I was walking down the hall at the studio, yesterday (as is my wont to do), when one of our producer/writers came out of the bathroom just as I passed it. We did that awkward thing where you’re walking at the same speed to the same place, without actually walking together.
Feeling the need to make small talk, I asked him how things were going down the hall (where our writers’ offices are).
“Pretty good,” he said. “Making progress.”
“That’s good.”
Awkward pause.
Then he asked, “Are you on [the expensive, and much better, cable show whose writers' office is down the hall in the opposite direction]?”
Even more awkward, for me, at least, pause.
“No, I- I work for your show. I’m in the production office” fifteen feet down the hall from your office.
“Oh.”
I don’t begrudge him not knowing my name. I can’t remember his, either. To me, he’s just Balding, Socially Awkward Producer Who Wears Flannel Like He’s In An Early Nineties Rock Band, Despite Being Old Enough To Remember When The Beatles Played On Ed Sullivan’s Show.
Hell, I don’t even care if he doesn’t know what position I’m in. There’s at least a hundred positions on a TV crew, and he can’t know who does what. But seriously, shouldn’t he at least remember the face of the guy he walks by every day on his way to writing terrible scripts?
I walked into the writers’ office yesterday and saw a ping pong ball and two paddles sitting on the assistant’s desk.
I paused, staring at the ping pong ball.
This was one of those moments you see in indie movies, where the character is contemplating his life, but you don’t know exactly what he’s thinking because, you know, “show, don’t tell.” But, since this isn’t a movie, I can tell you. I was thinking:
This is where I should be– counting how many times I can bounce the ball while idly bullshitting with the other writers about whatever this week’s story is. Then, suddenly, the story breaks, and we leap to our computers and start furiously pounding out the script.
Now, I know this isn’t how it always works. Writing can be frustrating and dull and lonely. But it can also be engaging and exciting and social, in the right circumstances.
I told my wife about ping pong ball, and she rolled her eyes. “That’s not really writing.”
You see, my wife is under the misapprehension that “writing” consists of the time spent at the keyboard. In fact, she uses “writing” and “typing” interchangeably. “Do you do any good typing today, sweetie?”
She does this mostly because she knows it annoys me.
The truth is, there’s much more to writing than the actual typing. An electrician’s job is to light the set, but the entirety of his job is not encompassed in the moment he switches on the lamp. He has to lay cable, position the light, set the dimmer board.
When I’m playing Portal for the eighteenth time, or calling up friends, or just staring at the ceiling, I can see why that’d look like goofing off. What I’m really doing is laying cable.
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.
I was walking a friend from out of state one day, and we saw a line of unmarked, white trucks along the side of the road. My friend said, “It looks like there’s a circus!”
Did I mention my friend was from out of town?
To an Angelino, those trucks are the surest sign that there’s a film or TV production going on. If you see a couple cops on motorcycles, then you know for sure.
You’ll often see security personnel around, too. Productions like to think they’re keeping the public out, but it’s surprisingly easy to get onto a set. All you have to do is wander up, and pretend like you have somewhere to be. No one ever asks where you’re going.
I learned this on the set of Daredevil. I was walking to the bar, when to my surprise, Bullseye sped by on a motorcycle.
I was excited about the movie at the time (and later very disappointed), so I tried to see if I could get closer. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was wearing the PA’s uniform– baggy shorts, T-shirt, tennis shoes. All I needed was a walkie on my belt.
I saw a table full of food, and, being a poor college student, made a bee line straight for it. I introduced myself to the craft services guy, who told me of the endless glories of food on set. I told him who I was, and he let me hang around all night. He introduced me to Ben Affleck’s stunt double (Affleck himself wasn’t there), and later on I saw the scene where Bullseye kills Electra’s dad.
It was a pretty awesome experience for a kid in film school. I’ve even done it several time since, with My Name is Earl, Swordfish, NYPD Blue, and others. If you’re bored and looking for some cheap entertainment, I highly recommend it.
I once worked for a guy who told me that he’s never had a job he wasn’t fired from. This was a point of pride for him, as it “proved” he had an entrepreneurial spirit, and he would never be successful until he started his own business.
I’ve heard it said that it’s healthy to be fired at least once in your career. I have no idea why. I was fired from a show, and I found no value in the experience at all.
I was working in the office, and doing a pretty good job, too. The coordinator was moving on, once the season was over, and the APOC was getting a promotion; she asked me if I would be interested in being her assistant coordinator next season. (This was a non-union show.)
So, like I said, I was doing a good job, but there was this one guy, the UPM, who really didn’t like me. I’m not sure why. Whenever I’d crack a joke, he wouldn’t laugh; when I smiled and asked, “How ya doin’?”, he’d give me a terse response. Generally, we just didn’t get along.
One day, I was on my way back from a run, and I got a call over the walkie to come to stage whatever right away. I called back that I’d be there as soon as I could.
“I don’t want you here ’soon,’ I want you here now.”
“I’m parking my vehicle. I can’t be in two places at once.”
Now, granted, I shouldn’t have talked back like that, but still. He obviously didn’t like me, personally, and was just looking for an excuse to get rid of me.
Plus, the bastard didn’t even have the balls to fire me directly. At the end of the day, six hours later, the coordinator took me aside and told me I wouldn’t be coming in tomorrow.
Oh, and did I mention that “tomorrow” was the last day of the season? And we had spent much of the morning unpacking the crew gifts, to be given out on the last day? So, after four months on the job, I was the only one who didn’t get a crew jacket.
I’m still bitter over that one.
Sometimes shit happens, and you learn something from it. Sometimes, shit just happens. This was the latter.
Anybody who works on set and who is slightly immature, by which I mean grips, just giggled at the title.
You see, channel 1 is the main production line on the walkies. Anyone could be listening, so you shouldn’t say anything that you don’t want other people to hear. You’re also supposed to follow certain rules of decorum, like not swearing and not saying, “I have to go take a piss.”
Besides being inaccurate (you’re actually leaving a piss), it’s rude. Instead, you’re supposed to say, “I’m going ten-one.”
This seemed strange and arbitrary, so I did some poking around to figure out where this curious term comes from. Several people told me it is short for 10-100. A quick search of Wikipedia tells me that they must have rounded up. 10-99 is the actual code for “Need To Use The Restroom (urinate).”
It’s also the code for “officer needs assistance/held hostage,” so that can be confusing, I imagine.
“This is officer Williams. I’m 10-99″
“Oh, God, he’s 10-99! He’s 10-99! We need back up now, God damn it, now! He’s 10-99!”
“Dude, I’ll be back in a minute.”
Not that 10-100 is much clearer. It can mean, among other things, misdemeanor warrant, hot pursuit, and dead body.
“We’ve got a 10-100 here.”
“Is he moving, or not?”
I used to work on a game show; we had contestants of all shapes and sizes. After this little Wikipedia binge, the other PAs and I started calling out 10-85 when certain, uh, plus-sized contestants were brought to set.
Come on, we’re PAs. You don’t expect us to be more mature than the grips do you?
You work strange hours when you’re making a TV show (or a movie, for that matter). You’ll come in at 7:00 one day and 10:30 the next. Sometimes you’re there for twelve hours, sometimes sixteen. You just never know.
One artifact of this, I believe, is that “morning” is whenever call time is, be it 6:30am or 2:30pm. It can be a bit strange, rolling into the office at a time most people are just getting done with work, and your boss says, “Good morning!”
The first meal of the day is always “breakfast,” even if they’re serving hamburgers at noon. The second meal is always “lunch,” and the third meal is, as you might assume, “second meal.”
When you work in the office, your eating schedule can get screwed up, since the office has to be open during normal business hours, regardless of the shooting schedule.
Some days, I come in at eight, but breakfast isn’t served until 10:30, by which point I’m about ready to eat my own foot. Then lunch is at 4:30, which confuses the hell out of my stomach, since it’s too late for lunch, but too early for dinner. If I eat now, I won’t be hungry when I get home, but then I won’t get breakfast again until maybe 11:00 the next morning. But if I don’t eat, I’ll be starving by the time I’m let go. What to do!
It’s existential quandaries like these that keep us tortured artists up at night.
It is an immutable fact of nature that everyone is smarter than their boss. Sure, there are exceptions, but not everyone can be Mr. Alley.
I remember when Google Maps first unveiled its satellite view. I entered the address where I was working, then called my boss over. “Hey, look. That’s our office!”
My boss stared at the screen in disbelief for a moment, then pointed at our building and asked, “Is this live?”
Before I could explain the complexity and expense of such a task, my boss added an even greater layer of stupidity. He looked up. At the ceiling.
To this day, I have no idea what he was expecting to see.
On another occasion, I was helping out our payroll accountant. She asked me to grab twenty checks from her drawer. I started counting by hand, but she stopped me and said, “Just use the check numbers. They’re in order.”
Ah! Great idea! I looked at the top number, then flipped through to the 20th one. I handed it over, saying, “Here ya go, checks 2046 through 2065.”
She gave me a disappointed look that told me I’d done something very silly. “Now, Anonymous, what’s sixty-five minus forty-six?”
“Um, are you telling me that, if I gave you one through twenty, that would be nineteen checks?”
She didn’t know how to respond. How could she? She was an accountant. Named Penny!
Today might be the most egregious example of a PHB in my young life. Last night, after most of the cast and crew and producers had left, we changed the front door lock to a key pad. This morning, my boss told me to write a memo to let everyone know the code.
So, they’ll all have a nice, neat memo, with the code to get into the building, waiting for them on their desk. Inside the building.
PAs are often in the office (or on the set) before anyone else, and they’re the last ones to leave. It’s fun, because the inmates are in charge of the asylum, at least for a little while.
One of my favorite things to do at those times is to walk around the set. It’s a bit disconcerting, like being in someone’s house when they’re not there. The fact that the set is a house only accentuates that feeling.
Then you look up, and there’s no roof. Outside the windows are bare walls or green screens or fake-looking back drops. The c-stands and grip carts are just hulking shapes in the dark.
Now that I think about it, it’s so creepy, I’m not sure why I do it.
My other favorite off-hours activity is to take a surreptitious tour of the writers’ room. (Our show doesn’t have any Lost-type security. I hear they erase their boards every night, and their poor writers’ PA has to re-write the notes every morning.)
The walls are lined with dry-erase boards, and these are covered with notes. Sometimes they look like outlines, with act breaks and other things. Other times, they’re indecipherable gibberish. (What the hell does “Walk the monkey AFTER” mean?)
These are some of the best times I’ve had as a PA. I get to look at the ideas while they’re still half-formed. Later, I’ll read the script, watch the shooting, and even go down the hall to post to see the edit. There’s really no better way to learn how TV is made.
Although, “Walk the monkey AFTER” still didn’t make sense after that script came out.
