To really succeed in the Entertainment Industry, look to see what works and work out how you can be a part of it. Consider the advice below.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The Music
The Hunger Games; Catching Fire soundtrack includes one of the more diverse collections of artists assembled in decades, mixing established musical icons including seven-time Grammy-winning band Coldplay, one of the most original, talented, and influential rock artists of all time; Patti Smith, and Grammy Award-winning Christina Aguilera, along with some of the biggest chart-topping talent in the music business, including Imagine Dragons.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire soundtrack has already seen its first release, Coldplay’s “Atlas,” debut at #1 on the iTunes Overall Top Songs chart.
The first Hunger Games partnership between Republic Records and Lionsgate yielded the Grammy Award-winning, chart-dominating TheHunger Games: Songs From District 12 And Beyond executive produced by T Bone Burnett.
The album hit #1 on the charts with its release, with sales over 175,000, making it the first soundtrack to top the chart since November 2009. It was the best-selling soundtrack of 2012, the fastest selling soundtrack ever at iTunes, and was certified gold by the RIAA shortly after its release.
The album earned a Golden Globe Award nomination and three Grammy Award nominations, and its first single, Taylor Swift’s “Safe & Sound” featuring The Civil Wars, won Grammy Award for “Best Song Written for Visual Media.”
Succeed in the Entertainment Industry
Whether you want to be a famous model, actor, singer, director, producer, or whatever, the following advice will help you in almost any chosen area of entertainment.
1. Get educated. Read many books, articles, blogs, and watch many documentaries and interviews by those who have succeeded doing what you want to do. Education in the area you want to succeed in is key to mastering that area.
2. Get a mentor. Find a person doing what you want to do, that is successful at it, and ask to study with them, train with them, get coached by them, mentor with them, intern for them, or assist them. Watch, observe, and learn. After you are competent, then duplicate their successful actions in your own unique way.
3. Promote. You must get out there and meet people all throughout the industry and promote yourself non-stop. When I first began as a talent manager, I would go out (or would have my interns, assistants, or clients go out for the company) four to five nights or more out of the week to events, passing out hundreds of cards on a regular basis, and collecting thousands of business cards from others, and then following up on every single one of them and creating new business. That which does not expand, contracts. You must constantly be promoting yourself and constantly creating new business leads and opportunities for yourself. Do not wait to be ‘discovered.’
4. Get ‘their’ information. I am always amazed by people who tell me they met some big star or important A-list VIP, and they did not get their information, or only gave them ‘their’ card, and then complain to me how they never heard back from them. Duh. An A-list star or top executive does not need new business from an unknown. You ‘must’ get ‘their’ information, and then, follow up quickly.
It’s not who you know in this business, it’s who knows ‘you!’ – A.C. Lyles
5. Promote more. Promote in person. Promote online. Promote with fliers. Promote in every single way possible you can think of, and then promote some more. I was driving down Sunset Boulevard one day, and I passed a diner that had a bunch of classic cars parked in front, which I noticed. But what really caught my eye was a man sitting in a folding chair near one of the cars, smoking a pipe next to a big pink elephant. Yes, an actual elephant. The man was named David Lynch, and he was promoting his new film coming out called “Mulholland Drive.” It was brilliant and funny, and kept me happy thinking and talking about it for months to follow. If one of the best directors in the world can sit on a lawn chair in the grass outside of a diner with a pink elephant to promote his movie, can’t you do something too?
6. Learn from everyone and everything. I recently heard something to the effect that “A person can learn from everyone, even if their intentions are different than our own.” This is very true. The person that rejects you, annoys you, or even makes you mad, may be in your life at that moment to teach you something. Life is a lesson to learn. Be open to all moments and experiences as a learning adventure. Learn what you can from all, and don’t take anything personally that would lower your mood to anything less than happy.
To read the rest of this list, visit The Hollywood Sentinel at this link, and go to the table of contents on the left of the page, clicking on the article How to Succeed In Hollywood.
