems, are wiped out, but Ilana Masad writes that Sloley also highlights “the small moments of beauty, joy and care that emerge even during … horrible times.”

And Paula L. Woods has a chat with master thriller novelist Karin Slaughter about her new book, “We Are All Guilty Here,” and TV series.

📖 Bookstore Faves

“Books are an antidote to the constant distractions in our lives,” says the owner of Culver City’s Village Well bookstore.

(Jennifer Caspar)

Four years after it opened its doors to the public, Village Well Books & Coffee has become a community locus in its Culver City neighborhood. Owner Jennifer Caspar has created a vibrant space with a full-service cafe, allowing her customers to linger for as long as they please while perusing Caspar’s ample and well-curated selection of new books. I chatted with Caspar about her store and what’s selling right now.

Why did you open the store?

I wanted a place where people can facilitate connections with others, because I think that’s what people need. Everyone is so overwhelmed by their phones and technology, and we tend to take the easy path, which is to not get out and see people.

What’s selling right now?

“Atmosphere,” Taylor Jenkins Reid; “Martyr,” Kaveh Akbar; “The Emperor of Gladness,” Ocean Vuong; “All Fours,” Miranda July. There’s been a real increase in books about activism and the Middle East situation. We’re launching an activism book club here, starting with “Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)” by Dean Spade. It will be interesting to see who comes out for that.

Why books now? Why not the Substack, social media, etc.?

Books are an antidote to the constant distractions in our lives. People need to connect offline, and books give us a chance to settle down and focus. Studies show that what we learn from books stays with us longer. You can read a Kindle, and I do, but there is something about sitting down with words on paper. For me, it’s great physical therapy for my emotional state.

Village Well is located at 9900 Culver Blvd., Culver City.