The Life of the Mind

firetruckingawesomeness asked: I'm very interested in the production side of TV and I was wondering: to become a PA, do you have to do any schooling? If so, what kind of classes would you suggest? And if you want to get into directing, is it better to be a PA first?

No, you don’t need any schooling per se. I didn’t have any. I sort of talked my way into becoming a PA. Although, there definitely is a defined path in place if you choose to pursue it. How realistic it is, is entirely debatable. But I suppose so is going to medical school, then residency, then becoming a doctor.

The path goes something like this: go to college for arts, or communications, or for something technical like design or animation, then parley that into a production assistant job, which can either be as easy as answering an ad, having a friend recommend you, or can be completely closed off and impossible. This part seems random. I myself stumbled into it by meeting a writer/producer who was in the process of pitching her pilot, and offered me the job. Then once you’ve got a single toe in the massive door, you can go after the long and arduous quest of the Director’s Guild. By having something like 1,000 days on set as a PA, you can become a DGA trainee. After a set amount of time in that role, you become a 2nd 2nd Assistant Director, then a 2nd Assistant Director, then an Assistant Director, and then theoretically an industry director. But not only would this path take twenty years, it also doesn’t even seem to work. I can’t think of a single filmmaker I admire who went this route. But sadly, their stories are all similarly vague. Meet the right person. Write the right script. The stars aligned. All that stuff. Which is both disheartening and exciting. It seems becoming a filmmaker is as possible as you can make it. Especially with digital filmmaking as simplified and open as it has become. Before you needed to be a full on gear head to know how to film. Now with an iPhone you can pretty much make a decent short film.

So I guess the answer is, as far as I can tell seeing as how I’m also slogging through the swamp you’re asking about, there really isn’t a right way. Being a PA and becoming a DGA trainee and going down that road may or may not make directing easier. It certainly seems like great experience being on film sets and seeing how things work. But on the other hand, I don’t feel like production assistant is necessarily a step in the direction of making your own films. But, even if you’re not necessarily on the path to your dreams, PA’s and DGA trainees get paid pretty well. And you’ll be able to support yourself living modestly in Los Angeles. And you’ll be on set, with movie stars, and mixed up in the world of filmmaking. So whether or not that’s the beginning of a story that ends at making movies, it can’t hurt. And it makes for great stories.

So we’re shooting on location at Venice Beach. Now, Venice Beach is notorious for drug addicts, homeless people, the mentally ill, or any combination of the three. But I’m new in town and no one told me. So I get to where we’re shooting, and it’s maybe 5am. The sun is just barely coming up. We’re filming an interior scene inside of a police station. Well, it was a police station. Now it’s a sort of halfway house for criminals. It’s unclear to me the actual situation of how the cops interact with the criminals, what type of criminals they are, or the level of freedom they have. But what I do know, is that there are cops, there are criminals, and for some reason they rent out the first floor for film productions.

Before filming, I’m already being assaulted with questions by mere fact that there are cranes and lights, and passerby’s want to know what’s going on. Film production is old hat in Los Angeles and New York City. So much so, that not only no one impressed, but they’re also furious that they’re being inconvenienced. It doesn’t matter one bit that famous actors are in the middle of a scene, if it means someone can’t get where they want to go without taking a detour.

Now, I’m no doctor. I know nothing of mental illness. But the people most annoyed by film crews seem to be the homeless. And I don’t mean the simply “lacking a place to live” homeless. The other kind. Because if it means they can’t lay on “their” bench when they want to, they will fucking lose it. Cursing, spitting, stripping off clothes.

None of that’s part of this story. It’s just to give you an idea of how my morning started before the notable part. That’s the life of a production assistant.

So anyway, now it’s time to film. And I get sent to my lock-up by the 2nd 2nd AD. Which happens to be upstairs inside the prison. So I go up a flight of winding wooden stairs, and I position myself between three doors. One to a bathroom, one to another flight of stairs, and one to the cafeteria. Being in a lock-up just means it’s your job to keep everyone quiet, and act as a buffer to stop people from walking into or near the shot. So that’s my job. I’m 21 at this point, it’s my third day in LA, and I’m 130lbs soaking wet. And I’m supposed to shush these giant, tattooed, convicts for talking too loud. Which they absolutely are.

The cafeteria is full. It must be breakfast, because they’re packed in there, laughing and arguing. And every so often they come to go to the bathroom, which means two doors slamming, twice. And me standing meekly by while the AD is asking me what’s going on upstairs. I stall. I tell him about the closeness of the cafeteria, and there’s not a whole lot we can do about that. Film crews usually are an inconvenience, and we only push when we have to. So that car mechanic using the drill across the street, maybe you have the location manager go ask him to stop for a few minutes, but only in special cases. Most of the time you just try to work around it. But before that, the PA’s get yelled at. As a PA, you have to prove there’s nothing you can do about the noise before you earn being left alone about it.

And that’s what I’m trying to do on the second floor. I’m being eyed up by six feet tall thugs with teardrop tattoos. And like hell I’m going to put one finger to my lips to tell them to be quiet. So I have a bothered AD in my ear, and gangbanger in my eyeline, and I’m just counting the seconds until this fucking situation resolves itself.

It wasn’t until the final day of shooting, me and that AD had a long conversation about it. He, a fifty year old “seen it all” type, wanted to know how my experience was, and I jokingly told him about the prison fiasco. And in almost a rom-com twist, he told me it was him who called to have me taken out of that lock-up. He was protecting me in a concerned father way. It’s just a shame that at the end of a production you find out how much people liked you, when during everyone is screaming at everyone and every day feels like the one you might get fired.

goingforpicture:

can-bot:

“PA’s are people too” is also a viable option…

A makeup artist friend of mine I work with from time to time has a tattoo very visibly on the outside of her right forearm in a nice fancy frame that says “NOT MY DEPARTMENT… JUST SAYIN’”. Brilliant. 

If only us PA’s could say that from time to time. Driving around a seemingly abandoned section of Glendale looking for Ace Bandages for a masseuse who was taking care of the back-up dancers, I started thinking up my “I have limits!” pep talk. Only to do the same thing when they needed more an hour later.

When I first got to LA for my PA job, I had no idea where I was or where I was going. The only time I’d ever been there was to scope out apartments. And the only saving grace I had was my iPhone. Using the GPS with it’s bus option, I was able to follow my iPhone’s every instruction and get to where I needed to be. This was helpful making my way around, but became absolutely vital to PA work. I figured renting an apartment less than a mile away from the production studio would take care of that whole no car problem. But I naively forgot about “filming on location.” Sure I could walk to the Disney lot, but sadly, we only shot on the studio lot one day in the entire shoot.

The rest of the time I had only an address on the callsheet handed to me at 2 am to rely on. I’d wake up at just a few hours later, sometime 4am, punch in the address to my phone’s GPS, and start the ambient 28 Days Later like journey of making my way through the city in the dark.

Riding the bus in Downtown LA at such strange hours, you see a lot of strange things. Mostly Mexican-Americans making their way to their jobs. But every so often, something that makes you wonder. I stared at a six foot woman in a gorgeous red dress and high heels just fascinated. Who was she and where was she going? Was she just waking up or heading home after god knows what last night?

But the bus was never a straight shot. So I’d end up in abandoned parts of the city, blindly following a phone that would always recalibrate at the worst possible times. Just me and a few homeless people in an otherwise totally vacant section of a city. Strange graffiti on empty shop windows, like this:

A strange clue to an ongoing mystery. I’d then walk to what I was trusting was the next bus stop. Twilight hours, just me on a street corner, trusting Steve Jobs that a bus would show up and I wouldn’t completely miss a day of shooting on my first showbiz job. Thankfully, the bus always came. Although the iPhone’s GPS map isn’t quite up to snuff. Sometimes the oversized dot of my destination didn’t show which side of the street it was on, with a different bus stop on each side. And I’d walk back and forth, second guessing myself until something made the decision for me.

Sometimes my phone would recalibrate right before my stop, and I wouldn’t know what to do. Sometimes I’d just get off now, and be three blocks away, or wait a stop or two too long. Sometimes I’d be five minutes away from a bus that passes by in two minutes, and doesn’t come back for another hour. These buses only run at once per hour at 4am, because who in their right fucking mind needs a bus at that hour? A 21 year old PA, that’s who.

So there’s me, running at a full sprint through what looked like a set from an apocalypse film, but was actually just Los Angeles’ past. I’d finally be arriving to set, in a warehouse or factory district, or on Venice Beach, or at some nondescript house in the suburbs, visible only by the eighteen wheelers hauling loads of camera equipment and costumes, the hum of generators, people eating breakfast from a catering truck, and an executive PA screaming at me to take breakfast orders from the cast.

Usually I’d arrive on set hours early, listening to “Om Nashi Mi” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros on repeat, drink my first cup of coffee from the catering truck, and just sit staring at the sky thinking about the bizarre adventure my daily commute always ended up being. And for just a short while I’d be in pure appreciation. Then the other jaded PA’s and AD’s and the god awful Director of Photography would show to “just another day at the office” and I’d have to keep my awe to myself and go get Eric Roberts his cigarettes. American Spirit, the healthy cancer. I laugh at that joke again. If only they knew.

So it’s 4am. Beverly Hills. In the rain. I’m holding an umbrella and standing next to a floodlight. Why? Well because it’s my light. I’m in my lock-up, which means my one job is to make sure no one walks through the light. The light is currently aimed at the front of the house, to give the passing appearance of daylight. My daylight.

It’s my one and only job. And I’m being paid time and a half for it. Yeah I’m tired. Yeah I’m bored. But it’s fine because this is my only job. This light. This light is my job. My only job. No one’s getting past me. Not past this light. Wait. What’s that? The executive producer’s personal assistant? Walking towards the light! I motion to her. She doesn’t respond. I can’t yell, they’re in the middle of the scene. Shit. Shit! Shit!! She passed through the light. It’s okay. No one saw. They weren’t even looking this way. I’m sure of it. No big deal.

Then a voice comes through my walkie talkie headset.

CUT! What’s going on with the light?

Fuck.

Being a PA is not a healthy lifestyle. Eighteen hour days on your feet, standing around in tedium, with short but intense bursts of stress. I ate an enormous amount of food, mostly due to awe. The crafty truck had more than enough to keep me happy; ham and cheese croissants, yogurt, fruit, coffee/espresso, chips, granola, energy drinks, bagels, muffins, chips, candy, and an actual entree every few hours. But on top of that there are three amazingly catered meals. It was easy to get out of control, which I did.

In this all consuming cycle of monotony, eating, and stress, I became addicted to three things.

First: 5 Hour Energy. This is steroids. Tastes fine and goes down in a gulp. Twenty minutes later, you’re high on life. You’ve got energy, you feel great, you’re in a good mood, you’re social and enthusiastic. It was like the drug in Limitless. I ended up taking two or three a day to make it through long shoots.

Next up: Coffeemate. French Vanilla or Hazelnut. When you sit down with a cup of coffee, you carefully add cream and sugar at just the right ratio. On the run between camera takes, you don’t have time for all that. You run to crafty to grab some coffee, and it so rarely comes in cups. More often than not it comes in gulps, sips, splashes, shots, snorts. You pour an inch of coffee, throw some Coffeemate in it, and knock it back in one try. And you’re off and running back to your lock up.

Lastly: Massaman. No real production assistant story here. I just love it. There was a Thai restaurant near my apartment, and I got it maybe three times a week. It’s steak and potatoes with peanuts in peanut butter curry. Pour it over white rice and die. It’s that good.

My job ended up revolving mostly around Eric Roberts, our show’s number one. This was easier said than done. Mostly I just had to make sure he was in the acting place in front of the recording box when it was time to act and be recorded. But occasionally I was there to deliver cigarettes. American Spirits: the healthy cancer. And he made that joke to me every hour on the hour. I laughed every time. Because I’m a clapping monkey.

I really just needed to make sure he didn’t get lost or topple over, which happened once. Coming out of a warehouse where we were filming, there was a sudden four foot drop off the sidewalk, because wherever we were must have been an industrial unloading zone, now artificial like everything else. He fell feet first, hesitated on impact, landing hard but with both feet planted, then did a hilariously slow 360 spin and fell onto his back. I held back laughter as his tuna sandwich seemed to explode. I couldn’t help but think of his line in The Dark Knight when Batman threatens to drop him: “If you’re going to threaten someone, pick a better spot.” I helped him up and pretended not be to embarrassed for him.

The executive PA, or rather the one that felt the need to create hierarchy even when pay scale wouldn’t vindicate her superiority complex, made it my job to announce craft services food, and take orders. Here’s the following interaction:

Me: They have a grilled chicken soup.

Eric: Okay dude, I want a leg and a thigh in a to go box, and I’m a happy man.

Me: (laughs) (awkward pause) (no punch line) (walks to craft services) (woman stirring soup) Do you have any grilled chicken legs?

Crafty: We have soup.

Me: So… no?

Crafty: Are you serious?

Me: Yes?

Crafty: No.

Me: (walks back to Eric) They have grilled chicken soup.

Eric: Leg and a thigh, in a box, and I’m a happy man.

Me: It’s a soup. Do you want any?

Eric: So no thigh?

Me: No.

Eric: Then no.

Me: I want to die.

But this one on one time with Roberts did lend some interesting moments. In a garage at 4am, in some rich Hollywood hillside villa, Eric tells stories of old projects and cocaine ridden shoots. The rest of the workers disperse when their crew chief’s call, leaving just me “Little E” and him “Big E”. I couldn’t help myself.

Me: So allow me to be a nerd. What was The Dark Knight like?

Eric: It was so cool, dude. They filmed it in a zeppelin hangar in London. Chris Nolan is the coolest dude. Christian Bale is an asshole though.

Me: Oh really?

Eric: Yeah. My first day on set, Gary Oldman warned me to stay away from him.

Me: What happened?

Eric: In rehearsals, he’s supposed to say “Where’s the Joker?!” But he grabs me by the throat (Eric then grabbed me by the throat) rams his knuckles into my adam’s apple (Eric then rams his knuckles into my adam’s apple) and screams “Where’s the Joker?!!!” (he then screams in my face “Where’s the Joker??). I said “Hey man, what are you doing? I can’t even talk.” And Bale just said “I’m Batman.”

Now, the layers of this interactions tear my mind apart. Eric Roberts, who played Maroni, is miming Christian Bale, who plays Batman, while I play Eric Roberts, who played Maroni. And Roberts, as Bale grabs me, as Roberts, as Maroni by the throat. It’s 4am. We’re alone in a garage. In the Hollywood hills. What the fuck?

Being a PA is very very strange. You enter a world of references, backward thinking, and strange hierarchy. But it’s all so very old hat to everyone but you. Another PA once walked up to me with a masseuse and told me to find somewhere for him to set up. She said this as though it were an extremely simple request. Find somewhere for the masseuse to set up. In the middle of a Los Angeles college, we’re filming in their theatre, I have no idea what my jurisdiction is, or even what to do when I find an empty room. I stood there immobilized. I didn’t want to go back up to my fellow PA, who was notoriously naggy (they called her the “executive” PA behind her back) with a dumb drooling expression on my face. But this wasn’t a simple request for me. I didn’t comprehend what ‘find a space” meant. Do I walk into a classroom, remember where it is, push the guy into it, then walk away hoping job well done? Do I walk him into the hair and make up room and stick him in the corner and hope no one minds? What does any of this mean?

So I walked around the set in big giant circles pretending to be busy until someone else got frustrated and did it.