Program Helps Outsiders Break Into Hollywood

So how do you break into the movie business without family connections? Hard work, perseverance and, if you’re lucky, a spot in the Assistant Directors Training Program.

Founded in 1965, the program benefits movie companies by creating a pool of qualified assistant directors, the “sergeants” on a movie or TV set who help ensure that a production runs smoothly.

For Hollywood outsiders, its a rare opportunity to enter a notoriously competitive business despite a lack of well-placed friends or relatives.

“This changed my life,” said Lynn Morgan, who entered the program in 1975. The onetime social worker is now vice president of feature production for Warner Bros.

“I was from Wisconsin. I knew nobody. To my relatives back home, it’s always been sort of a miracle,” she said.

“I might have gotten some peripheral job, but to do what I’m doing now, I don’t think there’s a chance.”

Knowing Spielberg or Coppola won’t help you get in; doing well on the program’s entrance examination and in an appraisal process that includes interviews and creative problem-solving is the key.

“The bottom line is it’s not about who you’re related to,” said program administrator Elizabeth Stanley. The program was started, in part, to help overcome the insular hiring practices that tended to favor white males, she said.

“In the mid-‘60s, there was pressure from the civil rights movement, from the women’s movement, to put an end to the nepotism that characterized hiring,” Stanley said.

The studios were feeling another kind of pressure as well: The need for qualified assistant directors, known as ADs, was growing as more productions moved out of studios to location shooting.

The program was formed as a joint venture by the Directors Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, with a trust fund providing financing.

Of the 400 graduates thus far, most tend to work more than the average, Stanley said. And of ADs in the guild, about a third of the women and half of the minorities came through the program.

Stanley noted the program has no quotas and accepts the most qualified candidates.

Some 1,200 people apply each year, and up to 20 gain acceptance. Applications are being accepted through Nov. 15, with written exams set for January in Los Angeles and Chicago.

Starting pay for a second assistant director, the first rung on the career ladder, is about $1,900 a week. Top-notch first ADs get $5,000 weekly.

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