Production Assistant Needed!

One of the best things I ever did for my career was get a job as a PA. That is a Production Assistant. Which is movie talk for some person who is paid $125.00 per day +/O.T. if your lucky. To direct people around the edge of a set when doing large exteriors in a populated area, not direct traffic-that's a cop's job. Even though I've done it on most(99.99%) of the large feature films I have worked on. Basically it's one of the MANY catch 22's for PA's and production. You can't direct traffic legally but if officer McSleep in passed out and your to busy working your ass off to notice and the AD/Director/Producer/rest of the world is waiting for traffic to stop. You block traffic, even if you then get yelled at by the locations manager. That's the job, and hey the entire show knows who you are now. Your a PA, really this is what happens when the director wants a shot you don't have permits for and the producer tells locations to "Do it anyway". So, it's not actually your fault, just try not to get anybody killed.

Why do this, this not very rewarding job? Well for one, it's getting paid to work in industry and two it's REALLY, REALLY important for you to learn how to be on a set. You actually get to see real set work flow as opposed to classroom set work flow. More important almost than both of those things is the opportunity to network. HINT: OTHER PA'S FIND YOU PA WORK  No matter how cool the 2nd 2nd AD(or 3rd AD Canada, A)  seems with you they will always go to there favorites first, and if it's your first show with them, IT'S NOT YOU! Don't take it personally and don't let that detour you from building as much of a relationship with your AD as possible. PA's will consistently look out for each other and give each other work. AD's will get you good work. 

Back to the networking thing. If your not social, if you got into film and your kind of introverted. You have to push. Get out of your comfort zone. If you have an amazing reel at what ever you want to be and you can't carry a conversation your in trouble because the odds are less that anybody on or associated with the project will see it. That said, hopefully you have it on-line so it's working for you some how.

That's it just a shorty about being a PA.