The Anonymous Production Assistant’s Blog

Writing yesterday about my film school pilot, I thought about our terrible professors for the first time in years. They were all pretty old, and set in their ways. They wouldn’t let us do anything unusual, like, oh, say, move the camera in the shot. They drained every ounce of originality from the production. Like network executives, only not paid as well.

At the time, I also worked for the school. I asked my grizzled old boss what he thought of the situation. Was it going to be this hard to get things done in the real world? He assured me no studio is run as inefficiently as film school. They’d go out of business.

“Everyone is here because either they’re too old to hack it any more,” and he included himself in this group (he was old enough to be on a first name basis with Walt Disney), “or, if they’re young, they never will.”

I looked around at my professors and saw that he was right. When I checked credits on imdb, either I didn’t recognize anything they’d worked on, or their last project of note was done before I was born.

After I graduated, I had an AD who was an asshole (not all that uncommon for ADs, sadly) and had no idea what he was doing. I later found out he taught a directing class at our alma mater. I felt bad for his students.

This obviously calls to mind the old saying, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” Out of curiosity (and lack of anything to do), I tried to figure out who coined that phrase. Apparently, everyone did. On further researching, I discovered it’s actually a bastardization of a quote from Aristotle: “Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.”

While I think the latter is nicer (my wife is a teacher, after all), the former one applied to my professors much better.

(On an unrelated note, I’m excited to learn I’m not the only one in Hollywood who votes Republican.)

In film school, I worked on a sitcom pilot for the campus TV station. It was for a class, so if you wanted to be either the director, the writer, or the producer, you had to interview with the professors. They made three highly questionable choices.

There were a lot of funny people on our crew, but the writer wasn’t one of them. It’s not that he had a strange, Andy Kaufman-type sense of humor; nor did he make obscure, Dennis Miller-style references. No, his dialogue was just… words. That weren’t funny.

The director had terrible instincts. We found an actor who was able to draw some humor out of the terrible script by creating a layered performance. He essentially treated his character’s public persona as a different person from his private one, and that tension built comedy. (Trust me, it was funny.) The director saw this and naturally decided the actor should do it completely differently. And less funny.

To complete the trifecta, we had a lousy producer. He was totally disorganized. He never knew what was going on, or when it needed to happen. It was amazing we got the show finished at all.

Did I mention I was the producer?

So, you see, Dawn, there’s a very good reason why I don’t want to be a coordinator, UPM, or anything along those lines. Besides the very obvious fact that I’m not good at it, I don’t enjoy it, either.

Being good at, and enjoying, producing is so far removed from my own experiences, that I really do not understand people who are good, and do enjoy it. Of course, my parents don’t understand how I can stand finding a new job every six months.

It’s not an insult. It’s genuine confusion. But I am glad there are people out there who do produce. Nothing would get done without them.

Unlike most people, I didn’t go to Dark Knight this weekend. I’ve already seen it on a regular screen, and all the Imax screenings were sold out.

Instead, I went to Venice beach. (In my excitement to be outside and away from the office, I called up a friend who lives in Hawaii, which is akin to him calling me from Interstate H-1 to tell me how cool it was he was driving at 65mph.)

I love all the crazy, hand-made things the street vendors sell on the Venice boardwalk. I saw this set of salt and pepper shakers that looked like two people hugging. It was really cute, until I noticed that the salt and pepper poured from their eyes, making them the creepiest salt and pepper shakers ever.

I also saw some hand painted, ceramic skulls. It took me a minute to realize that they were bongs. I wondered what other home decorations I’d seen were actually bongs. Your name on a grain of rice? A bong. The painting of your name made out of rainbows and dolphins? A bong. The hugging salt and pepper shakers? Bongs, with the smoke coming out of the eyes.

Another thing I love about Venice is the canals. I didn’t even know they existed, until a couple of years ago. When my wife and I stumbled upon them, she said, “Oh, I wondered where the canals were.” Shows how much I know about Italy.

I don’t know if they named the city “Venice,” then decided to dig the canals, or if they found the canals naturally and thought “Venice” fit.

I prefer to believe the city founder one day just declared, “I hereby name this city, “Venice!” And… Hey, you, what are you doing over there?”

Then a confused guy with a shovel looks around, and says, “Just digging some canals. Why?”

(Please don’t tell me the actual story. Mine’s better. Admit it.)

The best part of Venice, though, is the people watching. There were roller skaters dancing, hippies playing bad Bob Dylan and/or Marley covers, skate boarders Ollying, a homeless man declaring George Bush is controlled by aliens, people practicing Capoeira, another homeless guy declaring the first one is controlled by aliens, sunbathers sunbathing, surfers surfing, muscle builders building muscle, and generally a throng of people hustling and bustling up and down the beach.

Los Angeles doesn’t have a Commons, or a Central Park, or what have you. We have the beach. Whether they live on the West Side, or in the Valley, or in East L.A., rich or poor, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, or other, in the Industry or just a civilian, a P.A. or a studio executive, everyone goes to the beach. If you want to see, to experience, to be a part of a cross section of this great metropolis, just go to the beach.

I promise you’ll have a great time.

I’ve just been looking at my incoming links (I like to see what people are searching for when they find my site), and two questions sprang to mind.

Who’s been searching for “0000001000000110000001000000110000001000000100000010000001,” and, upon doing so, why did they decide The Anonymous Production Assistant Blog must be the site they’re looking for?

By the way, welcome everybody who followed the link from Nikki Finke’s comments section. I hope the racist talk from today’s earlier post didn’t put you off.

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 distributed pages the night before; what the hell is she supposed to do about it?), he was also unrelentingly condescending and sarcastic.

For example, someone came in the office and asked for the wireless password. Since I was using a desktop, I asked my boss what the password was. He responded thusly:

“GYWAAAAAAHHHHhhhhhhhaaaaa. [That's the closest I can approximate his drama-queen sigh of feigned exasperation without using the Klingon alphabet.] You don’t know the password?!”

No, asshole, I’m plugged into the wall. My password is, “I’m plugged into the fucking wall.”

Equally annoying was his little sidekick, a PA who’d worked for him on a few shows. She was constantly telling me things I already knew, or reminding me to do things I’d already done. This was all very annoying, of course, but I dealt with it. I wasn’t going to be working there forever, after all. Besides, she was an idiot, so why should her opinion bother me?

Fast forward to the present. Now, I’m the one with more experience. In fact, it’s the other PA’s first show.

He’s a good guy. A nice guy, too. He doesn’t always know what’s expected of him, but he’s trying hard and asking questions. Pretty much all you could ask for. Things are going great.

Then, today in the copy room, he confronted me. I asked if he had put the bagels and stuff away, and if he had, he should put the cream cheese in the fridge, not on the shelf.

He whirled on me, and said, “Look, you’re not my boss. I don’t need you telling me what to do all the time.” He went on to say that he knows I’m trying to make him look bad, by waiting until our bosses are around when I ask him if he’s done something yet.  (He failed to notice I was asking him in the copy room, when no one else was around.)

He was visibly shaking as he said this, too. It got really weird when he told me that I didn’t know who he knows, and he could make my life a living hell. Plus, he went to military school, so he could knock me on my ass. “Not that I’m threatening, but just know that.”

Which is not to say he overreacted (barring the threat of physical harm). From what he said, this has been bothering him for a little while. Plus, there was an unfortunate confluence of events–

On Monday, our boss gave him a stern talking to, about thinking ahead and picking up the slack, blah blah blah. Totally unwarranted, in my opinion, but whatever. Then, when I was gone yesterday, he told me he had his best day working here, since he didn’t feel he had three different people looking over his shoulder all day.

The truth of the matter is much more banal. When I ask, for example, if he’s checked the mail, it’s not because I want him to look bad for not having done it already. Nor am I checking up on him. I just don’t want to go out to the mail box if the job’s already done. Far from bad mouthing him, after he left on Monday, I defended him to our boss, saying basically, “He’s trying hard.  He’ll learn.”

I told him all of this, of course (except for the part about defending him, which seemed inappropriate to say). I don’t really know if he believed me, but I got out of the room without being punched.

Somehow, I went from being annoyed to being the annoying one. I don’t mean to be obnoxious or condescending, but I always seem to come off that way. I hear this all the time from people. I once had a therapist tell me she thought I was a jerk for the first few weeks of therapy.

So, I’m aware this is a problem. Last week, I even thought about telling him, “Listen, if I’m telling you things you already know, or if I’m talking down to you, or whatever, just let me know. I’m just trying to help.”  I don’t really remember why I didn’t, other than the opportunity didn’t present itself.  Now, of course, it’s too late.

I honestly don’t know what to do about it at this point. So far, I’ve just avoided talking to him, for fear of offending, but I can’t very well do that for the rest of the shoot.

What should I do?

Well, I didn’t get to send anyone to the electric chair.  (Or whatever it is they do nowadays.  Hang ‘em?  Shoot ‘em?  Are we still stoning people?)  It’s been a long, boring day, so I’ll keep this post short.

I was going through some old e-mails, and I uncovered a dream I had totally forgotten about.

I dreamt I was writing for a TV show, and all the writers were sitting around, pitching episode ideas.  As I slowly awoke, I thought about a brilliant story one of the other writers had pitched.

In my sleep addled state, I was disappointed, because it was someone else’s idea, and I couldn’t use it. A moment later, I realized, “No, wait, I can use that…

“Who will know I stole it?”

My posting schedule will be a erratic for a little while, as I will be spending my days sitting in judgment of my fellow man.  In a totally socially-endorsed way, too!

If you’re in the courthouse tomorrow, I’ll be the angriest of the twelve angry men.

I’m just not sure which argument I should make in the jury room– A) Why would the police go through the trouble of arresting the guy if he’s innocent? Or B) I’ve seen enough procedural shows to know that all criminals leave indisputable forensic evidence at the scene of the crime; if it’s anything less than 100%, he must be not guilty.

I usually post from work, partially because I have nothing to do, but mostly because at home, I bootleg the interweb from my neighbor’s tube, and the connection’s a little bit spotty.  If there’s nothing new here tomorrow, why not try a friendly game of Risk, instead?

My freshman year at film school, I knew at least a half dozen people who dropped out of the program, if not college altogether. Even more changed majors in the years following. After picking films apart for class after class, they found that they just couldn’t enjoy going to the movies anymore, which was probably the reason they signed up for film school in the first place.

This attitude carries over into the professional world, too. I can’t tell you how many people I know who don’t go to movies, or don’t ever watch TV. They know too much about the bullshit going on behind the scenes to take any of it seriously.

It’s sort of like learning the secret to a magic trick. Once you know the trick, there’s no longer any magic.

Somehow, my brain doesn’t work that way. I can shut the analytical part off when I watch a movie. When I sit in a theater (or switch on my TV), I forget about those four years in college, and my years behind the scenes. I get transported into a different world for an hour or two, and only when I re-emerge, blinking in the sunlight, do I realize, “Whoa, wait a second. The flying suit is cool and all, but you’ve got a computer that can speak natural language, crack jokes, and make aesthetic judgments. Why isn’t this a big deal to… everyone ever?”

So, unless you’re like me, I highly recommend that you not seek a job in the entertainment industry.

First of all, Ken Levine somehow stole a blog post idea directly from my head. (This fits with my theory that Rupert Murdoch has a chip my brain, and he’s stealing all my good scripts before I even write them.) Ah, well, it’s probably for the best– he’s a better writer than I am, anyway, and his views on the writer/director subject are more insightful than mine would have been.

Anyway, on to my real post.

I like making movies. It’s why I moved to Los Angeles, why I went to film school, and why I’m willing to work for idiots for less money than what a grocery clerk makes.

The problem is, making movies is a collaborative art (unless you animate it and do all the voices yourself).

Growing up in a small midwestern city, I didn’t know many people who were interested in making movies, let alone willing to put the time and effort it takes to actually write, shoot, and edit one. But once I got to film school, finding collaborators was easy.

That, to me, is the main advantage to film school. You’re surrounded by people who don’t want to do anything but make movies. I was shooting all the time, sometimes my movies, sometimes other people’s. Sure, they were universally lousy, but at least I was filming.

The problem I had working at a production company was that I was the youngest person there. Nobody else was interested in spending their weekends with a DV camera and actors cast from Craig’s list. Once I got into PAing on movies and TV shows, I finally got back to filming just for fun (or artistic expression).

This year, I’ve worked on two friends’ projects, and done two of my own. It’s always a fun way to burn a weekend or two.  It’s hard to get stressed, like you do on a real shoot, because everyone’s working for the love of it (and maybe a slice of pizza).

Even better, in the years since film school, the projects have ceased to suck, and progressed to merely disappointing. In a couple more years, I may attain the vaunted sphere of “adequate.”

Here’s hoping.

John August has another one of his Scene Challenges up.

The goal is to write a scene where one character explains to another what investment derivatives are.  It was a difficult writing problem, since I have no idea what investment derivatives are.

I’m #48.