Back to the future in film: Combining industry and self-knowledge to meet the career challenges of the 21st century

Career patterns are changing. As fewer people attach their long-term fortunes to the fates of a single organization, more and more people follow a free agent route. The free agent scrambles, bee-like, from opportunity to opportunity without regard to boundaries. While this career scramble is new to most industries, it has been common to the American film industry for a quarter century. In this article, we look back at successful careers in the film industry to gain insight into the challenges facing free agents in the 21st century.