It's All Your Fault: Adventures of the Hollywood Assistant

Rating:
Summary: Funny!!
Review: This book cracked me up! I can't believe this stuff is true. I'm ordering a copy immediately for every struggling LA friend I know who is not related to Spielberg.

Rating:
Summary: Funny!!
Review: This book cracked me up! I can't believe this stuff is true. I'm ordering a copy immediately for every struggling LA friend I know who is not related to Spielberg.

Rating:
Summary: The most accurate portrait of Hollywood since Sunset Blvd
Review: This book is both hysterically funny and painfully accurate. If anyone is remotely interested in what it is like to work in Hollywood they must read this book. If you have no interest in Hollywood it is worth it for the incredibly funny writing.

Rating:
Summary: Humiliation is just the beginning!
Review: This book really made me glad I never pursued a career in Hollywood. It is full of reality-based humor. Everybody is so phony! However, if you have the stomach for it (Hollywood) -- this is the book to prepare you for the insanity. READ IT BEFORE YOU HOP ON THE BUS.

Rating:
Summary: All That Glitters Sure Ain't Gold
Review: This book was just wonderful because it is so true and such an accurate portrayal of what REALLY goes on in the over-hyped but hideous entertainment industry. I am a former entertainment assistant myself, and if only I'd had this book prior to majoring in Media I'd have chosen a more dignified area of study and future line of work - say, in computers. My favorite chapter is about agent's assistants. It's called "Satan's Handmaidens" and reveals - accurately - how talent agencies, where the agents glom a percentage of income from the actors in their "stable," are run like Mafia syndicates. They are - I was one - I experienced it myself! And as another chapter clearly states, unless you are some kind of a codependent from a divorced family (I'm not, thanks) who likes chaos and taking care of overgrown crybabies (I don't, thanks) you don't belong in a business as preposterously twisted and sick as this one!

Rating:
Summary: Required reading for Hollywood-bes: keep it close!
Review: This is a fast read, and it reads like a memoir-humor book-- don't be fooled. It's full of REAL information, and good advice.

I have only a limited experience in this world, a few month's as a producer's assistant, but everything they described is 100% accurate. As I investigate how I want to continue, I'm finding the descriptions of the different roles invaluable (particularly that of assistant to a network exec as a great job for those in the witness protection program; i.e. you'll never meet anyone... lol)

the way these two got into the industry is, as is the norm, highly idiosyncratic, full of luck, timing and chutzpah. It's no surprise that both have done well along the way.

This is also a useful book for creative artists-- screenwriters, actors, aspiritng directors-- because it gives an invaluable inside look at the day-to-day life of the offices and staff of the people they need to deal with.

Better than I hoped it would be!


Rating:
Summary: Superb, insightful, bitterly funny.
Review: This is the "Crafty Screenwriting" of assistanting. The writers have clearly been around the block and through the mill, and tell it like it is. They also had fun writing it, and the bitter joy of (I hope for their sakes) no longer being an assistant shines through. If you're thinking of going to Hollywood as anything at all, you need to read this book to understand what the lives of the 50% of people there who are assistants are like!

Rating:
Summary: Superb, insightful, bitterly funny.
Review: This is the "Crafty Screenwriting" of assistanting. The writers have clearly been around the block and through the mill, and tell it like it is. They also had fun writing it, and the bitter joy of (I hope for their sakes) no longer being an assistant shines through. If you're thinking of going to Hollywood as anything at all, you need to read this book to understand what the lives of the 50% of people there who are assistants are like!

Rating:
Summary: Superb, insightful, bitterly funny.
Review: This is the "Crafty Screenwriting" of assistanting. The writers have clearly been around the block and through the mill, and tell it like it is. They also had fun writing it, and the bitter joy of (I hope for their sakes) no longer being an assistant shines through. If you're thinking of going to Hollywood as anything at all, you need to read this book to understand what the lives of the 50% of people there who are assistants are like!

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious.... and helpful!
Review: Tons of true stories make this so much fun to read-- but I'm moving to L.A. in January and thought this book was the most helpful I'd read about what it's really like to start out in the movie business. It's scary, buy hysterical!