The Anonymous Production Assistant’s Blog

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.

(First, I’d like to point you to an amusing post on Amanda’s website, about how soon you forget what it’s like to be young and poor.)

In most offices, there are enough binders to create a replica of Stonehenge entirely from supplies purchased at Staples.

My boss keeps copies of everything– every script, every draft of every script, every schedule, every crew list, every cast list, and even every memo. (”No parking in the East lot from 9:00am to 11:30am, July 8th.” Really? Do you need to keep that?)  And everything goes in a binder.

I even have a couple of binders on my shelf. One for resumes (yes, we keep them; no, we never look at them), the other for menus. For some reason, I had oriented the titles on the spins differently, one top to bottom, the other bottom to top).

Last week, my boss noticed: “Hey, did you know you wrote on your binders in opposite ways?”

I had, indeed, noticed. But… so?

One philosophy that was pounded into my head as a camera assistant was, “The only thing that matters is what winds up on film (or tape).” Nobody will care that I filled out the camera report correctly if I didn’t reload the magazine fast enough to get the shot while we still had the light.

This is the tough part about production. Almost nothing we do winds up on the screen. All the paperwork in those binders? Meaningless to the folks at home.

Now, I realize that there is a place for the support staff. Even though an accountant’s work is invisible to the audience, the crew does need to get paid.

But the orientation of the spines of some PA’s binder is so far removed from anything that matters, I just can’t bring myself to care.  Am I wrong?

I just had a bizarre conversation in the office kitchen. I was making some coffee, and someone came in to grab a pop.

(Yes, “pop.” Look at the drink. Do you see bubbles popping, or sodaing? You bake with soda, you drink pop.)

Anyway, the conversation went like this–

Me: “How’s it going?”
Him: “Pretty good. Our work was mostly front-loaded this episode.”
Me: “Yeah?”
Him: “Yeah. Everybody’s waiting on us. Always a lot of pressure.”
Me: “I imagine.”
Him: “It’s a big push to get it all done, but once it is, it’ll feel good to have the deck cleared.”
Me: “Mm hm.”
Him: “Well, I better get back to it. You know how it is.”

Except… I didn’t.

I had no idea who this guy was, what his department was, or what the hell he was talking about. I kinda recognized his face, but he could have been talking about serial murder for all I know.

Why do people assume I know them? I find myself acting like the guy from Memento, nodding and pretending to know them, just to avoid the awkwardness.

I suppose I could try to learn their names, but… Well, I guess, technically, I could care less. I’m just not sure how.

I was reading American Cinematographer the other day, and I came across an article about the Wounded Marine Careers Foundation.

Basically, they take wounded marines, and train them in filmmaking. They can take classes in cinematography, editing, sound, and writing. By the end of it, they’re qualified to join IATSE, and can work on union shows.

This is pretty much the best idea I’ve ever heard. First of all, it’s not charity. They’re teaching these guys a marketable skill and finding them jobs.

Secondly, there are benefits to making movies that you wouldn’t find as, say, an accountant. Expressing oneself can be an important part of the healing process. They can learn to deal with what’s happened to them by telling stories from their own perspective.

Also, these guys are just badasses. The article mentions one marine who had lost an eye in combat. When asked how he handles shooting with just one eye, the marine said, “There’s only one eyepiece.”

Wow.

I would say I want this guy to film my next movie, but I’m pretty sure if he wanted to shoot it, it would be dead already.

I was walking by the set the other day, and I saw a friend in the art department painting a sign. He was doing a really bad job, which was kind of surprising, since I’ve seen him paint some nice signs in the past.

I asked him about it, and he said it was supposed to look like it was done quickly and unprofessionally. Which it did. So, good job, then.

It must be an odd thing that sometimes you’re required to do your job badly. (Most of us do it on our own initiative.)

I once visited the set of the first Spider-Man. They were shooting inserts of Peter Parker designing his costume in one of the most ridiculous glossing over montages in film history. Anyway, on this occasion, I met Phil Jimenez, an accomplished comic book artist, who was doing the actual drawing.  (It’s his hands, not Tobey Maguire’s, that you see in the film.)

I asked him if it was easier not having to worry about drawing, you know, good. “Actually,” he said, “it’s really hard. I have to un-learn everything I’ve done over the last twenty years.”

I guess I didn’t realize how hard it is to suck, since I’m so naturally talented in that regard.

A little while ago, I said everyone has two businesses: their business and show business. This doesn’t mean they actually understand the business.

Chris Nashawaty wrote in this week’s Entertainment Weekly, “Universal spent $137 million on Ang Lee’s Hulk movie and it grossed $132 million. If I were a bean counter at Universal, I wouldn’t be bullish on that math.”

I don’t know why not. Hulk made another $113 million in foreign box office. Then there’s the ancillary markets– DVD, pay-per-view, video-on-demand, pay cable, regular cable, broadcast TV, airlines, downloads. And let’s not forget the merchandising.

Of course, there are costs beyond a film’s budget. Prints and advertising can often equal the budget, and DVDs cost a whopping 30 cents each to produce. On balance, though, Hulk was a money maker, like most studio movies.

What’s galling about all this is that Nashawaty is a reporter for a nationally published entertainment magazine. I don’t expect my mom to know this stuff; she’s got better things to do (like checking the ratings on my current show, praying that I’ll have a job next season).

If these movies weren’t making money, they wouldn’t be making more of these movies. It’s simple economics.  And a writer at Entertainment Weekly should know that.

Some people are shy. Actors, generally, are not.

A certain actor, let’s call him “Mick Molte,” would regularly show up on set wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a pair of pajama pants with the crotch worn through. And when I write, “nothing but,” I’m including underwear.

(I must admit that I didn’t witness this behavior myself; I didn’t join that production until later.)

An actress on my current show has several tattoos that need to be covered whenever she wears a revealing dress (which is often). My friend has “unintentionally” walked in on this process a number of times. I should point out that make up trailers have more mirrors than a disco ball.

I have a one up on him, though. Unfortunately.

I was working on a terrible little horror movie. The scene required the actress to jump out of her bed and sprint for the door. Sadly, the set walls were hanging from the ceiling, and the slightest touch would send them crashing to the ground.

The AD needed someone to catch her before she slammed into the wall, destroying the set and thus costing the production tens of dollars. I happened to be standing there, so I drew the short straw.

I once again tried the, “But I’m married!” excuse, and once again got shot down with, “That’s why you’ll be less grabby.”

Oh, so mistaken.

So, the director calls, “Action!”, the actress lunges at me, I throw up my hands to catch her, and…

Grab her boob.

(Or, more accurately, Dow Corning’s boob.)

I felt really bad, and apologized profusely, but she said don’t worry about it. “It happens all the time.”

Uh…

Wow.

(And don’t worry, I apologized to my wife, and her real boobs, when I got home.)

Everybody has two business: their business and show business.

Millions subscribe to People. Millions more flip through it while waiting in line at the grocery store. Then here’s Entertainment Weekly, Entertainment Tonight, and websites like TMZ and Perez Hilton, who update in intervals smaller than science is able to measure.

As someone who works in entertainment, it is a bit odd to know that everyone is curious about my business. My mom knows what the number one movie was this weekend; I have no idea what the best selling computer was.

This might be where all the egotism in Hollywood comes from. We have, after all, only one business, and everyone seems to be paying attention to it.

This is all a little silly, but there is a more pernicious effect. Due to what’s called “Dunbar’s number” (or the “monkeysphere,” if you’re into cheap jokes, like me), there is a limit to the number of people any individual can actually care about. This number is about 150.

What do I mean by “care about”? Imagine how you’d feel if your mother died. Now imagine if your best friend’s mother died. Now imagine a mother in Burundi died. They’re all tragic, but you feel it more strongly when the person is closer to you.

That’s Dunbar’s number.

Here’s the thing. The more you know about someone, the more you identify with them. As David Wong explains:

“Think of Osama Bin Laden. Did you just picture a camouflaged man hiding in a cave, drawing up suicide missions? Or are you thinking of a man who gets hungry and has a favorite food and who had a childhood crush on a girl and who has athlete’s foot and chronic headaches and wakes up in the morning with a boner and loves volleyball?

Something in you, just now, probably was offended by that. You think there’s an effort to build sympathy for the murderous fuck. Isn’t it strange how simply knowing random human facts about him immediately tugs at your sympathy strings?”

Do you know the names of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s kids? Do you know the names of your cousin’s kids? Or even your sister’s?

Think about how depressed some people got when Heath Ledger died. How many people got depressed over other 19,249 drug related deaths? The fact that it affected people shows that the brain can’t distinguish between a real relationship and a synthetic, televised, intertubed relationship.

A friend in the office just told me that Ashley Simpson is pregnant. I’m pretty sure I just forgot the name of my best friend in 2nd grade.

By the way, who the fuck is Ashley Simpson?

I feel so dirty writing that, but it’s true. If you can get past his poor grammar, rambling sentences, and excessive use of exclamation points, Bay has a point:

“The leaders of these guilds seem to like the limelight they get in the press, it becomes more about the ego in the room rather than something smart.”

It’s worth noting that SAG isn’t run by AFL-CIO organizers. It’s run by actors. Past presidents include Patty Duke, Ed Asner, and Charlton Heston. The current president was in 90 episodes of Cybill. I didn’t know Cybill was even on that long.

Anyway.

The point is, nobody is more desperate for attention than actors (other than bloggers who think people actually care enough about who they are that they make themselves anonymous). It’s why they became actors in the first place.

I think the folks at SAG saw how much attention a group of ugly writers got. Can you imagine how much interest the media will have when real, actual celebrities walk the picket line? And they won’t even have any writers telling them what to say, or any directors telling them what to do!

Oh, dear.

Yesterday, I was more than a little surprised to find my readership had quintupled over night, and Monday’s post had more responses than all my previous posts combined.

It’s thanks to the Polybloggimous blog, and Nathan’s little web 2.0 game. I’d like to continue the meme, but first I’ll have to come up with a blog who is lacking readers as I much as I was. That’ll be tough.

Even though he’s from New York, Nathan seems like a nice guy. When I checked his profile, I saw why. He’s a location manager!

Location managers are always cool. I think it’s because they spend most of their time sweet talking people.

You have to take a complete stranger from, “Who the hell are you and why the hell are you knocking on my door?” to “Sure, you and a hundred and fifty of your friends can set up shop in my house for three weeks!”

That’s not even the end of it. The location manager also has to deal with the property owner’s complaints even after filming has begun. A location manager told me a story of how a college professor once asked for more money half way through the shoot. His response was for too clever for me to remember correctly, but it went something like this:

“You’re a tenured professor at Caltech. You probably make a hundred thousand dollars a year, right? And you don’t even have to drive up to Pasadena every day, if you don’t want. We’re giving you five thousand a week. I’m just a working man, but seven grand a week to watch a movie get made sounds pretty good to me. Still, if you think you need more money, I can go and talk to my boss. I’ll be in some hot water, since I told him one price and now I’m telling him another, but I can do it. If you want.”

The professor said forget it.

Man, I wish I could do that.