The Anonymous Production Assistant

Fire Watch With Me

Fire on the Backdraft attraction at Universal Studios

Lauren tweeted a question at me: @TheAnonymousPA Hey TAPA this might be a dumb question but I’m just starting to get more professional gigs. When I’m on fire watch do I count as available? I.e. if someone asks for something flown in elsewhere I can’t leave my post right? Even if everyone else is on […]

How to Choose Your Credit

Naked Gun 2 1/2 Credits

Larry writes in about choosing the proper credit: I just worked on a show as a PA and the director said I could have an AD credit instead if I wanted, because the crew was so small (6-7 people) that’s what I ended up actually doing. This is the second show where I’ve been hired […]

Call (Sheet) Me, Maybe

call me

As an office PA, one of your jobs is to email the call sheet to the cast and crew. This is not a difficult or complicated task, but it is an important one. In fact, you cannot make a mistake on any part of it, or it could screw up the entire production. So, it […]

Is It Okay to Call a Stranger?

Beth writes in about calling a complete stranger: I’ve recently moved to LA and while I have been networking I don’t want to wait around for that to be the only way to get a job lead. I found the phone number of the AD on a tv show called [redacted]. I found it using […]

Why Does the Schedule Count Pages Per Day?

Anyone who’s read a screenwriting book knows that one page of screenplay is equal to one minute of screen time. Anyone who’s spent anytime on set knows this isn’t true.{{1}} So why do the schedules and callsheet refer to “pages per day”? Shouldn’t we be counting the minutes we’ve shot? Well, to start with, no […]

Choosing Between Gigs

Ryan writes in about being forced to choose between jobs: A predicament that I had earlier this summer was that I was offered an Additional PA gig on a TV show for one day at the time, but with the opportunity for more days; but I was simultaneously offered a six-week Set PA gig on […]

How Not To Approach a Production Office

Angie writes in about how to approach a production office: I have a friend who’s well connected in the local industry (not Hollywood, but there are noteworthy productions around) They have kindly provided me with the phone numbers and addresses of the production offices for those shows. Understandably, they do not want me sharing how […]

How Prevalent is Sexual Harassment in Hollywood?

Reader Jess wrote in response to this blog post on sexual harassment: Obviously each department is its own animal, but having worked the majority of my life on skeleton crew indies (with the exception of one major TV show when I was in school) I’m worried that getting any deeper into things is going to […]