What's it like living in LA in 2022?

[carlc]

OK, so I've been called to an interview with a game studio in LA for an in-house position as a composer, working on some very well known titles. I know I may be a little ahead, but I would like to go into the interview knowing more about what kind of salaries I need to have to not just get by, but actually live decent? I will not accept anything less as I have a good life here in Sweden, but this job may actually be quite exiting. But again, its not worth lowering my standards of living for it.

Anyone have a number for me?

It’s great to do your research and have an idea of where you need to be… of course, you shouldn’t offer a number to your potential employer since you could be leaving $$ on the table. Let them throw out the first number.

There are a lot of factors that could cause huge swings in the amount needed. Is the role full time on site or can it be part time remote? How much of a commute is reasonable for you? Typical ranges are 30-120 minutes. Note that public transportation in LA is extremely limited, even by US standards. Are you planning to relocate alone or with a family? Do you need to be in an area with decent schools?

If you can be remote some of the time, then taking on a longer commute may be ok. Housing (even renting) in the LA area is expensive, so going further out can drop the cost significantly.

 

[JohnG]

going further out can drop the cost significantly.

Excellent advice.

Don’t neglect Malibu either. You will spend a lot of time on Pacific Coast Highway, but if your hours are not 8-5 or something “regular,” it’s much cheaper than the middle of Los Angeles, and a better commute than way out East.

Unfortunately, if you do have regular hours, the commute is less attractive, but that’s true from any outlying area.

 

[charlieclouser]

A buddy of mine lived in a big loft in downtown LA for many years. Grew to hate it - too grungy. Moved to Woodland Hills (which is in between Calabasas and Topanga, about as far west as you can get and still say you're in LA). Liked it better.

Even pre-pandemic, he realized that no directors were coming over to his place, and everything was remote via Zoom / Source Connect / etc. So he....

Moved to Hawaii!

He's building a house from the ground up, and the build cost is around $500 per square foot, even in the middle of the ocean. You'd have to cut some serious corners to build for that price in LA. Most new residential of a decent quality is $700-1,000 per foot. And the land was MUCH cheaper. This was a surprise to me as I thought for sure Hawaii costs would be double the mainland. And for the price he paid for the empty lot in Hawaii, in a gated community with ocean view, nice wide streets, and fast internet, was what you'd pay for a postage stamp of dirt in a crap area way north in the Valley in LA. Surprised me too.

He's still in a rented house out there while the build takes place, but I do Zooms with him all the time and the island internet is fine. They even have Google Fiber in lots of areas!

Now, I'm not using his example to suggest moving to Hawaii, just as further evidence that for many folks it now matters less where you are physically located. And pandemic proved this. He was able to sell his LA house for 1.5x what he paid five years prior, partly because so many people wanted to move out of Hollywood and out to the 'burbs once they realized they could WFH etc.

He's well-established, in his sixties, and isn't doing AAA features or grinding out three network series at a time. He does HBO limited series, documentaries, and stuff like that, so not at the top of the heap but not scrabbling in the dirt either. His kids are grown and out of the house, just him and the wife. So while that example doesn't really apply for someone getting started or establishing a foothold or whatever, it's just further evidence that the pandemic and Zoom proved that, for some folks, location matters less than it might have 3-5 years ago.

Hell, I just did a cable movie last fall and I didn't see anyone in person the whole time. Might as well have been on Mars - if they have Google Fiber on Mars that is...

 

[Kent]

How does one use this really? I am looking at Colorado and comparing to Los Angeles. For the same type of professions, the salaries are very similar. Does that mean cost of living is very similar in both places?

Salaries are what you put in your pocket.

Cost of living is what you take out of your pocket.

If in your area your salary is above your cost of living, great!

If not, uh oh.

Since the career (and therefore average salary) is already known in this case (and is a useless number anyways, here), ignore the salary section & use the cost of living section.

 

[JJP]

Even pre-pandemic, he realized that no directors were coming over to his place, and everything was remote via Zoom / Source Connect / etc. So he....

On the other end of that...

I orchestrated, did music prep, and produced the recording session for a video game last year where the composer and developer were in Europe. We have never met in person. However, I had to be in LA because I had to be at the sessions and manage the production.

A few weeks ago I did music prep and was librarian for a film session in LA where the composer was on Zoom from Berlin, the orchestrator from London, and the director from Toronto.

Conversely, I've done work for Disney for over 15 years, lived within walking distance for most of that time, and still rarely see anybody in person. Yet, pre-pandemic I made a point of stopping by the Disney lot at least once per year so we could all go for a friendly lunch and talk in person. It's good for us to remind each other that there is a human being on the other end of the wire.

If in your area your salary is above your cost of living, great!

If not, uh oh.

@Andrajas This is very important, but don't fall into the trap of your salary being only a little over your cost of living. That is dangerous. If your costs or income change, you won't have any savings as a buffer. We work in a volatile industry, so planning ahead is vital.

Ideally, it's recommended that no more than 1/3 of your income should go towards housing, leaving 2/3 for other expenses, savings, and discretionary spending. However many people have difficulty achieving that in LA when they are starting because of the high housing costs. Nonetheless, it's a good ratio to keep in mind when considering any salary offer.

Also remember that there is no government healthcare in the USA, and it's common for employer-sponsored heathcare to require you to pay at least some costs. Look carefully at the health plans that are part of any job offer. Ask questions if you don't understand the benefits.

 

[joebaggan]

Honestly can't believe anyone would live in LA. A few days visit is plenty for me. Way overcrowded and expensive, fires, wasting 1/2 your life in a car with obscene traffic, pollution, fakeness all around. Long live the pacific northwest!

 

[carlc]

Excellent advice.

Don’t neglect Malibu either. You will spend a lot of time on Pacific Coast Highway, but if your hours are not 8-5 or something “regular,” it’s much cheaper than the middle of Los Angeles, and a better commute than way out East.

Unfortunately, if you do have regular hours, the commute is less attractive, but that’s true from any outlying area.

There are nice areas to the West, just outside of "The Valley"... Calabasas, Agoura Hils, Westlake Village, Oak Park, etc. If you want to go even further West, the cost drops off slightly more (Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Simi Valley). From out there, you can take 118 into LA. The areas to the West of LA are generally nicer than the areas to the East, IMHO.

 

[charlieclouser]

Honestly can't believe anyone would live in LA. A few days visit is plenty for me. Way overcrowded and expensive, fires, wasting 1/2 your life in a car with obscene traffic, pollution, fakeness all around. Long live the pacific northwest!

Well, that's true only for some areas and some lifestyles. I almost never drive, so rarely do I experience traffic problems. My daily driver is 16 years old and only has 90k miles on the clock! A tank of $6/gallon gas lasts me a month or two, even with a 6.1L v8 that gets 18mpg, and then only if I don't put my foot down.

And I'm in the freakin' wilderness out here, with 26 foot glass walls that look out across a completely empty and green canyon. No neighbor's houses visible except from one window in our laundry room. (and both of those neighbors are audio professionals, purely by coincidence, so no noise complaints when tracking drums!) I'm still only 7 minutes from the grocery stores and only 12 minutes from In-N-Out Burger (I've timed it), which is a crucial measurement in LA!

Pollution? Never heard of it. Not out here anyway. Clear blue skies 364 days a year (it does rain one day a year, hence 364 not 365). Never seen an Air Quality Index above 45 where I live, usually it's in the 30's (37 today). CA Smog regulations do not mess around, and they work. Glad it's not the seventies still, with leaded gas and no emissions controls! (Also glad that my 1970 'Cuda with the 440ci v8 is emissions exempt - they know I'm only gonna drive it for about an hour each weekends) Drought and potential water restrictions are a worry if you have a big lawn with irrigation, but I don't. All drought-tolerant here. Brushfires are a worry I guess, but not so much for me; my house is concrete and steel, and we clear brush to a radius of 100' every year so the FD loves me. Brushfire insurance is an expense, but at least I don't need flood insurance! And people in Tarzana / Encino / Van Nuys / Hollywood / N. Hollywood don't need brushfire insurance, it's only us wilderness dwellers that need it really.

Fakeness? I wouldn't know - I never see anyone but my friends, most of whom I've known for 20+ years.

But, yeah, if you're living in mid-city, Hollywood, or the Valley, and you need to get to Santa Monica every single day so you can pick all the brown M&Ms out of the bowls at Remote Control, you do have to pick where you live with traffic in mind for sure.

I've lived all over the country and travelled all over the world, and I still love LA!

Canyon carving though Malibu, sooo many awesome restaurants, 90 minutes to Big Bear for skiing... is LA the best place in the world? Maybe not. But it gets to 95% as good as the sum total of any five other places. Good enough for me.

 

[Mike Greene]

I've lived all over the country and travelled all over the world, and I still love LA!

I hear you on that. I haven't seen a client in person in years, and even Realitone employees all have moved elsewhere. (Do I really smell that bad???) Remote work is totally doable, so we could live anywhere now (the central California coast is particularly tempting), but ... there's just too much I love about L.A.. Beaches, theater, the music scene, sports, the weather ... it really is a great place.

But ... while I agree that an established composer probably doesn't need to be here, I will say that even in the age of Zoom and fast internet, if I were a young pup hoping to break into the business (and *if* I could afford it), I would still come to Los Angeles, simply because it gives the highest odds of meeting people. My experiences might not be typical, but these are all things that happened to me, and would have been less likely anywhere else:

The first record I ever played on (and met some cool people from) was because my next door neighbor was a DJ who got hired to produce a rap record and he didn't know any other keyboard players. Sounds insane, I know, but that's not the only time I've gotten gigs like that. (Meeting Cypress Hill was similarly insane.) It's one of the reasons I specifically moved to the West Hollywood area, since there were so many "up and coming" types that lived there.

The first commercial I ever scored was because the director was part of a weekly poker game I was in. (I didn't even know he was a director!) He didn't like the composer Mattel sent him (it was a Hot Wheels commercial), and he knew I was a real rock and roll guy, so he asked if I'd do it. I was focused on producing (records) and songwriting, but it sounding like fun, so I did it, and it was a ton of fun, plus the commercial won some awards, so I met a ton of people from that. The director and I became friends, which paid off later when he got a call from his brother in law in Seattle, who needed a composer for a "Science Guy" pilot.

My studio neighbors had a video production place, and they were editing some stuff for David Bowie's manager. The manager asked if they knew a place where he could play some old 2" reels to see what was on them, so they sent him to me. I did some rough mixes to cassette for him and as he looked around at my place (of course I had turned on all my synths ahead of time so the lights would be blinking impressively), he mentioned that David would be coming to town and would I be interested in doing some production work with him for some demos. Hell yes! We got along great and I wound up working on a whole bunch of stuff. (Black Tie - White Noise, Real Cool World, and I also put together some wedding music for Iman.) David even asked if I'd be open to him investing in the studio I have now. (Which I was starting to build at the time.) To this day, my wife is pissed that I said no.

I got the theme for Sleeper Cell because the producer's son and my son were friends, so we were too, so he was more or less forced to listen to my demos. (Which was a tough sell, because before that, he knew I did a zillion Barbie commercials, which is totally not the direction of the show.)

Mind you, these stories are over the course of years, not all in the first month of being here, so it's not like everyone I bumped into at the supermarket was offering me gigs. But they are uniquely Los Angeles stories, so there are real benefits to being here. Although, as others have said, there are costs, too ...

 

[charlieclouser]

Mike, I totally agree. It's just too easy to meet and find people in "the biz" here. They're practically falling out of the trees! For anyone on the way up and looking to immerse themselves and make connections, there's no substitute for LA.

Completely by coincidence, two of my three neighbors are audio people - one is the guy who's mixed all of Tom Petty's live albums for the last few decades, and the other is a re-recording mixer on the stage at Warner Bros.

I met the Tom Petty guy shortly after we moved to this house, at the semi-annual brush fire awareness / neighborhood evacuation planning get together. Had no idea he was mixing Petty across the ravine from me.

I knew my other neighbor from the same brush fire meetings, knew he was an audio guy, but didn't really know much more than that - until I was doing my routine pre-dub tech call to the stage to talk about how many stems, how many surrounds, etc. on the score I was about to print. I got the number for the stage, called 'em up, and dude picks up the phone like, "Hey Charlie. What's up man?" I was a little confused, but said, "Hi, my name is blah blah and I'll be delivering a score to your stage in a couple of weeks, and I just wanted to talk tech specs and stuff..." He was like, "Yeah, I know. It's Dan. Your NEIGHBOR. I'm the lead mixer on that film." Took me a minute to glom onto the fact that yes, the mixer on the stage was the neighbor whose pool I'd been lounging beside the month before.

All of the guys from every band in history live within a 45 minute drive (even in traffic). Even out here in the sticks, , people like Scott Ian from Anthrax is half a mile down the road, Cliff Martinez is up on the mesa, Uncle Al Jourgenson is maybe six miles down the hill, and on the way to his house you drive right by Michael Boddicker's place. Pretty much everyone I've ever made a record with, even the guys from my years in NYC, are out here. Someone is always having a screening of their indie film, there's always an SCL (Society of Composers and Lyricists) meetup happening, and then there's Richard Gibbs' Composer Breakfast Club:

Composers Breakfast Club

The Composers Breakfast Club began in 2013 in Malibu, CA. There are featured presenters every week. All are invited to attend and partake. Being a composer is not a requirement - indeed, many regulars are actors, singers, engineers, producers, and even the odd architect or two. Name tags will always

www.composersbreakfastclub.org

.... which is a great way to network by the beach in Malibu (it's virtual since Covid, but hopefully will start up in-person soon), and we even have our own mini-version in Topanga. Then there's the NAMM show, SynthPlex, Perfect Circuit, Vintage King, more Sam Ash and Banjo Center stores than you'll ever need, Rosen Sound for your vintage synth repairs (and rentals!), the awesome Pro Drum Shop, and tons of luthiers and custom guitar shops. S.I.R, Third Encore, and Mates rehearsal spaces, gear lockers, cartage.... it's all here. Studios? Fuhgeddaboutit. East-West, United (formerly Ocean Way), Capitol, Conway, Cherokee.... endless.

Need a custom pedalboard built for tour? Custom road cases? A lighting truss? A rental on a MemoryMoog and a vintage u47 or 251? North Hollywood baby. Drive on over, no shipping needed. Maybe stop by Perfect Circuit on the way back, play with 1,000 EuroRack modules, and bring a couple home with you right then and there.

Can't swing a broken DX7 without hitting a musician or composer. Book a rehearsal space at Mates and guaranteed you'll run into somebody whose records you own. And of course there's the organized intern program at RCP and Bleeding Fingers, and many other smaller composers have similar programs. 30-60-90 days to prove you're worthy, then the paychecks start. Nowadays, with that durn internet and all, it's waaayyy easier then back in the pre-cellphone, 1-800-SkyPage era when I got here.

So, yeah. For anyone who's not in their sixties and thinking of semi-retirement in Hawaii, LA is still the epicenter and worth the expense / hassle / risk. It's downright exhilarating to be just down the street from so much action. Even at my advanced age, I still feel the rush. Whenever I spend time outside the bubble, I miss it.

Hell, I came here from NYC to work a one-month gig for a tv-movie score with the composer who'd hired me out of Sam Ash 48th st., and I wound up never leaving! I made a decent living driving around Mandeville Canyon and the Palisades with my MPC-60 doing drum programming for hit-making songwriters, and those were just late-eighties demo writing sessions! How'd I find those gigs? An old high school band-mate (from Vermont!) who had moved here and was engineering those writing sessions. How'd I find NIN? And old college buddy who was producing music videos. At no point did I submit a resume or look in the classifieds or have a website / TikTok / Facebook / SnapCloudChatBook. All I had was a pager, address book, an MPC, and a crappy but reliable car.

Entertainment shit just falls out of the sky here, but if you want it to land on your head you have to be on the street when it drops.

 

[imusic]

I like LA ! Looking forward to spend time there in fall …

(used to life in Santa Monica)

 

[Markrs]

I love hearing about the music life both in the past and now in LA from @charlieclouser, @Mike Greene and others. I just feels such a world away from a small place in England. Even though I am in my mid 40s with a really good career, that pays well, and I enjoy, I still suddenly have that desire to be a part of that scene. There is something exciting, and energetic about it, that sense that anything could happen from one day to the next.

I think if I was young and passionate about music, I would have taken the risk. As the saying goes, "most people don't regret the chances you take, only the ones you didn't".

Plus, with so many composers on this forum based there, I'm sure a few would be happy to go for a coffee and help you orientate yourself into the community.

It is a ridiculously competitive industry that probably doesn't pay well enough, but if you have the passion and desire, then I think it is worth the risk.

On the flip side there are plenty doing Library/Stock music that are able to have a nice balanced life anywhere in the world and that is also an awesome thing to be able to do.

 

[davidanthony]

what kind of salaries I need to have to not just get by, but actually live decent? I will not accept anything less as I have a good life here in Sweden, but this job may actually be quite exiting. But again, its not worth lowering my standards of living for it.

Anyone have a number for me?

If you rank standard of living/quality of life as equal to or above career opportunities, then LA may not be the best move for you right now (and I say that as someone who has lived here over half of my life and just bought a home here).

The reason being that LA is going through some pretty fundamental economic shifts right now. The real estate market, both rental and purchase, is at an all time high. Prices have been up year over year and even jumped 5-10% in the past few months. Whether it's an unsustainable bubble and things will level out or even crash remains to be seen, but at the present a number of people I know who are less established in the creative industry are effectively forced to find living arrangements farther outside the city.

If you don't have to go into a workplace regularly, and/or don't mind spending an hour or two (or more, if there's an accident on your route!) in a car every day, then moving farther out isn't so bad. But if you do have to commute, the price of gas is also at an all time high (very challenging to find anything for under $5 a gallon right now), and new and used car prices are also at all time highs. Inflation is also driving up the price of groceries, too. So it's safe to say that the cost of living is about 10-15% more expensive than it was even a short while ago, and there's a non-zero chance that we find ourselves in the middle of a genuine recession in the next six months to a year.

Now for some hard numbers for you:

Assuming you're a single person with no dependents and you rent (not own) a home.

A salary of 225,000 per year gets you ~9,220 dollars per month takehome pay after factoring in taxes, retirement, and healthcare contributions.

Your costs would look something like:

Monthly rent: $1,000 - $6,000. This number depends on whether you want to live with alone or with roommates, in an older place or a new building with amenities, and location. Check out https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/los-angeles-ca for some real world examples)

Transit expenses: $200 - $1,500. Live somewhere walkable or with public transit (these neighborhoods do exist, but they're quite expensive!) and you can reduce your expenses to only using rideshare/public transit. Lease or buy a car and you're looking at $400+ for something basic after lease and insurance. Want a nicer car? $600+. Really nice? $1,000+. Then add gas (unless it's an electric, then add electricity, unless you can get free charging), and the cost of the occasional rideshare to go out.

Food: $200 - $2,000. Depends on where you fall on the Ramen v. Michelin scale. For reference, dinner for 2 at a Michelin restaurant in a nice place is around $250 without alcohol. Not sure how that compares to Sweden (I remember being food being quite expensive when I was there a few years ago, so perhaps this is the one area where you save!)

Health: $0 - $500. Hopefully you have good/free coverage through your employer and no medication needs, but if you don't, then things can start to add up really fast. Healthcare costs have been the biggest area of surprise for my immigrant wife (fortunately she has fantastic coverage through work so doesn't have to pay them, but medical emergencies here can costs tens of thousands of dollars without the right coverage, so it's not a trivial consideration).

Misc: $0 - $1,000.

Take the middle of all those ranges, and you're looking at $3,000 dollars per month left over, which is decent and enough to save up for major unanticipated expenses. But whether the middle of all these ranges gets you close to the life you have in Sweden, I'm not so sure. Want the high end of those ranges? You're maxed out and will need to ask for something closer to $300k.

All that being said, for the reasons outlined by Charlie and Mike above, there's really no place I'd rather be as the combination of people and geography are unmatched anywhere else in the world. So if you're up for taking a chance, and you can return to Sweden without taking too much of a hit to your career if things don't pan out here, then I would take the opportunity.

 

[mat1]

It's one of the reasons I specifically moved to the West Hollywood area, since there were so many "up and coming" types that lived there.

What’s the area for up and comers nowadays? Silverlake/echo park maybe?

Love hearing your stories @Mike Greene and @charlieclouser . Makes me want to scratch that itch one day if only for the winter sun.

 

[charlieclouser]

Back to the original question in the thread title - what's it like living in LA in 2022?

• Expensive. Rent / real estate is bonkers. Just beyond all reason. Rent, buy, it doesn't matter. It's insane.

• Expensive. Gas prices are the highest in the land.

• Expensive. Dinner for two at In-N-Out Burger = $20. Dinner for two at a nice place = $100+.

• Expensive. Besides the hard costs of real estate, ancillary costs like brush fire insurance (if you need it) are just wild. My previous insurer (AIG) got hit so hard with claims after the big Woolsey fire that they just folded up their tent and ceased doing business in CA altogether. It was a slog to find a replacement carrier inside the 30 days notice that AIG gave us. And the premiums, once we did find a carrier? You don't wanna know. But unless you live out in the wilderness in Topanga or the Malibu canyons you won't need it.

But it's still possible to find a way. And you do get that electricity from being just down the street from the center of the action, even if you're on the outside looking in. And although it's a bit abstract, I reckon that's a big part the American experience in general, and the LA experience for creatives - the boundless optimism. The idea that anything is possible. The sky's the limit. In all the places I've lived, I could pretty clearly see the ceiling, the limit to what might be achievable - but not in LA. The story of the Rick Rubin types who start a record label in their dorm room and rise to the level of industry titan is no longer a New York Story™. These days that story is quintessentially Los Angeles. (and of course Rick is in LA now).

And even though I never really aspired to be an HZ or a Rick Rubin (my tastes and abilities are a bit too left of center for that to be realistic), the simple fact that someone could, and that someone DID do that, added some accelerant to my fire.

So that's an undefinable, unquantifiable aspect that might add energy and enthusiasm for some folks, at some phases in their journey. Plus, it's harder to feel beaten down by life when you're strolling along the beach on a beautiful day eating a street taco (even if the taco was $6). And LA has 364 beautiful days a year (like I said, it does rain one day per year!). Even when I was broke like a joke, I still loved LA.

Thing is, once you're here, the costs for enjoying the amenities is the same whether you're rich or poor. Example: in Santa Monica, public parking in the big structures or on the beach lots is free for the first 90 minutes, and max out at around $20 for a whole day - and beach lots are totally free after 5:30pm until sunset. Takes a while to figure out the loopholes to not paying out the wazoo for every single thing in LA, but there are a lot of loopholes. If you live the DoorDash / Uber lifestyle you'll be draining cash like crazy, but if you have a half-decent, shaggy-but-reliable car that gets decent mileage it's not too bad. Sure there are a lot of Teslas on the roads, but a LOT more Priuses (Priuii?). I don't know anyone who daily drives a fancy-ass car, except my business manager (maybe that should concern me....).

TL;DR = If you're young, resilient, and optimistic enough to not notice or care that your dresser is a $99 floor model from Ikea, and that your car has a big scratch down the side, you'll be fine. Maybe if you're older, have kids, or just plain value comfort and stability over quote-unquote "boundless opportunity", it might not look as attractive. But that's okay, LA will be here if and when you're ready.

 

[KerrySmith]

TL;DR = If you're young, resilient, and optimistic enough to not notice or care that your dresser is a $99 floor model from Ikea, and that your car has a big scratch down the side, you'll be fine. Maybe if you're older, have kids, or just plain value comfort and stability over quote-unquote "boundless opportunity", it might not look as attractive. But that's okay, LA will be here if and when you're ready.

key point, as it ever was throughout the last several decades, is if you’re (young and) hungry and relentlessly live the hustle, and maybe know some people who know some people, or if you come with a financial leg up and hustle, then you might have a chance (assuming you can deliver when called upon) to rise up into the firmament, and make it your place.

 

[vancomposer]

All this green card talk makes me blue.

I'd rather do the small time cues, get ripped off, and still be able to pay the rent where I am.

Call me unbitious.

This is my new favorite word.

I am moving to LA 1 week and will be living in my car.

I am very bitious I guess!

 

[vancomposer]

OK, so I've been called to an interview with a game studio in LA for an in-house position as a composer, working on some very well known titles. I know I may be a little ahead, but I would like to go into the interview knowing more about what kind of salaries I need to have to not just get by, but actually live decent? I will not accept anything less as I have a good life here in Sweden, but this job may actually be quite exiting. But again, its not worth lowering my standards of living for it.

Anyone have a number for me?

Since you are from Sweden, I assume you also need a work visa if you don't have a sponsoring avenue by a US spouse. And probably some moving costs if you plan on relocating with gear and possible family. So in case they want to hire YOU that would be a topic top discuss who will pay for those expenses. You can even have a future Greencard sponsoring by your employer included into your contract. Not only again it is about costs, but also to somewhat have a long term plan to eventually stay here for good. The reason that is also important is that usually when it is a time restricted non-immigrant visa tied to that company not only they somewhat have a control over your life, you cant usually do freelance work beside, but also when you loose the job then you have to leave the country.

 

[vancomposer]

Mike, I totally agree. It's just too easy to meet and find people in "the biz" here. They're practically falling out of the trees! For anyone on the way up and looking to immerse themselves and make connections, there's no substitute for LA. (...)

Exactly the reason why I am moving there now. Thanks to all of you for underlining this so much again. I still believe for making those connections there is nothing better then to meet someone in person first and then maybe later move on to remote work. I have been to LA a bunch of times for testing it out and I NEVER had the feeling I will EVER really like it there since I don't like being in a large city BUT I am willing to suck it up for while and work on finding ways for a mental health balance, while I pursue my goals and dreams.

 

[telecode101]

Real estate is expensive everywhere. I was just chatting with my mother in law for mothers day .. about the place they live that they will have to move out of as they can't walk up and down stairs anymore. The place probably goes for over 2 million. They originally bought it for $12,000.

My understanding on the culture industry (film ,movies, music) is it is and always has been highly geographically centered -- you need to be in the 2 or 3 key cities where pretty much all the work is being negotiated and done. Music composing might be more flexible. I keep seeing some fairly big composers who live out in weird far out places. But these are people that built their careers early on.