The Way We Work: On the Job in Hollywood

Written by Bruce Ferber

Narrated by Jamie Renell

Despite increasing corporate mergers and bottom-line thinking, the entertainment business will never function like a bank or an insurance company because it is an industry rooted in imagination. Rules are meant to be broken. The best work is often produced in an environment where plans change by the minute and nothing seems to make sense. To wit, those who choose this profession must alter preconceived notions of work itself, sometimes discovering that fantasy and horror describe both movie genres and life on the job. The phenomenon crosses class lines: From the writers, directors, and producers to the lawyers, agents, studio executives, and crew and right down to the porta-potty suppliers.

The Way We Work provides a window into the skill sets and the insanity that make movies and television tick. Essays by award-winning writers, directors, and producers chronicle the process and the obstacles facing those at the top of the creative food chain. Oral histories from executives to “below-the-line” workers describe life in the trenches, which often present as Stud's Terkel's Working―on acid.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Everand Productions
• Release date: Apr 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781094416625

Bruce Ferber

Bruce Ferber is an Emmy and Golden Globe nominee whose television writing and producing credits include Bosom Buddies, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Coach, and Home Improvement, where he served as Executive Producer and showrunner. He turned to writing fiction with the 2012 publication of his novel, Elevating Overman, its audiobook voiced by Jason Alexander. His second novel, Cascade Falls won the Foreword Indie Book of the Year Bronze Prize for General Fiction, and Gold Prize for Humor, Fiction.

Reviews for The Way We Work

[davischristopherjohn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I definitely felt the most interesting stories came from unseen, underrepresented sections of the film industry, though two of the big stars had surprisingly candid essays in here. Intentionally or not, multiple contributors casually mentioned difficult actors in a pre-2023 SAG strike tone-- leaving the impression that performers are lazy, vapid, and deserve the psychologically damaging treatment, body dismorphia, and routine job insecurity they receive from gatekeepers and studio executives. This book is worth a listen for sure. Most of the advice given for how to break into the business was simply: "do something else," which I felt was peculiarly honest for this type of collection.

[Andrew Farnsworth · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Really enjoyed this look behind the scenes of TV and films. From big names like JJ Abrams to make up artists and animal handlers all the important cogs that make the films and TV hits (and misses)