The Anonymous Production Assistant

Location Shooting

Unless you work on a multicam show, you’ll probably spend some time shooting on location. If you work in the office, this means printing maps (provided by the location department) and attaching them to each call sheet. For a set PA, the job is more-or-less the same, except everyone will be asking where the honey […]

Crew Call Episode 002: Location Manager Nathan Gendzier

In today’s episode, Nathan Gendzier tells us all about location management, from aesthetic considerations to logistic requirements. At the end of the episode, Nathan also weighs in on the Sarah Jones tragedy. If you’re unfamiliar with what happened on the set of Midnight Rider, The Hollywood Reporter has a thorough summary here. Nathan also writes […]

How to Make a Sign

A job that comes up more often than you might think– making direction signs. Most production offices have some sort of conference room, which is great for departmental meetings. But it’s the rare office that has room for an entire production meeting (which has representatives from every single department) or table read.{{1}} So, every week […]

Company Move

Reader Andrew writes in: There’s a line on the latest [glossary]one-liner[/glossary] that says “company move.” Why would this be in the schedule? Wouldn’t moving the production offices take all day? Why is it happening in the middle of a shoot day? Ah, the company move. Not quite as terrible as “EXT. NIGHT,” but in its […]

Locking Up the Unlockable

Brett asks: What’s a good line to give someone during lock up and they’ve just asked what authority you have to keep them from walking into your shot? For the uninitiated (which is most of you; why else are you reading the blog?)– “lock up” is when you stand guard blocking some strategic pathway that […]

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 […]

My Location

You don’t ever want a show filming in your neighborhood, or worse, your own apartment building. You will find out EXACTLY what kind of area you live in. You see, TV shows don’t have time for nuance and subtlety. They need the audience to understand immediately what kind of location they’re at. If a character […]

Locations and Set PAs

In case you don’t read the comments, I thought it best to reprint Nathan’s comment on my previous post: Location Managers (and ALM’s) never hire the Set P.A.s. Anywhere. (I’m an East Coast Location Manager — trust me on this one.) Locations will hire Locations P.A.s, but their job is different from Set P.A.’s Example: Locations P.A.s don’t do […]

House Guests

Ken Levine recently wrote a post about Eliza Dushku not swimming in his pool.  A location scout from Dollhouse wanted to shoot at his place, but Levine turned them down. His initial reaction is pretty much the standard for anyone working in the business. If you’ve ever shot on location, you know you don’t want […]