LA’s pecking order, by Bill Kay

The Los Angeles working world is quite unlike anything else.
I’m not talking about jobs in fast-food restaurants, dry cleaners or on the threadbare public transportation system. Employers in those areas simply treat job applicants like trash - so, not surprisingly, they often behave like trash.
My experience, naturally enough, is in the media business and I have quite a few friends with much broader experience than I have.
This is no mere chattering-class clique, as it is in London, say, or Manchester. The film industry employs an estimated 10,000 in LA and you can add varying amounts for journalism, book publishing, the blogosphere and entertainment.
No wonder hopefuls pour off the trains, planes and buses, as hopeful as they ever were in the 1920s, 1950s or the 1990s. Most of them end up waiting table or working in shops – elbowing many of the less photogenic but probably more skilled sales assistants – and a high proportion buy the return ticket to Nowheresville, Noplace County, somewhere in the midwest.
The LA version of Craigslist makes a handy living out of this rose-tinted optimism. I got fed up churning through job after writing job, gig after writing gig, offering no pay but ‘a byline for your resumé’ or ‘exciting start-up, share in our success once the money starts to flow’.
Business plans and even PhD theses are regular topics, often accompanied by the giveaway ‘at least two years’ experience required’. That means that if you have more than ten years under your belt, don’t bother: they can’t afford you.
Hollywood looms over this whole scene. The big studios are cutting back now, postponing some pre-Christmas releases until next year, laying off scene-shifters and researchers, but they are still the big players, the ones most people want to get into bed with one way or another.
To cut their overheads they often prefer to rent studio time to independent producers, who therefore take the risk. They of course brag that they have ‘a deal’ with Paramount or Warner, when all they mean is that they have an option on some space.
Options are the currency of LA. Everyone from studios to property developers buys or sells options, most of which lapse. Meanwhile, though, they are pregnant with hope value.
No one is more hopeful than those actors who take part in the cattle market known as the audition. These usually take place in draughty old rooms miles from the bright lights. Candidates sit for hours on backless wooden benches, like some immigrant resettlement centre, awaiting their turn. A generous employer will provide drinking water to stave off the heat – it’s cheaper than air conditioning.
An hour’s journey each way, with a three-hour wait, can earn ten minutes in front of the cameras and/or microphone and an assurance from the director that ‘You were great!’
So many people turn up on the offchance of stardom that a central agency now logs everyone and gives them a barcode, like a box of cookies in Safeway.
Happily, I’ve so far resisted the temptation to pitch for an audition – I know my limitations – and, as in Britain, most journalistic jobs come via word of mouth and personal recommendation. Maybe that’s why my gigs have been few and far between, and they have certainly dried up since the credit crunch started biting.
But every Monday night I go to a diner in Pasadena where a bunch of us meet to chew the fat. I’m the only journalist; the others are writers, singers, voice artistes (including one talented chap who did the voice of Tigger for 17 years, nice work if you can get it), singers and radio show hosts.
Only three of us, though, have a regular income – me, a singer-cum-entertainer-cum-actor-cum writer, and a rehabilitation nurse at the local big hospital. Others have the odd scrap of royalties but most are living on their savings from previous careers.
What links us all, though, is that none of us is idle. For there is a definite pecking order in LA.
What you must never do, or admit to, is nothing. You must always have a ‘project’. LA being what it is, this means doing something for no pay, just for the chance to write, talk, act or sing. That gives you a show-reel, DVD, CD, even a book, to hand round in the hope that it will be picked up by someone with money and clout. It happens more often than you might think.
I’m working on a novel. It will probably never see the light of day, but the rejection letters are yet to come. This is the writing stage, when the flame of hope burns brightly. You can keep that going through several novels before you give up, so I’m told.
Then there are those with a contract. They are earning, however modestly. Money is changing hands and being banked, which merits anything from respect to jealousy. It means your work has a value and could lead to something even more valuable, You are on the upward path, which might take you who knows where,
Above them are the successes, which can vary from people you have never heard of but are constantly employed and are driven home each evening to a discreet spread behind a set of gates in Beverly Hills.
At the top are the few stars earning megabucks, anything up to $50 million a picture, with homes in several US states and foreign countries. Like that chap in his sixties with the dyed hair and toned-down Liverpool accent, who turns up from time to time at Mijares, one of our local Mexican restaurants. Says his name is Paul McCartney. Never done an audition, though, or so I hear.