The Anonymous Production Assistant

Keep Your Eye on Your Long Term Goal

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

Marty Lang contacted me on Twitter, presumably in refernce to the joblist, or my own jobs page: @TheAnonymousPA there really is no way to get an inside track on a writer’s assistant position, is there? I scour sites all over the place, and the closest I ever came to finding one was the showrunners assistant […]

Some Writers Are Oblivious

If you’ve never been on a multicamera series, it’s a lot like being on a play that has a one-night engagement. There’s a lot of set up and rehearsal and honing everything down to the last detail, so you can perform it for a singular audience. You only get one shot at it,{{1}} and thus […]

Many Kinds of PAs

First of all, what the hell, Warner Brothers? I feel like I can get onto the Universal lot with a smile and a jaunty doff of my cap. Anyway, moving on to the actual topic at hand. I received this tweet last week: @TheAnonymousPA Hi there, any chance you could do a blog about Post […]

Should Wannabe Writers Be PAs?

Corey writes: Due to the nature of production and the long shifts, would you still recommend PA to someone trying to write films? Many writers have told me that it is often best to pick a job that allows you to pay bills and still have time to write. Since you are obviously doing both, […]

For Those of You With Aspirations

For those of you who dream of getting paid to write (or direct or production design or shoot or whatever else), I highly recommend reading Kelly Oxford’s recent Tumblr post. A little background info: Kelly Oxford is a super-smart writer whose Twitter feed has earned her over a hundred thousand followers. Big whoop, right? Wrong. […]

Waiting for Scripts

Sheila writes: I’m the third PA on [show]. When I started, it was great – I felt like I have a leg up by having a gig in the first place. Plus, we almost never shot nights, and I was only working about 10 hours a day. But… in the last few weeks, we started […]

Script Coordinator: A Way Out of The PA Doldrums

I have no intention of being a PA forever. As I’ve said before, I’d ultimately like to write and direct. Every path out of PA-hood is unique, but one way out that doesn’t get enough attention is the PA –> Script Coordinator route. A Script Coordinator is the keeper of the script. He or she […]

Believe in Yourself!

I really enjoy the Creative Screenwriting Magazine podcast, despite the fact that their interviewer, Jeff Goldsmith, is a massive tool. (That’s a post for another day.) The most recent one features several of this year’s Oscar-nominated screenwriters, and I highly recommend it. One problem I have with this sort of panel, though, is the constant […]

Secret Origins

Green PA commented on a post from a couple weeks ago, “The Curse of the Origin Story”: I recently got very lucky and was able to finagle my way out of the mail room and into a sweet PA job on the lot. I have been scouring IMDB to find the origins of all of […]