The Anonymous Production Assistant

Should You Drop the Accent?

When I talk with someone about rebuilding their resume, one of the first things I ask is, do you speak any foreign languages? It never ceases to amaze me how many people don’t include this info on their resume. It seems that multilingual folks don’t realize how impressive this skill is to us monolingual plebs. […]

Keep Your Eye on Your Long Term Goal

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

Marty Lang contacted me on Twitter, presumably in refernce to the joblist, or my own jobs page: @TheAnonymousPA there really is no way to get an inside track on a writer’s assistant position, is there? I scour sites all over the place, and the closest I ever came to finding one was the showrunners assistant […]

Amazon Rentals

Jamie writes in: I just got a job as a PA (really an unpaid intern) on an independent movie. They put with the production designer as part of the ‘art department’. (really just the two of us). She told me we would be using Amazon Rentals for most of the set decorations. I can’t seem […]

Confirm Your Schedule

The turning of the calendar got me thinking about dates, and scheduling. This is always a major headache in Hollywood, because you’re working with a lot of busy, important people who want to prove they’re important by pretending to be busy. As an assistant or a PA, scheduling a meeting can be difficult, especially when […]

No Entertainment Industry Experience

Sally, one of my Patreon supporters, writes in about lacking entertainment industry experience: Thank you again for this week’s list! If you don’t mind and have a minute, would you please comment on my question for you? I want to be in the office and I have administrative experience, however, about 95% of the positions […]

What Is a Hollywood Assistant?

Dwight Assistant Regional Manager

I frequently get emails from new readers who are confused about what an assistant in Hollywood actually is.There are a lot of jobs in Hollywood with the word “assistant” in the title, which can be very misleading to someone new to the Industry. These seem like entry-level positions, but many of them are not; in […]

How to Get Your First Job as a Hollywood Assistant

I recently discovered the website Any Possibility, mostly because they linked to TAPA on a recent post. It’s written by Sam Wilson, an experienced assistant at several literary{{1}} agencies. I know of lot of readers, like me, want to be represented by one of those agencies some day. She offers a very insiders view of […]

You Have to Take Risks

Eric writes: I’ve been seeing a lot of postings for part time assistant positions. Is this the new wave of employment/new way of business since the economy is still in the crapper (articles writing about how the unemployment level is not at 5.5% more like 9%) and Hollywood tightening the belt everywhere? That being said, […]

You Need a Cover Letter

After sharing a job posting on TAPA yesterday yesterday, the HR person at the unnamed firm sent me an email: If you could please add “and cover letter” in the last line I would really appreciate it 🙂 What this says to me is, at least one of my readers (probably more than one) sent […]

Use Your Boredom

Kelly asks: I was in film school and started this internship at a film production company here in Hollywood. I learned a lot, but just as I was ready to leave they hired me for 6 months to run their office while they went on location for their next production. So now I’m alone in […]