How Did You Get Started?
Charlie Tuna, radio deejay, KBIG-104
“When I was growing up in Kearney, Neb., there was a very creative morning man named Jack Lewis. He talked about UFOs and announced snow days for school. I thought he had the greatest job in the world. I decided I wanted to be a deejay because of him.
“My mom and dad picked up on the idea that I really liked radio and bought me a used record player. I would play the records, pretend I was on the radio and practice talking in my little room.
“My dad arranged for me to cut an audition tape. Months later, they called me. I did the 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. spot until one day, the morning man couldn’t come to work after drinking too much. I filled in for the morning show, they loved it, and I replaced the other guy. I was working my dream job at 16.
“Eventually, I made it to a station in Oklahoma City, which covered most of the Midwest and the West. Larry Lujack was driving from Seattle to Boston when he heard me in Wyoming and asked me to audition in Boston. I worked in Boston until I got a call from KHJ in Los Angeles. Once I saw the sunshine and palm trees, I decided I liked it. I was 21 and at the No. 1 station in America.”
Katherine Wang
Tim Berry, producer, “Becker”
“I wasn’t planning on entering the entertainment industry when I was in college. I was a graphic design major, but I had been working at CBS as a page, ushering audiences into shows and taking messages for the cast, crew and producers.
“Over my years as an usher, I got to meet some people at the Mary Tyler Moore company. I had just finished school and was literally putting together my portfolio for art direction jobs at my kitchen table when MTM called and asked me to be a gofer.
“I wasn’t blind to the fact that this was a tremendous opportunity. It was clear to me that if I worked hard and had the right attitude, it could turn into something.
“I did that for a season, and the next season I was made a producer’s assistant. MTM was growing by leaps and bounds at the time. I did ‘Rhoda’ for a number of years as an assistant producer. Then I moved to Paramount as an associate producer. Sometime later, Glen and Les Charles and Jim Burrows asked me if I wanted to do a show about a bar. At ‘Cheers,’ I started as associate producer and in last couple seasons, I produced and directed a few episodes.”
Katherine Wang
Gregory Ecklund, animation director, Heavy Iron Studios
“At high school in Kansas I knew I wanted to draw. I also wanted to move to Los Angeles, not for my career, but just because I thought it would be a cool place to live. So I went to CalArts. I studied character animation there and I loved it. I also loved video games, anything character-based, like Donkey Kong, not driving games.
“After school I did animated films for ‘Spike and Mike’s Festival of Animation.’ These were in colored pencil. And then I got a job at some movie houses like Digital Domain in Venice, and that’s where I learned to do digital stuff on a computer.
“So I finally got hired at Square USA as an animator, but then it shut down. Then I worked for Rainmaker but they shut down too. That’s how it is at most video game companies, they just come and go. Then, in 2000, when Heavy Iron was starting up, I joined under the condition that they have a good animation director. Well, they asked me to be that director. And whoa, that was a step up.”
Rachel Rosmarin
John Hora, cinematographer
“The way I became a cameraman was genetic. My father was an amateur photographer. My mother’s father had a photo studio in Missouri, and his father had one during the Civil War. When I talk to people I shift my position so that they look like a good composition.
“I went to Pasadena City College, and when I started USC in 1959, they informed us that no graduates ever went in the film industry. Everyone worked for Lockheed filming missile tests and that’s what we should expect.
“I couldn’t get any work in Hollywood. After a year of living at my parents’ house, my mom got mad and ordered me to get a job. Through friends of my father I got in TV commercials in 1962, when no one knew anything. I worked on some national car commercials for Ford, Lincoln and Mercury.
“We didn’t get paid much in the 1960s. Seven hundred dollars a week. Today, a commercial freelance cameraman gets about $3,000 a day. It’s been pretty stable at that rate for about 15 years. When I was really hopping, maybe I worked 50 days a year.”
Matt Myerhoff
J.A. Maldonado, producer
“I started out as a rock-and-roll musician. We opened for bands like Heart and Journey in the 1980s. In 1985 I went back to school and got a bachelor’s in fine arts and film production from City College of New York’s Picker Film Institute. Then I came to California to work in the entertainment business, but I got a little sidetracked.
“I started my own business, Malla Entertainment. Between ’85 and ’92 I represented bands playing for Sony and Atlantic Records. That brought me from the music business into the video world, and I worked on videos with Guns n’ Roses and The Cult.
“When I was in bands, I always managed to raise the money, find the studio, get everything arranged. And isn’t that what a producer does? So I guess I was always working as a producer. My first experience in filmmaking was in 1975. I was in my 20s and had a band in New York, and someone gave me a 16-millimeter camera and we shot a music video.”
Matt Myerhoff
Bill Brown, music director/composer
“I played piano as a kid, but I was lucky because my high school in New Jersey had an electronic music program way back in 1984. I had great teachers and was able to go to Berklee College of Music in Boston and I got a degree in film scoring. I interned for a few years at studios in New York and I got to do some commercial work. Then, I decided to move out to L.A, and man, I just loved it. My introduction to L.A. was working with David Lynch. I did music for his ‘Lost Highway.’
“Soon after, in 1996, I was brought in to Soundelux DMG in the music division. People here were forging relationships with Tom Clancy’s company, Red Storm Entertainment, and I began doing music for his game titles. At that time I did two demos, and looking back, they really were benchmarks for my career.”
Rachel Rosmarin
