Why it is important to prepare the Hollywood interview

Let’s say you are already bored of cracking the coding interview. You have crushed all your interviews at Big Tech companies and want new challenges. For that reason, you have an interview next week with a Hollywood executive producer where you will conceptualize a new movie. You have to come up with a film from scratch but you don’t know where to start. This time, you have to carefully think about and explain your choices. There is a lot of money involved: on average, the production of a significant box office movie costs $65 million, without counting the marketing and distribution fees.

It is brain surgery! It is bloody brain surgery! You’re putting together a whole group of people, you’re trying to budget as accurately as you can and, at the end of it, you’ve got to sell a lot of tickets. That’s more complex than banking …I’m not kidding myself: I love the challenge. If you don’t, don’t do the job.

– Ridley Scott

There are many challenges that can make it difficult to produce a good movie. Some of the main questions include finding a compelling, well-written story that can engage and entertain the audience, assembling a talented cast, etc. We present some of the most common challenges identified by filmmakers in a survey in 2019.