Five Things Movies & TV Get Wrong About the Arts

I’ve spent more than 20 years working in the performing arts. As a result, I watch films and television set in this world a little differently.

Without naming names, here are 5 things Hollywood routinely gets wrong:

1. The conductor is a tyrant. Screen conductors are almost always written as sociopaths or saints. In reality, the job is closer to a CEO who also acts as a therapist, fundraiser, and diplomat - - and whose contract can be non-renewed by the board on any given Tuesday. Great conducting isn’t about control, power, or ego; it’s about humility and collaborative leadership.

2. Rehearsing well and performing well are different skills. Some artists are extraordinary in rehearsal and merely good in performance. Others are completely ordinary at 10:30 in the morning, but become incandescent when the lights come up. Professionals know the difference. Movies rarely do.

3. The physical demands are brutal. Dancers are obvious athletes. But so are musicians. Repetitive motion, unnatural posture, breath control, embouchure, tendonitis, chronic back problems, hearing damage, and exhaustion are routine. And don't get me started about the prevalent use of beta blockers for performance anxiety. Yet most films expect musicians to walk onstage looking completely at ease.

4. Musicians aren't fragile, solitary artists. Orchestral musicians are closer to skilled tradespeople with a union card. They commute, freelance three gigs to pay rent, and negotiate contracts collectively. The brooding genius is almost entirely fiction. But eccentric personalities are not.

5. The big performance isn't where the real drama happens. Films inevitably build toward opening night, the competition, or the big concert. But the real drama usually happens three weeks earlier in a rehearsal room, a board meeting, an orchestra committee discussion, or a ten-second exchange backstage. By opening night, most professionals are working hard to make sure absolutely nothing dramatic happens.

The performing arts look romantic from the audience. 

But from backstage, it's a workplace. A strange, demanding, and occasionally magnificent one.

-------------

I’m writing stories set in this beautiful, treacherous, deliciously dysfunctional world.

From the inside.

Ethan Danov 

Conductor | Screenwriter 

Creator, Firebirds