Entry-Level Positions For Aspiring Television Writers
Entry-level television positions for undergraduates include writer's assistant, production assistant, and script coordinator roles within the writer's room, although the latter "would be very hard to get right out of school." Alternatively, assisting at agencies, management companies, or with various production executives offers "almost equally viable" pathways into the industry, allowing lateral movement toward writing opportunities.
Entry-Level Jobs, Television Production, Networking, Career Paths, Assistant Roles
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Marshall Knight
Executive Story Editor
Television Writers Room
UCLA
n/a
Arts, Entertainment & Media, Advertising, Communications & Marketing
Creative
Honors Student, Worked 20+ Hours in School, Student Athlete
Video Highlights
1. Entry-level positions in television writing include writers' assistants, production assistants, and script coordinators. Script coordinators are more technical and require on-the-job training, often after gaining experience in other roles.
2. Assisting roles outside the writer's room, such as at agencies, management companies, or with development executives, provide valuable experience and networking opportunities.
3. Working as an assistant in other departments, like post-production or with a line producer, allows proximity to the show's core team and potential lateral moves into writing roles.
Transcript
What entry-level positions in this field might an undergraduate college student consider?
As I mentioned before, there's the writer's room support staff, which is the path my writing partner and I both took. Those roles include production assistant writer, assistant showrunner, and script coordinator.
The script coordinator is a pretty technical job that would be very hard to get right out of school. However, if you have one of the other jobs, it's the kind of thing you can be trained on the job to do.
These roles are right in the heart of the writer's room. You're one of the approximately 10 people most familiar with the show's workings. Obviously, they're very appealing if you can get them.
I would say there are a whole world of jobs that are almost equally viable in terms of creating windows of opportunity. Those might be being an assistant at an agency or management company, or an assistant to a development executive at a production company, studio, network, or even a current creative executive.
Another option is working in a show's post-production department, for a line producer, or pretty much anyone at an upper level in the production team. Being an assistant or coordinator in those roles will keep you within arm's length of the show's brain trust.
Almost any of those roles would create some opportunities for you to jump, not necessarily up a ladder, but laterally over from, say, post-production to the writer's department, and then up from there. So, I'd say any of those would be really appealing coming right out of school.
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