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Salary Confessions: Hollywood Workers Dish On How The Industry Has Changed
The Hollywood sign is seen as it is repainted in preparation for its 100th anniversary in 2023, in Hollywood on Sept. 28, 2022.
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Topline:
This week, The Ankler, LAist’s partner for Entertainment Thursdays, launched a Salary Confessions series featuring anonymous interviews with people across the entertainment industry sharing intimate details about their careers and the state of their finances.
Why it matters: Assessments of the state of Hollywood inevitably note the effects of the pandemic and last year’s strikes as budgets are cut and layoffs implemented. But these catch-all citations lose the human toll of all the change taking place in Los Angeles.
Meet a downsized development exec: This person works at an independent production company and their role was recently reduced to part-time because management had become “less enthused about the direction the industry is moving in.” Their salary was reduced from $88,000 to $44,000.
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A surprising side hustle: To supplement their income, this person has started to freelance for an AI company helping to train its models, even though they’re aware this is Hollywood’s existential fear. “I feel I have important skills that others in my position do not (how to prompt and AI chatbot to get the best response),” this person says.
For more . . . read the full story on The Ankler.
This story is published in partnership with The Ankler, a paid subscription publication about the entertainment industry.
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