Passive Voice

A lot of people tell you to avoid the passive voice. Sure, “the mouse was eaten,” but who ate it?

When you’re a PA, the passive voice can be your best friend. “The script was misfiled.” Who misfiled it? I certainly don’t know.

“The confidential memo was e-mailed to everyone.”

“The star was run over by a van.”

It’s a great way of diverting blame.

Every once in a while, though, the passive voice turns around and bites you on the ass.

On a multicamera show I was working on, a PA and I were laying down cable for the PL. (I don’t know what the hell it stands for, but it’s a headset that allows the camera operators to talk to each other and the director.)

Now, the PL cables have the same XLR connectors that microphones have. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to plug these cables into the sound equipment. I’m not sure what it would do, but it couldn’t be good. The other PA and I were extra careful to keep our stuff away from his.

A little while later, I hear the sound guy talking to the producer. He needs to go back to his office, because his board is fried. The producer asked what happened.

“The PL got plugged into it.”

Son of a bitch.

I know the producer is thinking, “Man, these idiot PAs. They’ll just plug anything into any hole, so long as it fits.”

But the sound guy did it! Later on, I asked him why he plugged it into his box, and he says, “I dunno. Doesn’t it need power?”

I have no fucking idea! As far as I know, it runs on pixie dust and happy thoughts, and because of that fact, I don’t go around plugging shit into shit without knowing what it’s going to do, and then let the producer assume some other moron (read: a PA) did it.

Argh. Man, when the passive voice is used, it is hated.

Double the Standards, Double the Fun!

I was overcome with curiosity by my fellow PA’s statement yesterday, “You don’t know who I know. I could make your life a living hell.” (Seriously, though, he’s a nice guy. This is waaay out of context.)

I knew he had been hired because the coordinator was told she had to hire him. So today, I asked her who, specifically, instructed her to do so.

She responded, “I’ll tell you if you tell me what happened yesterday.” (Of course, I hadn’t told her about our discussion, despite the fact that, I’m told, my face was as pink has the third draft of a script immediately afterward.)

So, I told her my colleague felt that I was condescending to him, and issuing orders when we are, in fact, on the same level. “So, who told you to hire him?”

“It was a political hire.”

“I know that. A political hire from who?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

…

I felt like a cartoon character, suddenly realizing the Warner siblings were in front of me, and no longer behind me.

“Wha- but… I just told you.”

Finally, she admitted the higher up works at the production company overseeing our show, but she declined to name names.

That’ll teach me to trust her.

This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten a bad feeling from her. On my first or second day, she was telling us PAs that we’re going to have to keep the kitchen clean. “Keep it neat, like you would your own- Well, not your kitchen. You’re guys. But keep it clean.”

Haha, very funny, whatever. I don’t mind. In any case, she’s right.

Seconds later, literally, as she was going on about cleaning stuff, I joked, “We’re going to need a girl PA.”

My boss stared at me like I just ran over her puppy. “We do not need a girl PA. Don’t ever talk like that in my office again.”

I failed to utilize the “you started it” defense.

And the weird, confusing politics goes on.

Several accountants have started this week, and I don’t yet know all of their names. I was trying to tell my boss that one of them wanted something. She asked which one, and I said, “Oh, shoot. I forget her name. The Asian one.”

Again, her jaw dropped to the floor, like I’d just said, “You know, the slant-eyed gook, sneaky jap, oriental one.”

Come on! It was an immediately accessible, clear, obvious characteristic. She knew who I meant. “The short one with the dark hair” wouldn’t have worked, because we also have a Middle Eastern accountant. Or possibly Hispanic. I’m not sure.

See, this is why I couldn’t be a racist. I can’t tell if I’m hating the wetbacks or the camel jockeys. Hell, I can’t even tell Jews from white people half the time, and what kind of racist doesn’t hate the Jews?

A Polish one.

Where It’s At

Yesterday, Nathan wrote, “You want to write… write!” This is the best, most important advice any aspiring writer can get. But if you’re sitting at a desk in Nome, Alaska, typing away on an Underwood by candlelight, filing your scripts in a drawer, you’re not going to have a writing career.

There’s an old saying that goes, “You’re the average of the people closest to you.” This is why I stopped working on shitty cable shows and direct-to-video movies. I took both a pay cut and a lower position so I could be on a real network show with real writers.

No, the show runner isn’t going to ask the office PA to write an episode. However, WGA rules dictate that he has to ask someone who’s not on staff at least twice a season.  (The number is something like that, anyway; I can’t find the exact rule, because when I google “WGA Rules,” I get a bunch of old crap about the strike.)

Often, this means hiring the writers’ PA, script coordinator, or even the executive producer’s assistant.  Basically, if they’re going to hire someone, they want to hire someone who’s sitting in the writers’ room with them every day.

So, how do you get to be a writers’ PA? Well, one way is to be an office PA, and hang out with the producer/writers down the hall.  When the script coordinator becomes a real writer, the writers’ assistant moves up to coordinator, the writers’ PA moves up to assistant, and all of a sudden, there’s an opening at the bottom.

That’s my plan, anyway.