Sunday, October 20, 2013

Alternative Entertainment Careers

If you want to work in entertainment, but you are not so interested in ending up as the star, there are various other paths you can take. You could make music by enrolling in an audio engineering college or a film school, or alternatively you could become an event planner. And of course you could go into marketing and promotions. All these paths are viable alternatives to being a performer.



Marketing and promotions is usually accessed by studying the same standard advertising courses that apply for any luxury product. Though everyone loves entertainment, everything from a TV show to music single is promoted much the same way that we promote a physical product like a loaf of bread or a pair of shoes. Even beyond the inherent merit of the item it will be sold as part of an ideal lifestyle.

One part of launching things, in the entertainment business, is the hype. It is not surprising that film festivals, movie launches and album releases become huge occasions, with fantastically dressed guests, swarms of paparazzi and so forth. By creating a buzz around the product and the artists with these events, consumers become intrigued enough to try new things. Of course some items may become sleeper hits after a quiet release, and get big under their own momentum, but if entertainment is a business, investments in promotions make it worthwhile to become an event planner.

Lots of work goes into making movies. A live film crew includes production assistants, a props department, continuity experts, lighting technicians, sound technicians, writers, camera workers, stylists for hair and costumes, acting coaches and all manner of people wrangling the shot so it comes out just right. An animated film can include thousands of artists, and still needs to worry about putting the sound in through separate recordings. Increasingly, with special effects, the line is blurred between the two types of movie. A film school may specialize in different aspects of film production, or it may focus on just one part, like cameras and photography. It is competitive, but in some ways less competitive than acting, simply because there's more roles for the people who make movies outset the focus of the camera's lens.

The same applies for going through audio engineering college. This prepares you to record the audio for films of all kinds, but also in music production, both in recording and post-production, as well as doing the audio technician work for live performances. A surprising amount of work goes into getting the sound in movies and in music albums just right, so much so that it is just about as much work to prepare audio for popular consumption as it is to generate it.

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