How do people get jobs in the movie industry?

You can go to film school and end up with something of a portfolio and start at the bottom and work your way up, you can forgo film school and start at the bottom an work your way up or you can throw caution to the wind, scrounge up as much money and talent, your own and others, as you can muster up and go the independent film route and hope for the best. However you go about it you need to have the drive, ambition and fire in your belly to want to work in the movie industry more than anything and still hope for the best. There are sites online that give you information on films in production and who’s hiring who and what. Check those out.

I lived in LA, and worked in Beverly Hills.

Yes, people can break-in to “the industry,” but it seems to me like the most effective way is to already know people in the business…

“The industry” is very incestuous.

I would love some movie industry incest!

Every time I hear of someone working anywhere near film, I ask for contacts and emails etc. It’s hard to seem eager and keen without being rude and awkward, however.

People who work as costumers generally start out with some sort of fashion background and experience in doing costuming in community theater. It’s a great way to build a resume. Lots of people start out volunteering with high school drama programs as adult volunteers, or Shakespeare in the Park, etc. Once you have some volunteer experience under your belt, getting a paid position gets easier. Many universities with theater departments have degrees in costuming and help students get placed as interns. Costume Shop Management is a subset of a theater degree.

In my 20’s I wanted to work in the movie industry so bad I could taste it. I sent resumes in response to every single ad I saw and I looked daily for months and months and months. I must have sent 30 resumes. I never heard a single word. That is until a friend of a friend who worked for Sony pulled my resume and got it to the right people. Within a week I had two interviews and two job offers. In my experience, you gotta know somebody.

They like to hire people who have a passion (for doing whatever it is you do). The best way to prove that is to do that in theater, or make some YouTube videos, and post them.
They will be able to see your work. That’s what they want.

It’s pretty easy to get a costuming job at Disneyland to build a resume. Otherwise, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know in Hollywood.

You have to have an inexhaustible load of patience, imagination and even shrewdness to break into this industry. If you don’t know anybody then you have to connect with people there anyway you can. I knew someone in Hollywood who would take any job first just to make his way to his ultimate goal of being a production manager. He had creative ambitions as well like being able to direct but he believes he had to start from the bottom rank to really understand

( As an interesting aside, Bruce Willis worked as an extra in that Paul Newman movie, The Verdict. You would see him sitting as one of the court spectators. )

First thing he did was become an extra in as many as possible movie sets he could be into. He saw and observed how things go and which staff to occasionally say hi to, just for them to maybe remember his face. He then gradually moved on to handing out calling cards whenever he can. To make a long story short he ended up working as a lower ranking production assistant. From there he established more connections, learning a lot more about production and so on and so forth.