No Lunch Break for Office PA’s?
When you work on set, you’re supposed to break for lunch after 6 hours of shooting. Some people break before that, if they got to set particularly early (like the drivers and location manager). Sometimes hair and makeup artists do, too, so they can get the actors camera ready for the first shot after lunch. […]
Hand Delivery
If someone (whether it’s an accountant or a director or one of the camera assistants) hands you something to deliver, but doesn’t expressly state either “mail” or “hand deliver,” always, always ask.
Why Are Movies So Expensive?
For longer than I’ve been in the Industry, we’ve been hearing how cheap, digital cameras and readily available editing software would democratize cinema. There would be a revolution in independent filmmaking that would tear down the studio system. Except… that hasn’t happened. The reason is, equipment is no where near the biggest expense on a […]
Out Times
Marvin asks: What is the process of getting “out times” from the working trucks? One of the more important aspects of the [glossary slug=’production-report’]PR[/glossary] is recording the times every member of the crew started and ended their day, along with any meal penalties, NDBs, and stuff like that. As I’ve explained before, each department is […]
There Are More Accountants Than You Think
Today’s topic is… ACCOUNTING! Seriously, though, people seem to be confused about accounting. Maybe it’s because most of the crew doesn’t see the accountants every day like I do. At most, you’ll see one of the accountants on Thursdays. But, like most departments, accounting{{1}} is divided up among specialties. There’s usually a head accountant (or […]
How to Fill Out Your Start Work
At the beginning of every show, everyone must fill out [glossary]start work[/glossary],{{1}} yet a distressing number of people don’t know how to do it. I once had this conversation with a makeup artist who had more years in this industry than I had on this Earth: [scrippet]INT. PRODUCTION OFFICE – DAY A woman with a […]
What the Hell Are Purchase Orders?
A PA who shall remain nameless (for soon-to-be-obvious reasons) writes in: I’m PAing for my first big production, and my coordinator just told me that since we don’t have open accounts yet, I should use POs for the stuff we order. She already had taken some time to show me some stuff that needed to […]
Think About It
Just about every time I post a new joblist, someone emails or tweets me, “Hey, TAPA, are all of these jobs for LA?” or something to that effect. Also on almost every joblist there is a section with the header, “NON-LA POSITIONS (All Locations/All Positions)”. In big, bold font, just like that. Now, I realize […]