Intro to the Industry

Access to Creative Industry Employment (sponsored by the Snap Foundation)

County of Los Angeles

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative

Hollywood has a long, troubling and well-documented history of underrepresenting, stereotyping and erasing BIPOC people, women and the LGBTQI+ community. UCLA's annual report on diversity in Hollywood found that BIPOC actors only reached proportionate representation among film leads in 2020 and among all actors in 2022; among film directors and writers, they are remain underrepresented. In TV, they are underrepresented in all acting, directing and writing positions. This ongoing gap affects two distinct groups: the BIPOC and other marginalized people who are shutout from the county's largest industry, perpetuating inequity, and the general public, who consume media with continued distortions of how different racial and ethnic groups are presented and missed opportunities for the media to foster understanding among people of diverse backgrounds.

For nearly 30 years, Hollywood HEART has brought the creative disciplines of acting, filmmaking, writing, dance, fashion design, visual arts and music to thousands of youth from across Los Angeles County. Through workshops and summer camps, we help youth impacted by HIV/AIDS and gender diverse, BIPOC and lower-income youth bring their creative visions to life as they develop character strengths, confidence and resiliency through purposeful engagement in the arts. Building on our experience, Intro to the Industry will capture our core creative strengths while adding new emphasis on inspiring and preparing youth from Hollywood's historically excluded communities for careers in entertainment. In addition to daily work on a specific area of interest that builds to a final showcase at an opening-night themed event, youth will take part in career-focused workshops designed and led by our Teaching Artists, all of whom work in entertainment-related positions. These will provide practical training and exposure to opportunities, not only for writers, directors and actor but also those interested in other essential industry jobs: set decorators, music supervisors, lighting and camera crew members. Sessions will highlight ways to break in and the skills and education needed to thrive. Ongoing mentoring and networking will enable participants to remain in touch with each other and their instructors, sharing opportunities for apprenticeships, internships and entry-level jobs.

We believe strongly that our short-term goals support our longer-term ones. Over the course of the coming year (and in subsequent years as we replicate the program), we intend to inspire young people to give voice to their own, singular story and to understand clearly what a career in the entertainment industry involves - both the good and the challenging. Future success will come with an increase in the number of people from historically excluded communities with successful careers in entertainment. This success will help close the equity gap that plagues Hollywood and also push the industry to be more representative and produce a more nuanced and realistic portrayal of the diversity that is an unparalleled strength in our community. For Los Angeles County, where the entertainment industry remains the largest business sector, diversifying its workforce and eventually its leadership will ensure it evolves into an industry that provides more opportunity for a greater number of people.

Hollywood HEART has three decades of successfully inspiring youth to unlock their inner creativity. Intro to the Industry builds upon the core elements of our existing art camps and workshops, adding in career training developed by our working Teaching Artists; their active, current knowledge of the industry will inform programming that is practical and valuable for youth curious about a career in entertainment. To judge our success, we will conduct evaluations and surveys of participants to collect quantitative and qualitative information. We will identify whether our participants feel more confident, whether their interest in the arts has increased, how they judge their self-worth and whether the program has changed their thinking about a career in entertainment. We also will survey our Teaching Artists to assess their experiences, identifying which elements of the program were most impactful and how they would adjust future programming to improve our services and outcomes.