I’ve known what I’ve wanted to do with my life since I was fifteen years old. I want to make movies. Good movies. Real movies, like L’avventura or Even Dwarves Started Small. When I visited LA after college, my father put me in touch with a colleague’s son: “Bob Peterson’s son works in film. Have lunch with him.” It turned out that Bob Peterson’s son was a recent CalArts grad who was doing promo editing for network television. I met him at the Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank, he paid for lunch, and he told me that, while he was financially better off than he’d been when he was working at Trader Joe’s, his job was “soul-crushing.” And he didn’t even work in reality tv.
At the time I assumed Bob Peterson’s son was speaking in hyperbole. But after I got out of the MFA program at a really good and really expensive LA film school, I came to understand that he was actually being completely literal.
I got my first job in reality while I was in pre-production for my thesis film. I worked nights as an assistant editor on a dating show that’s not on the air anymore. Sometimes the daters would get really fucked up, take off their clothes, and make out with each other. This was considered good television. I saw so many boobs and asses and people doing insane things in front of a camera in my first week of work that I became completely desensitized. Everything seemed normal to me. I remember once a friend of mine walked into my bay and saw me knitting a scarf while digitizing hard-core porn. I wasn’t even paying attention. It was a geeky thirteen-year-old boy’s dream job. The problem was that I wasn’t geeky. Or thirteen. Or a boy.
By the time my thesis was finished, I was working as an editor. It was horrible. But I was broke and it paid really well. And, of course, it was just temporary, just my day job while I was getting my shit together to write and direct my first feature. Cut to four years later: I have carpal tunnel, I can’t see at night anymore, and a masseuse told me that if I don’t make some changes I’ll be a hunchback by the time I’m forty. And I haven’t directed my first feature. That’s what reality tv does to you—it sucks out your creativity and life force, crushes your soul, leaves you for dead (without any health insurance), and moves on to the next poor sap.
I watch reality tv. I think Intervention is one of the best shows out there, and, I’m not gonna lie, I spent six hours one Sunday watching a Jersey Shore marathon and loved every second of it. I know plenty of people who work in reality and love it. And I think that’s great, I really do. It’s just not my dream. The hard part is getting out, but I’m working on it. I know that I’m not going to be happy until I’m directing the films I want to direct. I have to do it; for me there is no other option.
5 Responses to “Reality TV is Trying to Crush My Soul” Leave a reply ›
Listen you whiners. If you can't stand working in the entertainment business, my advice to you all is to get out now and make room for those that do want the work. You'll leave eventually, so save yourself the pain later and start your new career somewhere else. If you were a writer, you would be writing. If you were a director, you would be directing. In either case, you'd be directing what I tell you to direct and writing what I tell you to write. Do you really think you're Martin Scorsese? I know Marty and he never sat around bitching about their life being taken away from them and being forced to do inane work. Marty and real creative people like him are doers. You obviously are not. So either get back to work or take a hike.
Your article made me cry!
I'm a writer who works as a transcriber. After the show wraps, I always swear to myself that I'll never torture myself like that again, only to be roped back in after struggling fulfill my dream job of having my own scripted show that I'll be the writer, producer and star of. Every time I get the call to work, I make an excuse to myself like, "maybe I can move up in the company," or "I'll be networking," but after working for a few months, I realize even the one who's making the most money seems just as miserable as I am so what's the point of trying?
I figure at least I still had a somewhat delusional connection to a fraction of my 'dream' being fulfilled. It is in the confines of broadcasting, so my college degree is somewhat being exercised.
'Transcriber' is the bottom of the barrel of the reality show world (which to me, the reality show part is embarrassing enough to admit, but to be such a lowly...). If only I would've known TV would've taken this turn. Nowadays, I'm lucky to even have a job- but this is supposed to be a temporary thing. I used to like that idea. In a way, it was perfect for me because I always get bored at a job I hate if I did it long enough. So, taking a job that only required me to work in 'season' helped. I always thought that someone's job shouldn't have any reflection of what a kind of person they are. A job doesn't define you, especially nowadays like it had so many generations before.
It's possible.
Mande's right. Brace yourself. It's scary and feels completely insane when you're going through it. It especially feels nuts during this economy. You think, "Really? I'm going to quit my job and change careers when so many people can't even find work?" But I can tell you that constant unhappiness costs more than anything in the world and will eat you from the inside out.
I love Mande's suggestion about being choosy with your job selections until you can make the jump. Something else will come down the pipeline work-wise, it always does.
I thought about leaving the industry for a while before I made the jump. I never say never and, who knows, I may find myself back behind the camera at sometime in my life. But for now, I'm chasing my dream.
I know it's a scary thing...I'm always around for support or just to bounce ideas and thoughts off of. I can sympathize with where you're at for SURE!
i know a lot of people in reality tv and 80% have an "escape plan" about 10% have followed them. which says to me that it is possible. you can do it. i know an audio mixer who left reality and is now co owner of an amazing coffee/doughnut shop, a camera operator who became a homeopathic doctor and a director who is now a freelance writer. all are doing very well, are happy with families and my heros. all of them will tell you to brace yourself. when you first leave it will be hard but you can do it. money will be scarce, you'll be stressed but in the end, you will find happiness.
i like working in reality for the most part but that's because i have strict rules about what i will and WILL NOT shoot. i also try to choose my jobs based on the people i will be surrounded by 12 hours a day and the subject matter if possible. i try to never shoot a show that sends me home feeling "dirty" at the end of the day. if i didn't have lines i refused to cross i would have lost my mind for sure. i've been doing this since i was 19 years old so i know what trapped can feel like. you are not trapped. you have an education and a dream. do something with it. we'll all support you and look up to you when you succeed.
i admire you for writing this since many of us feel the same way. thank you :)
Get out while you still have your dream! Make a 6 month or 1 year plan, and stick to it no matter what!! The money may be nice now, but will it be enough to forget your first marriage? Hollywood shows us the unhealthy way to be a "success", it's up to us to find the healthy way to succeed. I'll never understand why so many of us work so hard for goals that take away from actually living out our dreams. Oh wait... because it cost so fucking much to live in LA!!!!!
Does that make me sound bitter?