The Anonymous Production Assistant

Mail Boxes

Here’s a weird conversation I had recently. A teamster came in and asked to check his [glossary]start work[/glossary]. He wanted to make sure his paycheck was going to his P.O. box, rather than his home. Curious, I asked, “Why don’t you want it going to your  house?” “The jerks won’t deliver to our house.” “Really? […]

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 […]

Applying for a Job While You Have a Job

Nick writes in: I’m nervous to apply to some shows because the company I work for may do work with said show. Have you ever had a circumstance where you applied to a job where someone was connected with your current job? I haven’t, and I can’t really imagine it happening. Why would the coordinator […]

The Wrong Department

Sasha writes: My first job on a show was in the construction office, which was great in a bunch of ways. As someone who’d like to end up somewhere on the producer/UPM spectrum eventually, I got a really great understanding of how budgeting for that department works, which I think is an area where a […]

How To Use Email

Ugh. I can’t believe I have to write this post. A few of my readers are old enough that they needed a Thomas Guide and a roll of quarters in their car when they went on a run, but most of you don’t even remember AOL CDs. Growing up around computers, you should know proper […]

Walk Right In

Alex writes: My friend and I are approximately 3 weeks away from departure to New Orleans and we are trying to figure out the best way to find our first PA jobs. We have heard from some people we know that are already there that it is better to simply walk into production offices and […]

Not ‘Till You Book It

When I was first starting out, I told my parents about every interview I went on, every potential job offer that came my way, every good parking space I found on lunch runs. Oh, how years in Hollywood have jaded me. Now, my parents know almost nothing about my professional life. Why? Because a PA’s […]

One Big Happy Family

When you work in a production office, you spend long hours with the same people for months. You get to know each other. You learn their favorite and least favorite foods. You  talk about dating and relationships and your families and your sports teams. And when it ends, you get that feeling you got when […]

Always Bring Candles

Production offices celebrate more birthday parties than Chuck E. Cheese. And they’re usually spontaneous. Someone notices on Facebook that the creepy girl from accounting is celebrating a birthday. Quick! Send a P.A. to CVS to buy a funny, unoffensive card. Quick! Send another P.A. to get a cake (cost of cake correlates to position in […]

No Crying in Baseball

You’ve got problems. Your girlfriend dumped you. Your little sister ran away from home. Your parents got a divorce. A family member died. You sliced your finger open. The kitchen ran out of your favorite kind of yogurt. But you know what? Keep that to yourself, nobody cares. (Or whine about it on your stupid […]

Send Button Anxiety

“Hey, TAPA, can you send out tomorrow’s call sheet? The email is already saved in the ‘Drafts’ folder.” That’s how it starts. Pretty soon, you’re drafting the email yourself. After that, the 2nd AD is emailing them to you directly instead of to the secretary (or APOC, in some cases). After you’ve drafted the email […]

Don’t Be An Asshole

Everyone is going nuts right now because NBC fired Dan Harmon from his show, COMMUNITY. I’m not allowed to voice my opinion in real life, because friends of mine work on that show and because I’m friends-in-law with Dan. So I’m going to blog about it instead. If you’re an asshole who insists on wallowing […]