How I got my job as a showrunner assistant
A series detailing everything from how I got the job to what the room is like and what's next!
My first official showrunner assistant gig (in the room) is complete! I’m already missing being surrounded by professional writers everyday and watching them break a season one TV show and before this job, I knew I wanted to work in the writer’s room but I really had never heard or got any super detailed insight of what goes on in the room on a day to day basis nor how people really got these types of jobs. It’s all very elusive and shadowy and some of it for good reason but I figured there was a lot I could still shed light on!
I decided to make this a little series about all of the above and more…
How I got the job
What is the role of a showrunner assistant
The jobs and roles within the writer’s room - I’ve already made a post about what the hierarchy of the room is like if you want to check that out:
What is a regular day like in the room? How does the room function and run? What does the room look like?
The some of my favorite lessons and takeaways!
What happens next?!
So first things first…
How did I land a the job of a showrunner assistant?
I think it’s important to start at the very beginning of my career because I didn’t just land in LA and get this gig. My career trajectory is something I’ve been over a few times so if you want to skip down to the “showrunner assistant” part I won’t be offended.
2019 - Personal Assistant
I got my start in 2019 as a personal assistant to Brian Kavanaugh-Jones (Insidious, Upgrade, Longlegs and a million other things). He and Fred Berger (La La Land, Bad Education, A Complete Unknown) were running a company called Automatik. It was partnered with the management company Grandview at the time.
I got this job through the infamous Awesome Assistant groups which someone was kind enough to invite me to during my first and only internship as a script reader. That internship was unpaid and about 2-3 days a week in Beverly Hills. It was an amazing learning experience because I literally was writing coverage without using words like protagonist and act one, act two, act three… so I had a lot to learn!
Now back to getting the job. BKJ’s first assistant posted in the group that a producer was looking for a part-time personal assistant.
A friend tagged me in that post and I reached out but I didn’t hear back for months.
I had come out to LA with a remote job making websites and social campaigns for small companies and car dealerships lol so I was fortunate enough to have a flex schedule. I was pretty jam-packed so I was actually worried and not sure if I could say yes to the job but… then again, this is literally what I came out to LA to do.
Oh well. I moved on then out of the blue they reached back out and asked if I could come in and meet that week.
I took the interview and was hired in the room. Clearly, BKJ needed someone really bad and I was just there at the right time.
This job was a crash course in proactive thinking. It was very much personal assistant work, getting oil changes, grabbing gifts, picking up kittens from the shelter.
I tried to be as proactive as possible, I made lists of house work to be done, I made lists for upcoming plans and birthdays and slowly gained the trust of BKJ, his family and also folks in the office. Being able to stop by the ‘Grandview-Automatik’ office was amazing because I got to make friends with the other assistants and learn about their jobs.
From there, I slowly would mention that my other job was marketing and social media and BKJ offered me the chance to do their company social media and I jumped at it.
2019-2023 - Social Media Manager
I took over the social media accounts for Automatik around July, I think… (memory is such a fickle thing) and I think within a week of posting on the production company, BKJ let me know that Alma Har’el wanted someone to take over the social for her upcoming film HONEY BOY with Shia LaBeouf. I guess she had seen a few of my posts and liked them.
BKJ asked if I’d be interested in meeting with her and OBVIOUSLY. I took the meeting and again, a mixture of preparation, luck and timing. Alma hired me… or well specifically had Amazon interview and hire me. It was a whirlwind from there, I went to every Q&A, almost every award show - all while running the socials for the account and still doing some personal assistant stuff for BKJ and my other clients!
After the Honey Boy campaign was coming to an end, BKJ and Fred sat me down and told me they thought I should focus on marketing and really try to grow a business that way. So I was giving up my personal assistant duties and diving in…
Amazon
The Honey Boy campaign went well and Amazon asked if I wanted to work on some of their other projects too and it kicked off this really amazing relationship. I was working on all kinds of TV shows and films for Amazon. Doing social work, graphic design and a lot of odds and ends.
QCODE
This was definitely another lucky break. BKJ was opening up a podcast company with some other folks. It was called QCODE and he said it could be one of my “clients” along with Amazon.
QCODE was booked and busy during all of COVID because the actors could record from their homes so my workload during COVID was solid and secure.
Production & Management Companies
BKJ and Fred were introducing me to their fellow producing partners and letting them know I could help with social media and also general marketing like pitch decks, production BTS and more.
This was mostly for feature writers and producers but I was able to meet a few TV producers and writers too.
2020 - 2025 - WRITING CAREER
Covid was a reality check in a lot of ways and horrible in too many to count but it did also force me to confront that I was getting a little sidetracked with my marketing gigs. So, I refocused and wrote my first pilot in 2020.
I posted it the paid review side of the Blacklist website and got an 8. It’s definitely what gave me the confidence to keep writing so during these two years, I think I wrote like 13 scripts - some TV pilots, some features and it was a huge learning opp.
THE BLACKLIST
Then in 2022, a friend told me they wanted to vote for one of those scripts called BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME. This was a CRAZY idea that I didn’t even think was possible.
I did not have any reps at this time so from there it was an all out sprint to ask others who had read to vote if they liked it AND find more people to read it. By some stroke of luck, yet again (i must have been a saint in a past life) I ended up on the end of year 2022 blacklist! This got me a LOT of meetings with different reps, production companies and more.
I GOT MANAGERS!
This was dope but this happened and then it was…
THE STRIKES
This was very unfortunate timing lol
THE CONSTRICTION
And once the strikes ended, my reps did take out a pilot of mine and it got me a ton of general meetings which was amazing! I even pitched on a book adaption and got a YES in the room… and then got ghosted lol such is life people!
I had also heard during this constriction, the only way to get a writer’s room staffing job was to know people. So, I started reaching out to producers and writers who I had worked on their pitch decks and materials with to introduce myself and I kept hearing over and over how hard it was.
I LOST MANAGERS!
Then earlier this year, my managers let me go. They said I needed someone who had a bit more bandwidth to handle all of my idea generating and i was CRUSHEDDDDD…. but something I least expected was around the corner….
2023 - Today - Marketing Manager
As I got better at managing social accounts, I started branching off into different segments of the marketing world for various production companies and streamer/studio partners.
I had made a lot of connections and had a solid base of referral work through these companies. I wasn’t really trying to expand but just to keep my clients happy and have a solid monthly income while still having time to focus on writing.
I was working on developing early stage marketing plans for their films that would carry them through pre-production to post with a lot of emphasis on behind the scenes footage and social media. This includes anything from pitch decks to film festival strategy and full social media and experiential campaigns that I wasn’t implementing anymore but designing. This is work I still do today!
2022 - Today - Tiktok, IG, Substack Content Creator
It was around the time that I felt like I was in a pretty solid place in my marketing career that I started kind of randomly sharing my journey on tiktok.
I talked about making pitch decks, running social campaigns and how I’ve been making my way slowly but surely through the industry. Being an assistant, best practices, my writing routine, really anything that I thought might be helpful to someone else out there that started like me - no connections and overwhelmed.
When I heard about substack I thought it would be the perfect place to organize all of my really chaotic videos into more long-winded step by step processes docs because I’m someone who likes an easy to reference walkthrough and I had a lot of repeat questions that I thought I could reference and point people to here.
2025 - Showrunner assistant gig!
So, between building up my tiktok and my substack is exactly how I got the job.
Al Letson, a journalist, playwright and screenwriter reached out after finding my Tiktok and substack. He asked if we could work on a pitch deck together for a feature he was going out to production companies with.
I said yes and we just had a very chill and great working relationship together then literally the week that my manager’s dropped me, Al reached out asking if I knew of anyone who was interested in a showrunner assistant gig.
Obviously when I had managers, I was always hoping I was gonna be able to stick the support level time and get staffed right away but the more and more I had heard about how folks got their first TV writer's room job, it’s almost always through their own network. Management or an agent comes in after that and can start trying to put you up for other rooms.
So, I decided it would be an amazing learning experience if I could just see how the room worked since for the most part I have worked more in marketing for features and never really got an idea of what the inside of a writer’s room is like except from books I’ve read!
I did the interview and luckily got the gig and it has been such an amazing experience. Everyone I work with is extremely chill and supportive.
Week by week I’m gonna be rolling out this series.
Next week will be all about what being a showrunner assistant actually entails.
I hope it’s helpful and if you have any questions please drop them in the comments!
Love this! Looking forward to the whole series
Very inspiring