On Being a Production Assistant

I’d been casting about for something to do

Part time, flexible, creative, fun

Not behind a desk or under a fluorescent light

When unexpectedly I met someone who worked

In freelance film production

And wanted to know

Had I ever thought about trying that?

Oh, only all my life

I’m a hard-core cinephile and storyteller

To be on a professional film set

Has been on my life list for decades

So here was the opportunity

I would have to start as a PA

Production Assistant: the entriest of levels
You are basically a cheap body

There to be ordered about

To do anything anyone needs

At any and all times

You hop to it

Quick as you can

Because everyone is waiting on you

Either that or you are waiting on someone else

In fact, mostly what you do is wait

Those famous 12, 14, 16 hour days

Are, as reputed, spent standing around

Standing around as in literally standing

Because sitting down on the set is taboo

(Unless you are “above the line”)

But also standing around as in

Epic waiting

Punctuated with bursts of emergencies

After a few gigs now

I can verify the old hurry up and wait cliché is true

This industry is in fact chock full of clichés

It really is mostly about getting coffee and lunches

Ensuring there is Diet Coke specifically for the producer

And Diet Pepsi specifically for the writer

And for god’s sake not mixing them up

There’s airport runs to pick up executives

Office runs to pick up supplies

I even picked up someone’s dry cleaning

Assignments that started out relaxed and reasonable

Ended with a zinger

“Oh, can you just swing by TJ’s, grab some snacks and water…

For 100 people?”

“Can you head over to base camp…

And wait there for 3 hours or until someone gets you?”

Often the task was physically grueling

I mean, water for 100 people weights a ton

There’s always some impossible loading and unloading to be done

Never any parking of course

People kept telling me to do stuff I didn’t understand

I didn’t know the lingo

And you really can’t ask too many questions

They expect you to just figure it out

At one point, I was assigned the job of driving the beard

I assumed it was a guy who needed a ride

But no, turned out an actual costume beard

Had to be chaperoned from the south bay to SF

I drove for two hours in traffic

Snuck into the Four Seasons to deliver it

An unexpectedly high-profile package

“Let us know when the beard is on the way”

Is a text I never expected to get even once

Much less from three different people

So even though the work is hard

It’s refreshingly unpredictable

And sometimes awesome

One job was a shoot for a TV pilot

One of the major networks

So big time I can’t even talk about it

Because I had to sign about 30 pages of

Agreements, waivers, ad NDA’s

But I think it’s safe to say

You’d know some of the actors

You’ve seen stuff the director has done

It was the kind of massive crazy production

I’ve always wanted to see

And it did not disappoint

A giant musical dance number

Multiple locations, equipment galore

Some 100 crew

Some 200 background actors

Scores of dancers and singers

A fake cable car on busy city streets

A whole army of PA’s doing to lockdown the area

Which means stopping pedestrians from wandering into the shot

I was on walkie-talkie for from sunup to sundown

Could hear every bit of the controlled madness

The routine chaos

If I’d have run a corporate event that haphazardly

It would be the last one they ever gave me to do

But film is the Indiana Jones of large-scale endeavors

Somehow everyone pulled it together

Even though it seemed to be always

On the verge of falling apart

The days were long

The record for me personally was 7am to 1am

I’d get home at 10pm

Followed by a 5am call time

But at least I wasn’t alone

We were all up early, bleary, cranky

But yet still game, good to go, on top of it

Everyone was a pro and did their job

I stood on a North Beach street

At 6am on a Sunday morning

Directed extras unloading from shuttles

All the while keeping an eye out for

Those still twisted from Saturday night revels

Stumbling past us, drawn to the smell of our coffee

During the anticlimactic dawns

I joked with the beefy security guards

On duty since the night before

They all dwarfed me but they accepted me

They said they liked my pink hair and my lighthearted ways

They covered for me when I snuck in a bathroom break

(Because there are no actual breaks)

I screwed up a few times

When I didn’t know what I was doing

And I got barked at

Quickly I figured out what to do

Took charge of things when needed

And sometimes still got barked at

But I also got hugged

Welcomed

Teased

And, in the end, when it was over

When it was a wrap

And everyone clapped and relaxed

I got sincerely if briefly thanked

Generally, they were all much nicer than I expected

No-nonsense, for sure, but friendly

As long as you did your job

I liked meeting so many new people

But the transition from director to underling

Was not so easy

Fetching paper the first day, I found myself chaffing

My ego muttering, you used to run events this size

It’s not easy to get used to being ordered around

It’s not easy to voluntarily leap from mid-career money

To literally minimum wage (okay, SF minimum)

The thing is, I think it was a good decision

I had a nice marriage with my old job

It had been love at first sight

We had a really good run

Ups and downs for a long time

There was a real peak

Wild true love

But then there was also a slow downward slide

The latent dysfunction turned acute

My job started ignoring me

Then married an Amazon

It was time to go

Oh, but how comfortable it had been

I gave up vacations, travel, perks, discounts

“I haven’t bought soap in a decade” level of free samples

I had a tribe of people I truly loved

Plus there were chairs!

I had no idea I would look back so fondly on seating

I ate well and the paycheck was so steady

I kind of forgot I was earning it

I lived my life in this marriage

I knew nothing else

What else was there?

It would be madness to leave

Except eventually it became madness to stay

I realized I was wasted in that relationship

It was going nowhere

The love was long since gone

So now I am seeing this new guy

Wasn’t easy to get that first date

He’s difficult and demanding

Keeps me up all hours

Asks me to do things I would otherwise

Never find myself doing

But they are exciting things

Or at the very least, weird and new

And no doubt, he’s quirky and temperamental

But so damn sexy

Movie star good looks

He’s trouble

But worth it

And since, work-wise

I’m freshly single

I may as well enjoy a fling