Brad Hall is the founder of
EntertainmentCareers.net. This site is
responsible for finding more people jobs in entertainment than any other
website currently available, and you guessed it, it's free. The following is what ensued when I sat down
with Brad and chewed the fat on the industry, music, yogurt, and how to get a
job and keep one.
What is an average
day in the life of Brad Hall? What occupies most of your time?
Oh god, I
mean essentially I'm a one man show, so it spans the spectrum. I mean I take my
own trash out do all the financial accounting, the marketing. I do everything
for the website and website development, it's fairly even, but most of my time
is dedicated to the operation of the actual site.
How did it all get
started?
It started
by accident. Initially we started as a 1 page website in 1998. At the time I
was in the entertainment industry doing film production. I would frequently talk to my mom and she
would say "oh I was at my hairdresser today and her son is trying to get into
the entertainment industry" So basically I would have the same phone call a
thousand times, so I basically just put together a little simple web page where
I could say, ok "go here, read this, if you have any questions let me know
afterwards". So I guess in one sense it was laziness on my behalf so I don't
have to keep saying the same thing over and over again. Then it evolved over
time where companies would put up there jobs online so I would just put up a
little link, you know here's a couple of places you could check out. You know and that point you could just search
jobs over the telephone, and listen to recordings so it had just started evolving.
It was really out of selfish interest I guess because at the time I had just
finished producing an independent film and I needed to find another job, and
you had to go from one site to the other site to the other site so you are just
there hopping from site to site, and it s like for "crimeys sake, why isn't
this in one spot" and so I really created it for myself first, and it evolved
into what it is now. And you know the
timing of it couldn't have been better, I mean I was just right place right
time. I mean you have these multi
million dollar companies trying to essentially recreate what I've done, you
know these guys with cash and they cant do it, and neither could I at this
point, I mean its so much harder to get a thing like that off the ground now,
where as before there was not much more out there of this size or quality. In the early days of the internet, all of my
advertising was really word of mouth, people putting it up on their websites
and college career centers, so like I said, it was really just perfect timing
as far as that goes... just dumb luck more than anything really.
I mean Id be willing
to say that you caught it right ahead of the curve, I mean you had something that was in demand
yet people didn't even know that they could ask for yet, and it seems like you
fell into a really great place in that regard...
Yeah, yeah for sure, really lucky.
Well I guess that
answers how the site changed over time, is there anything else you'd like to
add to that? I mean I have your site up
right now, I'm seeing jobs, I'm seeing
internships, one of the coolest things I like seeing is the "what people are
saying" page, I mean we have people as far as employers and job seekers, people
just saying things like "thank you , thank you for helping me find ..." you know,
because especially being out in LA, there's that whole stereotype of people who
move out there, "oh I want to get into the entertainment industry" it seems
like u really got something good in that this is something that everyone, as
far as the kids I know at school or kids who are going to school for the same
thing or people just trying to break into the industry, it's a really good stepping stone...
I'd say
what differentiates us from I guess you could say we have competitors, but it
was created at a time when you know, I was looking for work myself so it was
built through that mindset, it is very
job seeker focused. As opposed to you
know every other site out there caters to a product for employers, where as
this site has completely the job seeker in mind the person who has no connection,
you know to use this as a resource. If
one chooses, and you know from both sides, you can use the site for free. There's other sites out there who are going
to charge you know $29.95/month for postings that were removed on our site two
months before so its just in some senses that helps the little guy with no
connections, no relatives in the industry to try and level the playing field a
bit because the bottom line is that it works, you know? It works and its great,
I like it when people write in with thank you notes, you know I remember when I
got my first job I mean it's a life changing event for some people so its great
to be able to help someone along their career path. In this industry in
particular, I mean people are passionate about it, so anything we can do to
help them get along on their way is great.
What did you go to
school for?
(Laughs) I
went to UCLA, I was an Organizational Studies major, basically studying
businesses and their organizational structure, organizational sociology or
whatever its called, and I was, my career path really came to a crossroads one
day, you know I was still at UCLA and I had to get a job, and I went to go
interview at a monstrous accounting and consulting firm, so you know I go
dressed in a shirt and tie and did the interview and came back from the
interview and saw somebody who I barely knew and he goes, what are you all
dressed up for, man, no one in LA wears a suit
and I told him I had the meeting and he was like, well I m working at
Warner bros. right now and I have to quit do you want my job? I was like sure man sounds interesting, and
it was for one of the biggest directors at the time, I mean he did lethal
weapon and superman movies and all this stuff, so you know, like I said a lot
of what's happened to me has been stupid luck. So my education didn't prepare
me for this one lick. (Laughs). I mean unless you're a film studies major or
music major, its more common than not that people have an indirect or major
relative to the field that they get into.
What industry
experience did you have before starting EC.net?
My interest was really the physical
production of it, I mean I had that job at Warner Brothers, and when I
graduated they offered me a full time job, so I mean I was working on the lot
at a big development and production company, so I got to see both sides of the
equation. I mean I was really fascinated with the actual production, so I got
to work on the set and see how that all operated, so at that point I would pick
up any job that I could, and then you know it was all right place right time,
and met the right people, and I was able to produce a series of short films for
the David Letterman Show, and at that point I was about I think 25 at the time,
and I thought I had just hit the lotto (figuratively) it was a great
experience, and that really gave me a taste of producing. So I wanted to
produce a feature, and then so for the next couple of years I focused on that
and so my late 20s early 30s I worked on producing the feature film, and its
right around there where I started EntertainmentCareers.net.
So is EC.net your
primary occupation as of now?
Yes, it's full time and then some.
Certainly was not my intention at first, you know I mean at the time I was
producing independent stuff, which you know pays nothing until you sell your
project so you know my mindset was I need to come up with a business idea that
can really sustain me during these times cause I didn't earn any money for like
two years when I was working on that project so it just evolved and I really
started enjoying it, so now its definitely my full time deal.
Where do you find
your listings?
Well, at this point, were lucky to,
if you want to call us industry standard, we don't have to seek out...people
come to us. I mean the first couple
years it was really me trying to gain credibility, I mean me just constantly
begging employers to post anything, you know just beating the bushes to get
listings, some companies weren't really trustful of the concept of putting
something online, back then everything seemed so fly by night that the first
two years I really had to constantly be trying to find new sources and now 99%
of the employers come straight to us, word of mouth. It is pretty much industry
standard, you know everyone knows about us so in that sense were very very
lucky in that we provide something where both ends seem to find us based on our
success.
How many people would
you say you have helped get int. and jobs so far?
Its really
impossible to say, I mean I can just base it on employer feedback and job
seeker feedback, but I mean, thousands and thousands if not over ten
thousand, were coming up on our 100,000th
posting probably this summer. I mean a
lot of the postings are looking for a crew for short films or crew for
independent films, so sometimes one posting can get thirty people jobs.
Internships the same way, you know a lot of the TV shows and companies have
year round internship programs so one posting has worked for them for five
years, so they'll just keep renewing it.
So I mean in that sense, it's really difficult to say, I mean I would
absolutely kill to know the number, but I mean I would guess over ten
thousand? It's difficult for me to go
out in LA, and have casual conversation with people in the industry without "oh
yeah, I got my first job from your site" or "I found my internship" or this
this this, so the only comfortable number I can say is a lot, it's quite a few.
What advice would you
give to students entering the entertainment industry today?
It's a simple piece of advice, but
put together some specific sort of idea as far as what you want to do, cause if
you meet somebody. If you for instance
are out in the world and say meet someone and say I want to get into the
entertainment industry, it's very hard to help you. If someone comes to me and says I want to get
into the entertainment industry, even if I know them or know someone, you know
a friend of a friend, there's very little I can do, there's very little anyone
can do, if someone says to me I really want to get into production and
animation, then I can say ok, here's what you can do, someone can actually help
you at that point. So even if you have
to BS your answer, even if you don't really know, you need to be able to have
that very specific sort of sales pitch : interested in this, these are the
areas your thinking about getting into, xyz its just the ambiguity that kills
people. And even in the music industry,
if someone comes to me and says I want to get into the music industry, in their
mind they might mean they want to be and engineer, or a recording artist or in
publicity, but even if you pick music industry, there's such a wide range of
creative/non creative jobs, in operations, so the best thing someone can do is
be very specific with what they wants are.
I find that people are a little sheepish because they feel like, "oh
everyone else wants to be a recording artist" but if you don't say it people
can't help you, at all.
Will the
entertainment industry survive in our perilous times?
Well ill tell you, the SAG
certainly is not helping things. The site we have now, is the industry, is like
anything, it will always exist. I mean
the music business has changed so much; it has reinvented itself so many
times. The entertainment industry, due
to change in tech, marketing and visual standpoint, the phenomenon of YouTube
its on one hand all the modern tech and all the sort of grassroots
distributions possibilities for film television music or anything is its a
blessing and a curse, because what used to take the cost of a small airplane to
produce an album now for the cost of a very expensive bike or a small car can
produce a whole album video quality. On
one hand it levels the playing field for people who can self produce, self
publish, but on the other hand it makes the filtration so hard because so much
product content out there that it's very difficult to find something that's
worthwhile. It will absolutely survive,
especially the entertainment industry as were talking film and television, I
mean that's going through a very crazy change, I mean specifically because as I
was saying at this time you've got the Screen Actors Guild essentially has a
gun to the industries head right now, and their response is "Fine, we'll make
more stuff that doesn't require actors", i.e. reality TV. So what its going to do is shrink TV out of
production and grow more reality based stuff, game shows, you know the reality
stuff you see all the time its like anything.
The face will change but the body will still exist.
How would you advise
on job security in our current market situation?
There's no such thing. The advantage of someone who's is young and
just starting out its oddly better, quite frankly because their cheaper,
because you know, with everything that's going on in the economy, the first
thing people do is cut marketing and advertising. So anyone who does sales for magazines and
radio, all these guys who are twenty year veterans are getting axed, and the
cheap guys are staying. So in certain
circumstances, ones inexperience and their willingness to work for next to
nothing helps them. Job security doesn't
exist anymore, which makes one be a lot more proactive and flexible. I've got a friend who has been a production
manager/line producer for his entire career and now he's just switched over to
the other side, and now he's an agent who represents the lower end up and
coming talent. If I had told him ten years ago that he'd be an agent he would
have laughed in my face. But absolutely
flexibility and also you've got to keep yourself up to date and constantly make
yourself useful. I think a lot of fat
has been built into a lot of businesses in the last ten years, you know in
times of plenty people really don't care about a little bit of excess spending,
but you know if your making yourself invaluable especially in regards to
technology in reality kids coming out of college are much more educated even in
a computer sense, especially with the advent of ProTools and all this stuff,
its common to know how to operate this stuff, where as ten fifteen years ago
someone who had been in the industry their whole life hadn't really
improved. So I think definitely
education and being around it really helps you, especially at this point in
your career. On the other hand, it also
sets a high bar, where you have to know this stuff or you don't have a
shot.
What music do you
like? What's on your playlist?
I definitely span the spectrum, I
mean I'm definitely a product of 80s music, I have to admit. My favorite band is definitely U2, it has
been since I first saw them in like 83 or 84 or whenever it was, and I've just
been hooked ever since. But on my 60
minute playlist for my workout to day it was U2, Johnny Cash, Ozzy Osborne,
gosh I'm too embarrassed to say a couple of them but it really, I was a huge
heavy metal rocker when I was in sixth and seventh grade, so I'm all over the
place. I don't think there's a musical
style or genre that I don't like or have at least had one track of.
If your site was a
yogurt, would it be fruit on the bottom or stirred and why?
OH, fruit on the bottom for sure!!
Who wants that stirred crap? You've got
nothing to do with it, it's already pre stirred, you got nowhere to go. No options.
Right, there's no
motivation to get to the bottom
Absolutely man
Where would you like
to live if money and a job was not a problem?
Well I lived in NY, never been to
Nashville, I love LOVE San Francisco, and Chicago, I'd move to Chicago tomorrow
if it weren't in Chicago. Great cities.
What is your favorite
way to consume entertainment, what do you crave?
As far as my consumption of
entertainment, I got to tell you I am hooked on any Law & Order that's on TV.
Criminal intent, SVU, any TV cop show, CSI, I am a slave for it.
Well Brad, that
pretty much wraps it up, thanks so much for taking the time to sit down, it's
much appreciated.
Absolutely man, it was my pleasure.
Take care Jason.
To check out all the fabulous things that Brad has available at his
site, such as internships and job listings in nearly every state and subject
listing, visit http://www.entertainmentcareers.net
