The Anonymous Production Assistant

Do I Stand a Chance?

Miruna writes: In november I’ve quit my job… The main reason I’ve quit my last job is that I desperately want to go back and work in the movie industry, it’s the perfect work place for me, I love it, I love everything about it. The thing is, I would love to work for real movies, […]

Who You Gonna Call?

Scott writes: I really enjoy your blog, it’s entertaining and informative. I do have one question to which I could not find the answer after going through your past blogs. I’m pretty new to all this so; when cold calling from Production Notices, like this one: “THE CAPE” Pilot / NBC 02-11-10 BERMANBRAUN STATUS – […]

Postings for Writers’ Assistants

Kathleen writes: I am about to graduate in this lovely economic recession with hopes of landing a job in an already competitive industry. I have literally done everything. I even tried finding old UTA joblists and emailing actually people on it trying to sell myself. The one type of job that is virtually impossible to […]

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 […]

Replaceable

I heard the following story second hand, but I believe it, because the director in question is a real bitch. (For my feminist readers, please don’t interpret my use of the word “bitch” as “I can’t handle working for a woman because I’m part of the repressed, straight white male hegemony.”  I’ve worked for plenty […]

The Case of the Missing Post

Sorry I didn’t post anything yesterday.  I was working on set. I was at the stage for sixteen hours, but when I got home, I couldn’t sleep. “Exhausting but fun,” indeed.  It was all rain and green screen and waiting for the camera guys to get their heads out of their asses, but I was […]

Something I Will Never Understand

Why is it that the three departments most concerned with an actor’s look (wardrobe, make-up, and hair) always look the worst? I’m a straight white guy, so I have no fashion sense. I really don’t care what my clothes look like; I have shirts that don’t match themselves.  But some of the things I see […]

The Highest Up

Today, I was on location, to get stuff signed by the UPM. While I was standing around, a set PA asked if I could go grab the executive producer (who was in a coffee shop down the street that had free wifi), and bring him to set. I wasn’t doing anything, so I said sure. […]

Killing the Joke

Here’s a classic joke, told on film sets around the world, that I absolutely love. A producer, a director, and a DP are scouting locations. As they’re wandering around, one of them spots a lamp. Naturally, they decide to rub it, and, just as naturally, a genie pops out. The genie says, “Since there are […]

I Don’t Wanna Be That Guy

They say you hate in other what you hate most about yourself. I recently came off a show where I had one of the worst bosses of my entire life. Besides having the emotional maturity of a four year old (he once yelled at the script coordinator for bringing him pages, when we had just […]