The Anonymous Production Assistant

Look Out For Your Fellow PA II

Like I said earlier this week, it’s up to us PAs to look out for each other. Here’s another example: PAs. along with everyone else in this business, work long hours, 60 a week at minimum. Unlike most other departments, though, the office works in shifts. Generally speaking, a PA and either the coordinator or […]

Draft Cover Letter

Eric asks: In your post “Bad Times“, you wrote “I actually have a rote PA application template, saved in the drafts folder of my Gmail; my resume is already attached. When I hear of a new job opening, all I have to do is fill in the name, and maybe details if I have specific […]

Look Out For Your Fellow PA

PAs should look out for each other. After all, no one else is. The first, most important thing you can do for your fellow PAs is to make sure they are fed. “Why is this a problem?” you might ask. There’s always food around a TV show. True, there’s always snacks in the kitchen, but […]

School vs. PA

Heather writes: I’m in a dilemma about trying to find the money to go to film school or just getting off my tush, going to New Orleans and applying for a PA job. I was accepted to a film school but I can’t seem to find the money to pay for it. I know that […]

The Difference Between the UTA Joblist and the Coordinators’ 411

On Monday’s post, where I wrote about the need to apply for jobs quickly: Literally hundreds of people will apply to this same job. The coordinator will only look at the resumes until she finds five or six qualified PAs that she’d want to interview personally. Because so many people are out of work, that […]

Ringback Tone? Seriously?!

Dear unnamed crew member on the unnamed movie I’m working on, Have you noticed that when you answer your cell phone, people are mysteriously rude to you? Even if it’s someone who’s having an otherwise pleasant day and has no reason to utterly despise you – have you noticed that they sort of hate you? […]

Bad Times

In the last few weeks, I’ve received several emails like this: I was laid off back in July, the 22nd to be exact. I have been out here for 3 years and have worked at 3 networks. One job in which I was a Story Assistant for a show on Nickelodeon(Irrelevant I know). Here I stand […]

Question Regarding Set PAs

E writes: For the past couple of months, I just went through a whirl wind tunnel of day playing scripted shows and some features, and just landed my first full time additional set PA job. I’m green, but at least I know enough to know that I’m green. With that being said, do you have […]

I Did That

I was walking through the set the other day with the art department PA. The script called for a scene in a hair salon, but for some reason, the location manager couldn’t find a real salon that fit our needs. (Something to do the cost of shutting down a salon for an entire day.) So, […]

To leave or not to leave

Jose writes: I want to be a director and didn’t go to film school. I’ve been working at a small commercial place for 2 years and my boss is a typical hollywood d-bag who does not want to see my advance my career and only wants to use me for his own purposes. The thing […]

Travel Coordinator: A Way Out

Another path out of the doldrums is to become a Travel Coordinator. This path is just as idiosyncratic as the path toward becoming a script coordinator, definitely not as clear-cut as the one that leads to production secretary. A travel coordinator plans the travel and hotel accommodations on a show that travels. As far as […]

How to Approach Another Show on the Lot

Ms. Key (a pseudonym, I assume), writes: I intern on a major studio lot, which has been an awesome experience so far. I plan to do everything I can to make this last as long as possible and parlay it into a paying gig. My problem is that I’m interning on a talk show, while my […]