Just fucking figure it out
I know nothing about the entertainment industry, but this idea of 'putting in your dues' by working your way up from a menial position based on personal relationships has always seemed naive. Either you can do something or you can't, and working as a dogsbody isn't going to impart those skills.<p>This advice seems like the equivalent of telling someone who wants to be a game programmer to start in the QA department. You're better off just becoming a programmer. Create a game. Someone with a kick-ass demo is going to get ten times as many interviews as a guy who spends the same time pumping his connections.<p>Maybe I'm naive about the way television works, but if I wanted to be a writer in TV I'd start by trying to write something that was so good, people couldn't ignore me. And if I couldn't find someone to produce it, I would try to produce it myself. More than one career started with a film that only cost a few thousand dollars to produce. And if it didn't work out, at least I'd have spent the time doing something creative and productive rather than wasting my life fetching coffee and dry cleaning.