SEPTEMBER 2005 :: CAREERS

Hollywood Ending
How I Got Here: Erika Schimik, Film Marketing Executive

By Adelle Waldman
CollegeJournal.com

Hollywood film executive Erika Schimik is a long way from Traverse City, Mich., the small resort town on Lake Michigan where she grew up. But the 29-year-old vice president of theatrical marketing for Lions Gate Films always knew she wanted a career in film-no matter how slim the odds seemed for a girl from the Midwest with no connections in the entertainment industry.

Erika's Insights

¶ In the entertainment industry, 'people are too busy to read long cover letters. Keep it short.'

¶ 'Studying film or communications, especially at a prestigious school, makes a difference'

¶ 'When you are an assistant in an industry like this, sometimes people are going to be kind of mean'

These days, Ms. Schimik oversees the production of all marketing materials-trailers, commercials, posters-for Lions Gate, a studio that produced such films as "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" and award winners like "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "Monster's Ball."

It's a position she loves, and one she spent years working toward with the gusto of a person who knew what she wanted and who was prepared to make sacrifices along the way.

'I Could Do Anything'

One thing Ms. Schimik had going for her was a willingness to take risks, she says. "When I was in college, I lived in Germany for a year. I spoke German, but not very well," she says. "I kind of felt like I could do anything after that."

"Anything" included moving to Los Angeles without a job after graduating from the University of Michigan in 1997, instead of taking a corporate job or heading to graduate school as many of her classmates did. Ms. Schimik's move to Southern California made her parents nervous, since she had no job prospects, she says. She didn't even have any relevant internships, Ms. Schimik says, because she spent her summers working to earn money.

In L.A., she began working as a waitress to pay the bills while sending out resumes. She had read up on the entertainment industry and knew to keep her cover letter short. "In this industry, people are too busy to bother to read long cover letters-the shorter the better," she says. And her resume was easy to read and in a clean font. "If you are too creative, people may interpret that as being too high-maintenance," she says. "People are looking for someone to cater to their needs."

It took her about six weeks to secure an unpaid internship for Wildwood Enterprises, a film-production company that looks for films for Robert Redford to direct or star in. She says it helped that she studied film in college-that sparked people's interest. "Studying film or communications, especially at a prestigious school, makes a difference," she says. "There are people in the industry who didn't go to such a great college, but people definitely notice when you have that."

A month later, she had a paid position as a development assistant. She credits her willingness "to pitch in and help out" with unglamorous tasks: faxing, filing, photocopying and running errands. She was making about $25,000 a year-but she was in.

Getting her next job proved easier. Armed with experience, Ms. Schimik got a job as a development assistant at a production company affiliated with Miramax a year and a half later. Being closer to a large studio enabled her to make more contacts with high-level executives, she says. Meanwhile, she acted as a "jack of all trades," managing an office of about six or seven people. She'd spend about 10 hours a day in the office, primarily on administrative tasks, before going home in the evening to spend another two or three hours reading scripts and film treatments. And she'd usually devote at least a Saturday or Sunday to reading for work.

Thick Skin

Once, when she read a promising manuscript on a weekend, her boss asked her to bring it to his house right away. He didn't ask her to come inside. "I threw it over his gate," she says.

Ms. Schimik says a thick skin in such instances helped her career. "When you are an assistant in an industry like this, sometimes people are going to be kind of mean," she says.

Through a contact she'd made, she secured her next position, reporting to the director of development of Trimark Pictures. It was a step up. "I was no longer answering anybody's phones," she says. Still, she was hardly earning more in base salary than when she'd started-although with overtime pay, she was bringing in an extra $10,000 or so a year.

Soon after, Trimark was purchased by Lions Gate. Ms. Schimik was worried she'd be out of a job, but Lions Gate offered her a post in marketing. Instead of working on script development, she'd be promoting films already produced. She was thrilled-she thought the work would be interesting, and she thought marketing was a safer route, as many development jobs were being cut after the boom of the late 1990s gave way to recession.

Ms. Schimik has been in marketing at Lions Gate for more than four years, and she was promoted to vice president last fall. She says she can envision herself at Lions Gate for the long term. "My boss is brilliant," she says. "If you can find someone who is really good and stay with them and have a mentor, it makes all the difference."

By now, her parents have long since stopped questioning the wisdom of her move to L.A. to pursue her dream, she says. She tries to downplay her career to her family in Michigan. "I don't want to seem like I'm bragging," she says.