Stop Calling the Production Company
Matt writes: Hi how are you…i’m in search for over 2 years now for an PA job on a decent TV Drama or Movie but i cant get anywhere… i tried to call some prodcution companys for th shows but i always got slammed from there assistants like we are not hiring right now etc… […]
Your Car, The Mobile Office
As a PA, you’ll spend 95% of your time between two places – your desk and your car. I try to keep my desk as clean as possible. My car is a different story. Until very recently, my car was a danger zone. Receipts, fast food bags, empty water bottles (don’t tell the Green PA) littered the […]
Polite or Timid?
A PA’s struggle for self-respect is neverending. We’re at the bottom of things, we hold no power, we have fifty bajillion bosses, and we deal with an industry with some of the most upsettingly unstable people to still hold a job. It’s really hard to keep some kind of dignity, some kind of pride in […]
Act Like A Professional
The last few weeks have been pretty tough for me, personally. My family has decided to turn my life into a sick Edward Albee play, and, needless to say, it’s put me under a considerable amount of unneeded stress. It came out in my work last week. I made dumb mistakes. Rookie mistakes. In one […]
Comic-con: Not for Comics Alone
It’s Christmas in July in San Diego. That’s because one of the biggest pop culture celebrations in the country is going on: the San Diego Comic Con, nerd heaven, and the film industry’s bucktoothed mistress. The Con began as a regular comic book convention, but since the industry discovered it was one of the best […]
Good Bosses
In light of the release of HORRIBLE BOSSES and the compilation of the Boss Database, I thought it was worth mentioning that not all bosses are equally terrible. I know that this blog can err on the side of negativity and complaining, but even I have to admit that some of my bosses have been […]
Boss Database
In honor of a movie I have absolutely no intention of seeing, I’d like to create a database of bosses. Similar to RateMyProfessors.com, without the cartoony graphics. Of course, the criteria for a good boss are different than for a good professor. (Except for hotness; we’ll leave that column.) Truth be told, I have a had time […]
Ads?
Some of you may have noticed, advertisements have started popping up on the TAPA blog. I resisted it for a long time, largely because I didn’t want to think of this site as a job. That being said, I’m broke, so I’m selling out. 🙂 I’ve put one adsense box on the main page, and […]
Solidarity
Carmageddon came and went and as usual, thing in LA are overhyped. The end of things passed and it didn’t make a difference. Except that maybe it did… Driving on the 101 Sunday night, I saw a notifier on the road said “405 is now open. Thank You Los Angeles.” Well, that was a nice […]
Getting Chummy With The Bosses
Last week, the Other PA asked me, “Hey. Joe Buck the EP doesn’t seem to talk to me very much. You think he doesn’t like me?” Here’s what I wanted to say back: “No. He’s the EP. You’re a PA. You two could not be on further ends of the production spectrum. Your day-to-day job […]
Caragnarok
As everybody probably knows by now, the 405 will start closing at 7:00pm tonight, and will continue to be closed until early Monday morning. People are reacting like it’s the end of the world… It’s not. First of all, this is happening on the weekend. People aren’t going to and from work. Yes, folks in […]
You’re Not On the List… Sorry
I see, through your blog, that it is typically the AD or 2nd AD who hires set PA’s. My question is how do I get the contact info for the AD or 2nd AD (for a particular production), and what is the appropriate amount of time, prior to production, to first contact them? I live […]