The Builders Will Build

What the Oscars Don’t Show You & Blue Collar Hollywood

The lights go down. The orchestra swells. A name gets called, and someone walks up to a podium in a fabulous dress that cost more than most people’s rent. They say something beautiful and touching about dreams coming true.

Every March, the Oscars remind the world that Hollywood is magic. And somewhere in the world, a kid watches that telecast and feels the lure and pull of it; a certainty that this is the world they want to live in.

I picture that kid version in all of us, including my recent guest Marina Stabile, scattered about the planet, huddled in front of a TV, heeding the call like story avengers.

This post is for you. For all of the magical humans whose names we may never know, who fell in love with this art form, and against all odds, found a way to make a career out of their talents and unique skillsets.

Illustration by Paykahn

It’s the 1st AD who has been running the set like an air traffic controller while going through a divorce. The production coordinator managing eighteen things simultaneously while quietly preventing the train from going off the tracks. The drivers who know every back road in the Valley and have heard more industry confessions than any therapist. The grips, the gaffers, the props masters, the wardrobe assistants finishing laundry at midnight. The location scouts who drove three hours hunting for a street that looks like nowhere and everywhere at once.

The caterers who bring you warm soup when you need it most. The grips running cable through mud. The PAs who come up with the best inside jokes that keep you going at when you’re loopy.

It’s unglamorous, ordinary, and often thankless work — done by extraordinary people.

Exhibit A Below: BTS video from the set of Sylvie’s Love, 2019, where I was the UPM. Even though, this particular period film made everything look glamorous.

The Ground Is Shifting

The Paramount and Warner Brothers merger isn’t just a business headline: it’s another weight on a structure that was already straining. Prop houses, caterers, costume shops— the ecosystem that rely on productions to exist — is contracting alongside everything else. For example, Valentinos Costume Group went out of business in 2024. Costume Rentals Corporation (CRC) closed its doors last October after nearly 50 years serving the film and television industry.

The ripple doesn’t stop at the studio gates. And it’s not just the traditional crew feeling it.

I know brilliant mid-level professionals who were laid off in restructurings and are now competing for the same few jobs against people with twenty-plus years on their résumé. I’ve advised friends who are still assistants, doing coordinator or CE-level work without the title or the pay. I’ve commiserated with producer pals who can’t pay their mortgage because they’ve been effectively working for free, crossing their fingers that a greenlight comes before the savings run out.

Everyone has been pushed down a rung. The bottom rung is crowded.

What Do I Tell Them?

So when young people DM me, pop into my inbox and ask: Is there still a path? Is it worth it? Should I do it? I feel the full weight of that question.

The dreamer in me wants to shout yes, come on in, the water is warm. The hustler in me wants to quietly mention it’s also a little shark-infested but when you catch a wave, man oh man, the ride is awesome. And the mother in me just wants to protect their heart from breaking.

But I keep coming back to what Paul Feig said when he came on last year:

If you’re thinking about getting into showbiz, don’t. But if you can’t imagine doing anything else, then join the circus.

We must be vigilant of our own needs as they change drastically depending where you are in life. As does your appetite for risk. I stand by my laurels that storytelling is not going anywhere. The appetite for it is as high as it has ever been. What is changing — painfully, disruptively — is the infrastructure that once housed it. The traditional pathways have collapsed or are collapsing. The informal promises that once came with paying your dues have been quietly revoked.

The Builders Will Build

And yet. I look at what Pam Carbonero has built with the LA Directors Lab…she dreamed of and created a place where directors can practice their craft. I look at what’s happening on #FilmStack and the marvelous NonDē movement, giving independent artists a chance, for the first time in history, to not be dependent.

As Emily Best beautifully wrote:

“Independent film” only ever meant “independently financed.” Everything about distribution was dependent on gatekeepers - from festival programmers, to sales agents to distributors. We are in fact in an entirely new era of truly independent film. Which is why NonDē exists, and why we built The Distribution Playbook not as a static resources but as a responsive and ever-changing one. What I believe is that every filmmaker deserves a chance. And as industry leaders we should be extremely clear about the hard work - the uniquely bleeding edge innovation, in fact - that is required to succeed right now.

Indie Film, We're Going to the Cottage

I celebrate the small wins. Yesterday, LA City Council voted unanimously to adopt seven motions by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian to help Keep Hollywood Home! The initiative streamlines the permitting process, reduces fees, and eliminates dated and redundant regulations. All of this will make filming in LA just a bit easier for all.

So yes, choosing hope is very much the vibe over here. People are building parallel structures. People are finding each other. People are refusing to let the work disappear just because the system is failing to support it.

That spirit has always been at the heart of Blue Collar Hollywood. Of Indie Hollywood.. Call it whatever. We make it work. We figure it out. We show up.

So as the cameras roll and the envelopes get opened next Sunday, I’ll be thinking about all the people whose names won’t be called. Who still chose to show up and do the work regardless of the odds. Whose dedication to the craft is the a big part of how any of this gets to exist at all.

The Oscars don’t show you that part.

But I see it. And I see you.

Keep creating, keep hustling. And as always, thanks for doing this life thing with me!

Angle on Producers is a podcast demystifying the role of producers and spotlighting the magic makers in Hollywood. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and if you’re a producer (or aspiring to be one), join our community for exclusive resources, networking opportunities, and more insights like this!