The Anonymous Production Assistant

The Name That Goes on Your Resume

What name should you put at the top of your resume? You’d think the answer would be obvious, but it does come up from time to time in my resume service, so I thought it bore writing about. The name you put on your resume is the name you go by. If the name on […]

When To Follow Up

Jane writes in: I sent in a resume to a job posting and was emailed by a First AD thanking me for my interest in the shoot and told me “to expect an email in 3 weeks.” Should I send a follow-up e-mail/call in two weeks (etc)? What’s protocol to following up a job possibility […]

Take a (Paragraph) Break

When writing a cover letter, or even your resume, you should remember that text is, surprisingly, a visual medium. It’s not as mimetic as, say, film, television, or painting, that’s true. But you still glean information from text just by looking at it, not reading it at all. Here’s what Stephen King says in his […]

The First Time You Get Paid For It

Lauren writes in: How many things/what sort of things did you have on your resume when you started applying for PA jobs? PAing my be the bottom rung of the ladder, but unless you know somebody, your first day on set will not be paid. Before I ever applied for a real PA job, I […]

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 […]

What’s Important in Your Resume

Marcel writes in: In the area I live a lot of potential film work has recently popped up the local film registry. With that I am reformatting my resume to make it more appealing. I have done a significant amount of videography student projects that mostly involve athletics or seminars along with some work in […]

The Match Game

This is another one of those things I keep seeing when I help people with their resume and cover letter: the name on your resume needs to match the name on your email address. This is especially true of Gmail accounts, since it’s probably the most common email out there, both for individuals and for […]

Emmy Award-Nominated Production Assistant

Unlikely some people, I love Christmas. I enjoy dressing up on Halloween. I even think Valentine’s Day can be sweet. But I fucking hate April Fools Day. Everything about today, from fake news stories to ridiculous fake products. Even the movie is fucking terrible. Whatever the April equivalent of “Bah, humbug” is, I’m saying that. […]

What Kind of PA Was I?

Jo asks: Does one usually specify the department they PA’ed in? For example, I just PA’ed on a TV show pilot, but it was in the costume department. Do I need to specify that in my resume? Or just list it as PA? The great thing about sending your resume electronically is, you can change […]

Resume Paper

Eric writes in: When I go to an interview, should I print out my resume on nice resume paper or is regular copy paper okay? In the past, I used nice resume paper because I had a lot, but now I am out. I’m wondering if I should spend the money when they usually print […]

What’s the Secret to Comedy?

Melanie writes in: I’m currently in a situation where I’ll need a new job in January. I can’t start any earlier because of prior commitments. I’m primarily looking for work at one of the networks. I know that it may be difficult to find PA jobs at this time, but if I find one is […]