Hollywood—for all of its backstage drama—is a synergistic organism, a hive of movie studios, talent agencies, producers, writers, actors, and directors powered by constant deal making. Alliances are largely forged at meetings that start at breakfast in the Valley and stretch to after-dinner drinks on the Sunset Strip. And each meeting begets a follow-up phone call to see if a building block for an eventual film has fallen into place—does a studio want to buy a script? Has an agency agreed to attach an actor to a project? Did a producer finally get a greenlight?

But the business of film grinds to a halt with a surprising regularity every year on certain days or even for weeks at a time—not only due to the usual extended holidays, but also thanks to a tangle of film festivals and awards shows that the average Mr. and Mrs. Smith will never get to shirk work for. It’s idiosyncratic; it’s perfectly L.A.; it’s the Hollywood calendar. With the Oscars behind us, and new year ahead, let us explain.

March

“March and I had a scheduling conflict.” – Iron Man

Mere mortals may observe a calendar dictated by the earth’s trip around one star, the sun. Hollywood revolves around a cavalcade of incandescent bodies and so its new year unofficially begins by celebrating them—Sunday, March 4, was National Actor Recognition Day, also known as the 90th Academy Awards. Monday, March 5? That’s National Actor Recognition Day (Observed).

“The day after the Oscars? Gone,” says a film exec. Though why the entire film industry stays home to nurse a statuette hangover remains a mystery. “Think of how few people are nominated and then think of how big Hollywood is.” But for movers and shakers, the rest of March is “good except for spring break. Anyone who has kids will be gone for a week or two in the middle of March. . . . There’s a vibe of nobody being around.”

Another void in the calendar is the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas, which runs Friday, March 9, through Saturday, March 17. “South by Southwest is becoming a bigger thing, so that’s another Sundance-like distraction for TV people,” says the head of TV at a production company.

Not only are studio types and directors too busy to answer calls or e-mails between running around from screenings to after-parties, but people also tend to “get really drunk at South by,” says the film exec. “It’s easier to get drunk in Austin than Park City.”

April

“Best month? April.” – The Way We Were

Ah, spring. Awards season is officially over and with it, distractions. “April is pretty great,” says the film exec. “Wide open.” Easter Sunday doesn’t affect the workweek. And the first day of Passover sees some execs leaving early for dinner.

This is why shrewd producers looking to put their next film project together know to save material for March and April. “If we have a new script we want to package”—i.e. attach to a director and/or an actor—“I wait until after Sundance and everyone is back to work to do anything with it,” the exec says. “I know even if someone read it [before then] and was enthusiastic, there’d be no one in their staff meeting to pitch it to.”

Speaking of, a general note about Fridays: “You never want to take a pitch out on a Friday afternoon. Because even if they say, ‘It’s a great awesome pitch, I love this,’ by the time Monday comes around it’s, ‘What was that pitch again?’”

“You really have four days in a week to pitch,” agrees the TV exec. In a town where follow-up is everything, you can’t call about a Friday meeting on a Saturday. And calling Monday is simply too late. But event-free Saturdays and Sundays are reserved for “weekend reads,” Hollywood’s collective homework—reading a hot spec script, new book, or a re-write.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

May

“We planned to open in May . . .” – Jurassic World (2015)

The Sundance Film Festival gives plenty of Hollywood assistants an excuse to brush off unwanted queries in January with a simple refrain: “She’s on the mountain.” But that’s not the case with the Cannes Film Festival, which runs for 12 days in the middle of May. “Cannes is different because it’s so far away,” the film exec says. “It’s not where an everyday exec goes. Cannes is when the talent in Hollywood disappears.”

So unless you need the likes of Margot Robbie to read your script, “May is great—until the end.” The coming summer tentpole films arrive with work-busting holidays as well.

To wit, the industry takes Memorial Day weekend seriously. Unofficially, “Memorial Day weekend slash Memorial Day ‘week’ starts the Thursday or Friday leading up to Memorial Day,” says the television producer. Perhaps a long weekend stretches to seven days because of the need for serious recovery time after one of the small screen’s most stressful periods. May is when every TV network decides what pilots to trash or order to series. Networks then present their fall schedule to advertisers at what’s known as “the upfronts,” which are held mid-month.

The federal holiday also flags the beginning of half-day “summer Fridays,” which most of Hollywood’s talent agencies observe until Labor Day. “Agencies close at lunch time, and a lot of times people will say, ‘It’s a half day. I’m just going to take the full day off. So oftentimes there are days where people are just not in on Fridays,” the TV insider continues.

June

“June! Bingo.” – The Iron Lady

The industry doesn’t get up to speed again until the Wednesday after Memorial Day. “People come back on the Tuesday slowly because they’ve had a late flight,” says the film exec.

Other than that, June hath 30 days—but no holidays to distract power brokers and moguls from securing story rights or nailing down financing. (Father’s Day, observed on a Sunday, causes nary a blip.)

Los Angeles public schools, however, let out at the beginning of June—and that portends the beginning of the end for Hollywood’s productive salad days.

The influx of children getting out of school “changes the vibe of things,” the exec continues. “It’s ‘Oh, we’re going to go on a quick vacation or camp starts,’ things like that.” Still, they add, “June is pretty good. You have a good end of March, April, and June.” Hollywood pros know to use these months wisely—because winter, or in this case the dog days of summer, are coming.

July

“The Fourth of July, is that what’s next?” – The Break-Up

July Fourth is the blockbuster holiday that comes with a whole week of vacation. “Regardless of when the Fourth is, people will figure out a way to make that a week—even if the holiday is on a Monday,” the TV exec says.

The birth of our nation is also an understood “no new material” zone. “Nobody will pay attention to it,” the film insider adds. And yes, here, that includes the week before and the week after Independence Day. “You give a spec to somebody. They don’t read it. And then they go off to a barbecue. By the time they get back to it the next week, it’s, ‘What was this again?’”

In Hollywood, it seems, the material is only as good as its timing and the seller’s opportunity to work the phones. “You certainly don’t want to pitch in the week leading up to the Fourth, because you’ll miss any follow-up and momentum goes down the drain,” according to the TV exec. “The calendar really wreaks havoc with follow-up.”

August

“This stuff ain’t gonna help me in August.” – Jaws

April may be the cruelest month for T.S. Eliot, but it’s August if you’re looking to get anything done in the entertainment industry. Much like Europe, Hollywood closes for business for the month, a virtual “Gone fishin’” sign hanging from the studio gates.

“You never do anything in August, because everyone goes on vacation,” the film exec explains. “The trick with Hollywood is that if some people are gone, everyone takes that as a license to say, ‘Well, no one’s working this week!’”

And stay home until the end of the month if you want to pitch the next The Big Bang Theory, too.

Conceptually, the broadcast-TV pitch season begins at the end of July and runs through the beginning of October. “But you don’t want to pitch too early, because people are holding onto money to see what else is coming,” adds the TV exec. “And you don’t want to pitch too late, because everyone is running out of money and saving it for very special things. Then Labor Day throws a wrinkle into everything. So you really have maybe four weeks out of the year where you are really putting yourself in a good position to sell a [network] show: the two weeks before and after Labor Day.” Fortunately for binge-watchers everywhere, cable and streaming services such as Amazon allow for year-round “rolling” submissions.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

September

“Come September, the picnic’s over.” – The Apartment

The days surrounding the first Monday in September are Labor Day weekend for most everybody in the United States—but for those in the movie business, it’s all about the Telluride Film Festival. It’s followed quickly by another important 10-day fest: “People leave for Toronto, so that’s another week and a half of everybody ‘being in Toronto’ and not being able to do things ‘because they’re in Toronto,’” says the film exec.

Those left in Hollywood may call their compatriots in Canada, to no avail; the film-festival work vacuum holds across national boundaries. “Assistants love to say someone is ‘out of pocket.’ Or ‘I’ve lost her.’ As in: ‘I’ve lost her to a screening,’” the TV exec says.

The holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which vary but typically come in mid-September, also throw a wrench into the Hollywood workflow. Then again, “non-Jewish agents will tell you they get their best work done because their phones aren’t ringing on those days,” says the TV insider.

October

“They’ll be sitting on their ass on the sofa in October.” – Moneyball

Fall in Los Angeles: the air is a crisp 79 degrees and the back-to-work season is in full swing. Now is the time to go pitch studio executives, send out those polished scripts, and get talent to commit to your project. October lasts for 31 days—and four beautifully holiday-free weekends of prime knuckling-down time.

The only black hole is October 31, Halloween. “October is nice and clear except for Halloween, because people take the day off for their kids,” the film exec says. “You get a lot done in October.”

November

“Was it November? I don’t know.” – 12 Angry Men

The penultimate month isn’t terrible for Type A’s eager to keep busy. “You get a couple of weeks of November and the Monday before Thanksgiving,” the film exec continues. That adds up to about 13 days of work in the 11th month. Then? “You’re basically done for the year, and tying up loose ends. I’ve sold things, but because we pitched in October and finally sold it in November. Or you close a deal, so you can get it going in January. It’s all finishing up stuff.”

December

“To December!” – Never Say Goodbye

Invoke whatever cliché comes to mind—fade to black or roll credits—but come December, Hollywood settles in for its long winter’s nap. There’s Hanukkah; there’s Christmas; and at least one agency shutters its lights at 1 P.M. sharp for their year-end holiday break on December 21 all the way through January 7.

Left, photograph by Justin Bishop; Right, photograph by Chiara Marinai.

January

“January? I don’t think so.” – Ocean’s Thirteen

January 1 is nationally recognized as an official champagne detox day and for mentally transitioning back to work mode. But in La-La Land, the first week of the New Year rarely finds people back at their desks and raring to go. Chalk this up to the Golden Globes, typically held at the beginning of January and always on a Sunday.

“You can’t do anything the three days leading up to Golden Globes weekend because of the parties,” the film exec swears.

As for doing any business the Monday workday after the Hollywood Foreign Press Association fête? “Forget it,” the TV producer says. “And maybe the Tuesday.”

In 2018, that left Wednesday, January 10, and Thursday, January 11, as the first days of the year to do business. But just those two days. On Friday, January 12, at least one major Hollywood talent agency closed at 1 P.M. to observe Martin Luther King Jr. Day—all the way through Monday, January 15.

Insiders also know to keep a Sharpie handy to X out 10 snowy, exclusive-screening days for the Sundance Film Festival. While deals to buy festival darlings are made on “the mountain” in Park City, Utah, forget about getting just about anything done near the vicinity of Hollywood and Vine.

“The indie establishment, all the young execs, sales agents, and even some reps all go to Sundance,” says the film exec. And though only the first five days of the festival really “matter” to Hollywood, the refrain “it’s Sundance!” means no work gets done the entire week leading up to those days, or the entire week after. “‘It’s Sundance!’ means you can’t take a spec out during Sundance. Or, ‘It’s Sundance! You can’t reach someone at Sundance!’ Even if you’re not going to Sundance, ‘That’s Sundance!’—so no one’s working then.”

“Basically out of January, you get a week and a half clean where people will read something promptly.” As the TV exec jokes, “There’s terrible phone reception on the mountain.”

Photographs by Hannah Thomson.

February

“All right, February, back of the issue.” – The Devil Wears Prada

Send an e-mail in early February, and you might just get this automatic reply: “Out sick with the ‘Sundance Flu.’”

“You come back from Sundance really sick,” says the film producer. “It’s a rule.” Illness stems from “altitude, not sleeping, weather, parties, and traveling,” the TV insider adds.

But other than recovering from post-indie film hangover, February is a “pretty clear month,” according to the film producer, for actually getting work done, except for Presidents’ Day weekend. “As opposed to traditional businesses, [in Hollywood] there’s also a buffer zone spread over multiple days on either side of an event or holiday,” says the TV exec. That makes the following Tuesday through Friday after a Monday holiday “lost weeks. You can’t do anything.”

Unanswered calls only add to the stress of pilot season—which begins in late January and early February—when television network executives weed through new scripts and decide which to film. The second half of pilot season, casting and shooting shows that are picked up, starts in February and stretches into April.

As for the already-shortest month of the year: another “done week” comes during the prosaic workdays leading up to Hollywood’s biggest celebration, Oscar night, which will return to February in 2019.

And then the calendar resets to zero hour again, no doubt replete with players making resolutions for the coming 12 months to work harder, despite the many interruptions—so that one day, they too, can end the year with a bang by thanking the Academy.