The Anonymous Production Assistant

Meisner

If you hang around base camp long enough, you’ll start to hear actors talking about the Meisner technique. It seems to have replaced Method acting as the go-to acting fad. Near as I can tell, Meisner is a series of rehearsal practices designed to make the performer look like as big of an ass as […]

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 […]

What TV Does Best

Last night, I watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother called, “The Wedding Bride.”  If you don’t watch the show, that title is probably meaningless to you.  It may be meaningless even if you do watch the show. See, “The Wedding Bride” was a throw-away joke from an episode last year, “As Fast […]

Time Lords

When you work in Hollywood, whether in features or TV, your time is not your own. For starters, a normal day is twelve hours.  And that’s twelve hours of filming.  Several departments (production, make up, locations, transpo) have to come in before call or stay well after wrap. So, half the day gone just working.  […]

Titles

There’s a curious inconsistency I’ve noticed in the way film industry address each other. No one is ever called “Mr. Spielberg,” or “Ms. Ephron.”  It’s “Steve” and “Nora.”  Even if you’ve just met the person, you’re instantly on a first-name basis.  This is particularly hard to get used to for a polite boy from the […]

Feed Me!

There is always food on set. Always. It took some getting used to, for me. My first day on set ever, the AD told me I should go grab some breakfast before things got hectic. I approached the catering truck sheepishly. I only had five bucks in my pocket, but I wanted to fit in […]

Who Hires Someone With No Experience?

Megan, who wrote in last week, has an interesting follow-up: You were right, I don’t have much experience. So far just one 3-day shoot for a low budget independent film and a few other things I did on my own while in school. Are there specific types of projects that are more likely to hire […]

On Adaptations; Plus, a Prediction

I’m working for a writer who is adapting a book.  I’ve never adapted anything, and it’s a strange process to watch.  He’s taken the story in a strange new direction; the entire book is basically just the first act of the film.  He’s also renaming character willy nilly, for no reason whatsoever.  I don’t really […]

Oh, Goody! My First Reader Question!

Reader Brian sent me a question, proving once again that “expertise” is a meaningless concept on the internet. I really enjoy your blog — thanks for all the info and frequent posting. That’s not actually part of the question. It just made me feel good. I just applied for a PA position at a network […]

Video Killed the Fi-i-ilm Star

I know lots of people who can’t stand HD. I worked for an AC who would say, “I don’t care what the resolution is, it’s still video.”  Really, do you know anybody outside the business who can even tell the difference between HD and film, much less cares? More pertinently, I had professors proclaim there […]

Wanna Know How Sausage is Made?

My freshman year at film school, I knew at least a half dozen people who dropped out of the program, if not college altogether. Even more changed majors in the years following. After picking films apart for class after class, they found that they just couldn’t enjoy going to the movies anymore, which was probably […]

Success

I’ve met Bryan Singer twice. The first time, he came as a guest judge for a student film competition at my school. This was before X-Men had come out, but he must have been in the middle of post, so it was pretty cool that he came by. Of course, at this point, Singer had […]