The Indian media and entertainment (M&E) industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the country. Its various segments comprising film, television, advertising, print and digital have witnessed a tremendous growth in the last few years.
The industry is driven by strong consumption in non-metro and small cities, intense emergence of regional media as well as burgeoning new media businesses and formats, consumed mostly in the urban areas. The growing entertainment sector in India thus offers ample opportunities and important career options to choose from. Make sure to pick wisely in order to avail of all the benefits it presents.
1. Acting – Films, TV Series and Plays
If you aspire to be an actor, you can always start off working as an extra in a movie, a TV series, an advertisement or a play, which means you won’t have a speaking part. You’ll have to work long hours during rehearsals, theatre shows and film shoots; your acting gigs may not last longer than a day or a month; you might have a hard time finding regular employment too. But as you grow in the industry, you will establish yourself gradually.
2. Direction – Feature Films, Ad Films, TV Series and Plays
If you direct a play, ad film or a feature film, you’ll be in charge of casting actors, conducting rehearsals and telling the actors how to interpret and enact a script. You’ll also be in charge of approving all creative decisions, such as, set and costume design, lighting, camera angles, choreography and music. You may have a team of assistants who will help make these decisions. Depending on the production you’re working on, you may have to justify your decisions to your executive producer or financier.
3. Choreography – Films and Fashion Shows
If you are keen towards dancing, being a choreographer can be a wonderful option for you. As a choreographer, you’ll work with dancers at a theatre, a movie studio, a fashion house - making the shows, or at a dance school as a dance instructor. Depending on your workplace and the production in which you’re working, you may have total creative control of your project or your work may be supervised by a director. Generally, your work as a choreographer gets enhanced if you have a sound background and proper training in dance.
4. Music – Instrumental and Singing
If you can sing well, play an instrument or have an interest in the world of music, there are actually plenty of career choices available in the music industry to choose from. You may decide to sing solo for films, perform in a music band, participate in an orchestra or you may decide to work for a record label, composing and producing music. If you work on the business side of music, you can start your own record company as well. Training and education are required for a good professional career in music. For that, you can opt for courses from music colleges.
5. Music Managers, Music Arrangers and Music Producers
If you decide to work for a record company, you can choose to be a manager or a producer. In this profile, your responsibilities will include signing new artists to your record label, producing songs for radio play and merchandising your label’s music. You might also get to compose and arrange music for artists to sing. The primary goal of your job will be to seek and trace potentially hit songs and record them. Music mixing and creating tracks without playing instruments and singing are quite interesting as a job too.
6. Writing – Scripts, Screenplays, Dialogues, Lyrics
If you have an inherent talent of creative writing, this one is the best option for you. Film and TV writers are the people who create the stories and screenplays, which are made into films, television shows or plays. Creative writing can take the form of writing lyrics for songs too, helping you gain a foothold in the music industry.
7. Art Direction – Advertising and Films
Working as an art director makes you responsible for overseeing a team of designers who create layouts, artwork and slogans for films, plays and visual media, including advertisements, magazine covers and websites. You’ll also be responsible for presenting your team’s work to supervisors and clients. If you work for a corporation or a publishing company, you are most likely to work in an office.
8. Multimedia Artists and Animators
As a multimedia artist, you’ll have to know how to render images on computers as well as by hand. While your exact responsibilities may vary depending on your workplace, generally you’ll get to create the animation and manipulate images using computer programs. Your job responsibilities may include sketching and drawing, creating computerized visual effects, operating cameras and editing films.
Today, with the advent of web media, inundated avenues opened up for students having inherent creative skills and a bend towards having a career in the entertainment industry. With the choices explained and the information at hand, choose the right role at the entertainment industry that would let you explore your creative abilities to the fullest.