In Defense of Film School
A Fan commented on yesterday’s post about PA Bootcamp [sic]: I’ve heard this applied to film school in general. You can either pay to learn how to make movies, or get paid to learn how to make movies. It just depends on what you’re more comfortable with. A not uncommon view of film school, but […]
Someone Actually Likes PA Bootcamp
Regular readers know I have a spotty history with PA Bootcamp [sic]. It was fun baiting them for a while, but it got to be repetitive and dull. I still get emails asking about the service pretty regularly, and I just refer them to my comments section. Just today, though, I got an incoming link from […]
Quoting Smarter People
Michael the Hollywood Juicer made an interesting a comment on yesterday’s post, and I’m certainly not above reprinting someone else’s work and calling it a day: TAPA is dead right — almost everybody in the Industry is happy to to talk about what they do (witness all the Industry blogs out there), and most are […]
How a Set Should Be
Taylor commented on an old post, yesterday: You are stupid sir. Locations arrives first and leaves last. Don’t repeat things you don’t understand He (she?) may or may not have realized that s/he was commenting on an auto-comment that’s generated every time one WordPress post links to another. That post read, Set PAs stay on […]
No Lions
rather pathetic comments: great example here people. if you work long enough as a PA, you will hate life. please please please take this blog with a grain of salt. A few years ago, the Internet went down in my dorm. Everyone got super annoyed. What’s going on? Who are the morons running this place? […]
Toronto Vs. Vancouver
Carl asks: I’m currently in Vancouver after moving there from England about a week ago. I can relocate to Toronto easily enough, so I’m trying to work out which is a better place to start out, given that I don’t know anyone in either city. Do you have any idea on the relative states of each market? I don’t […]
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 – […]
Animated Acting, and KeyPA
While reading some old blogs, I came across this post about performance capture, from Observations on Film and Art. While not as mind-bogglingly dumb as Mark Harris, Kristin Thompson still exhibits a terrible misunderstanding of the relationship between acting and effects. She lists several differences between Zoe Saldana and the character she plays. What she […]
Reflections on the Oscars
Don’t worry, this won’t be as long as Ken Levine’s. (Nor probably as funny.) My main thought is about Sandra Bullock. I haven’t seen The Blind Side. (My mom recommended it, which kinda pushes it down on my Netflix queue.) Anyway, the general consensus is that she won not so much for this particular performance, […]
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 […]
Cold Calling, and Music Videos
Reader Yoshi writes: One major thing you’ve omitted is getting work on commercials and music videos. I got all these leads off various sources, but I’m not sure what the protocol is when cold calling them, since you’re not calling a p.o.. Who do I ask for and what do I say? I wish I […]
Clarification on Terms
Reader VJ commented on Friday’s post: Where in the hell does an “assistant” anything – even Director – get off being a dick to anyone? Unless the actual director is an überdick, then I guess it’s ok. But you would think they would save the dickery until they had a title without “assistant” right up […]