Day Player: A Way In
A day player is a PA who works on a show sporadically. He or she doesn’t have the luxury of a regular Monday through Friday prison sentence work schedule. They could work two days one week, three days the next, five days the next, and then not at all for four weeks. It all depends […]
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 […]
The Similarities Between My Job and ‘The Wire’
I wrote on Twitter that I’ve been using this lull in the pre-production schedule to make my way through Season 3 of THE WIRE. For those uninitiated to one of the greatest shows ever, THE WIRE follows a police unit’s investigations of the criminal underworld in Baltimore, Maryland. In the show, the police commanders have […]
The Goldilocks Problem
In case you don’t know the story of Goldilocks, it’s a nineteenth century fairy tale about a girl who discovers the home of three porridge-loving bears. She has some of their porridge – a spoonful from each bowl. One is too hot, one is too cold, and one is just right. The story doesn’t say […]
Your Car, The Mobile Office
As a PA, you’ll spend 95% of your time between two places – your desk and your car. I try to keep my desk as clean as possible. My car is a different story. Until very recently, my car was a danger zone. Receipts, fast food bags, empty water bottles (don’t tell the Green PA) littered the […]
Act Like A Professional
The last few weeks have been pretty tough for me, personally. My family has decided to turn my life into a sick Edward Albee play, and, needless to say, it’s put me under a considerable amount of unneeded stress. It came out in my work last week. I made dumb mistakes. Rookie mistakes. In one […]
Good Bosses
In light of the release of HORRIBLE BOSSES and the compilation of the Boss Database, I thought it was worth mentioning that not all bosses are equally terrible. I know that this blog can err on the side of negativity and complaining, but even I have to admit that some of my bosses have been […]
Getting Chummy With The Bosses
Last week, the Other PA asked me, “Hey. Joe Buck the EP doesn’t seem to talk to me very much. You think he doesn’t like me?” Here’s what I wanted to say back: “No. He’s the EP. You’re a PA. You two could not be on further ends of the production spectrum. Your day-to-day job […]
Get Your Goddamn Hands Off Her
I have four little sisters, and if any one of them told me that they wanted to work on a film set, I would try my best to dissuade them from entering such a filthy pit of depravity. It’s not that I don’t think they could cut it in the dog-eat-dog world of film and […]
The Green PA
There are lots of jobs in Hollywood that I would rather have than mine. But there is one job that I would never take, no matter how much money you offered me. A Green PA keeps a show green. They make suggestions to improve the environmental efficiency of a show. They keep track of airline […]
Fear No More The Heat O’ The Sun
It was a hot, hot Fourth of July weekend, succeeded by a hot, hot fifth of July. The production office’s air conditioning went down yesterday. We have (barely) survived the day on copious amounts of water and popsicles. All day, I struggled to muster the motivation to write a post for today. “It’s too hot!” […]
The Decision
Stick with a safe job, or make the jump to something more challenging?