Tagged: Reality Show

Jul 12

Disgruntled Neighbors

 

I am currently working on reality show (or as production likes to put it, “a documentary style television show”) that is filming at a house in a very ritzy and secluded  neighborhood. Now when I say secluded I mean so damn secluded and conservative that having crew members walking around with tattoos freaks the neighbors out.

This morning I was walking from the production office around the house to the tech room.  As I am walking on the sidewalk I see an older woman riding her bicycle and like any other good samaritan I side-step out of her way so she can pass.  I smile at her and instead of a smile back she bitterly says “go back to hollywood!” as she lifts her arm and shakes her fist at me.

Now first of all I don’t live in Hollywood.  I am a local hire for the city that we are working in.  So going back to hollywood would not really make any sense for me to do.  Second what exactly does she think this is going to accomplish by this?  Does she think that since she said that we are all going to magically pack up and leave?  What ever happened to people being nice or maybe even just polite?

Now personally I do not see the big deal of a production filming in a neighborhood, but I am probably jaded since I work in the industry.  I mean it’s not as if all of us crew members are here specifically to make this woman’s life miserable.  We are here because we were hired and this is steady work for four months.

We honestly have no say of where or when we shoot and if they really have a huge problem with us being there then they should talk to the film commission that allowed us to be here in the first place.

Or they can just continue to yell angry remarks at random crew members since that will obviously get things accomplished.

3
comments

Posted in Being a Production Assistant

Jan 07

Job Hunting

 

As the gig I am currently on sadly comes to an end with no second season picked up I figured it would be a great time to blog about job hunting.  I know it sucks..but as a freelancer you always have to keep looking for work.  Here are a few avenues that you can go through to find the best thing for you:

Call or email your past contacts

This is possibly the most important thing you can do.  All those people you worked on set with before are probably working on a new production now.  While you were working you should have gotten all of their contact information so put that to use and email them to see what they are up to.  DO NOT just flat out as for a job because that will usually annoy people.  Create some form of a conversation that will lead to them asking about if you are working and hopefully they will know someone that needs help.

Job Sites

There are a few job sites that are usually pretty good to check out when looking for production work.  Some are free while others charge per month to use the service.

www.mandy.com – free

www.craigslist.org – free

www.crewedup.com -free

www.realitystaff.com- free and subscription (The subscription allows you to write more in your cover letter).

www.entertainmentcareers.net – subscription

www.media-match.com – subscription

www.filmstaff.com – subscription

www.productionhub.com- free

www.varietymediacareers.com- free

www.productionweekly.com – subscription

www.mercuryreport.com- subscription

You can also check out specific production company websites, studio websites, imdb in the forums section (though it is shady sometimes) and any other place you can think of.  If anyone knows of any more websites please let me know!

Go to a networking event

This is just like calling your old contacts, however, here you are making new ones.  A lot of different film groups or societies tend to have networking parties that you can attend.  Google or ask your other friends in production and go armed with your business card.

Cold calling/ emailing companies

You can always cold call and email production companies to find if they are hiring crew or if they keep potential crew resume’s on file.

UTA job list

This as I have mentioned before is a list created by UTA of all the assistant positions in Hollywood.  This list is awesome if you are looking to be an assistant, but very bad if you are looking to actually work on set in a production.  Keep in mind thousands of people receive  this list so don’t be surprised if you never hear back when you apply for something.  If you want to receive the UTA job list email me at rachelmmarks@gmail.com

It is important to remember to not doubt yourself and give up.  There are a lot of production companies and projects filming that need a hand.  Keep at it and eventually you will land a gig.  Happy hunting!

1
comments

Posted in Being a Production Assistant, Job Hunting

Nov 22

Walkie Talk

 

One thing that I have realized working on set is that green PA’s don’t know how to use their walkies.  What I don’t get is that walkies really aren’t that hard to use, but then again I’ve also said that it isn’t that hard to be a PA and yet some people still manage to screw that up.

Here is your basic guide on how to use your walkie on set:

Turn it on

So it is your first time being a PA and you are so super excited so you arrive on set like 30 minutes before your call.  You meet up with your production coordinator and they hand you a walkie.  At first glance it looks simple enough.  Then the coordinator hands you some crazy looking headset.  Don’t panic it’s pretty simple, just plug everything in and turn the nob on top.  When you hear it make a nose that means that its on.  Grab your mic and say “walkie check”.  If someone else is on walkie they should say “good check”.  Trust me you don’t want to be that PA who does not have their walkie on.

Keep it on the right channel

This should be pretty self explanatory but everyone messes this up at some point or another.  Depending on how large or small your production is different departments will be placed on different walkie channels.  Double and triple check which channel you and the rest of the PA’s are supposed to be on.  Only switch to a different channel if someone asks you to.  Once you are finished on that channel switch back to your PA channel.

Walkie Sayings

There are several quick phrases that people use on walkies to get their points across quickly.  Here are some main ones that you should know:

Walkie Check- what you say when you are trying to see if your walkie is working

Good Check – what people say when someone asks walkie check

10-1- You are using the restroom

Switch to (insert number)- switch your walkie channel to another one

Copy- You understood what is being asked of you.

Remember each set is different.  Find out how your production runs and follow those rules.

7
comments

Posted in Being a Production Assistant

Nov 12

Production Resume Update

Found this article while searching for answers online:

How to Make a Production Coordinator Resume

By Scott Nicholas Amendolare, eHow Contributor

In my time in the entertainment industry, I’ve seen thousands of résumé’s come across my desk. The irony is that oftentimes a person with the highest level of skill has a more difficult time selling themselves on paper whereas a person with less skill has no problem selling their experience beyond their true abilities. A Production Coordinator is hired for their ability to be highly efficient and organized and your resume must reflect that. This article will show you how to construct an effective Production Coordinator resume. Please look to the example résumé in order to see the step by step applications of the directions.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You’ll Need:

  • A computer with printing capabilites
  1. 1

    Lay out your personal information in a clear, simple and professional manner. This is important as it says so much about you as an individual. Avoid overly fancy fonts and ostentatious presentation. List you name in an 18- to 22-point font. In this example, the name is prominent with a line underneath to separate the contact information. List your full name and address with all your contact numbers as well as an email address.

  2. 2

    Lay out your primary work experience. Start with information about work directly related to the job you are going after. For this example we will be using a résumé with a three-column format as it makes this clean and easy to read, and condenses the information so that you can limit the number of pages. Starting with the left column, list the job title you held. In the next column, list the title of the show you worked on. In the last column list the company that produced the show and the year it was released.

  3. 3

    Next, lay out your directly related experience. This is experience that is similar to the coordinator position. List experience that shows you have held positions of responsibility and were required to perform tasks that are similar to the ones you are looking to perform.

  4. 4

    List any special award(s) that you have earned over the course of your career.

  5. 5

    List any special skills, software knowledge, guild or union membership and language ability that would be pertinent to the entertainment industry.

  6. 6

    List your education. Make sure that you list any educational distinctions you have earned during that time. Do not forget to list years of graduation.

  7. 7

    On the bottom of the page, centered in the middle, type the line: References available upon request. Although some people like to list their references on a separate sheet, it is really more professional to have a prospective employer request them.

Tips & Warnings

  • Make things clean and simple.
  • Do not list your references.
  • Use no larger than a 12-14pt font for the headings and 10 points for the information.
  • Spacing of the resume should be as follows: Use a 9pt space for the line per credit and a 12pt space to separate each of the headings.
  • Do not pad your resume; people can tell when you are lying.

Read more: How to Make a Production Coordinator Resume | eHow.comhttp://www.ehow.com/how_4463843_make-production-coordinator-resume.html#ixzz156LdcMh2

6
comments

Posted in Being a Production Assistant

Nov 09

Think before you act

 

When you are working on set as a PA there is a long list of do’s and don’ts that you should really be aware of.  One of the most important (I think) do’s is do think before you act or react.  Now I honestly thought that this was pretty self explanatory but apparently I was wrong.

While working on a set a few weeks back I heard through the grapevine of a situation that one of the other PA’s had gotten themselves into.  A lot of times a production coordinator or production manager will give a PA money to go pick up things that are needed on set.  On this day one of the newbie PA’s was sent out to go pick up food for some of the executive producers.  Now this should be a fairly easy task for any PA.  You place the order, you go to the restaurant, you double and triple check to make sure the order is right,  you grab a receipt and bring back the food.  Depending on how far the restaurant is this whole process should not take you very long unless you are picking up food for the entire crew which is a whole other blog post for another time.

This PA was only supposed to pick 3 orders of dinner from a restaurant that is literally across from our production office.  The order was placed at 6pm and the restaurant had told whoever called that it would be ready in 10-15 min.  Our production manager hands the PA money and tells her to grab a receipt.  The PA then heads out to grab the food.  Fifteen minutes pass and the PA has not yet returned with the food.  Our production manager tries her on walkie but she doesn’t answer.  He then calls her cell, however, it is apparently turned off.    Thirty minutes go by and there is still no PA in sight with the producers food.  At this point you can probably guess that my production manager is pissed.  Forty five minutes pass and finally our newbie PA waltzes into the production office on her cell phone.  She drops off the food on the desk and waltzes back outside to finish her phone conversation.

When she returns back into the production office she is called in to speak with our production manger.  Now I don’t know what exactly was said, however, I heard that she made the biggest mistake a PA ever could make.  Instead of just shutting her mouth and saying “I’m sorry, this is my fault.”  she blamed everyone else possible and then proceeded to tell the production manager why he was wrong and out of line.

Needless to say this newbie PA was not on set the next day, or ever again for that matter.

1
comments

Posted in Being a Production Assistant, Uncategorized

Oct 27

Shows You Should Watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff8z2PhV_SU

This looks like an amazing show!

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Posted in Being a Production Assistant, New Shows You Should Check Out, Production, Uncategorized

Sep 01

PA Resume

 

I have been getting a lot of questions lately about how your PA resume should look.  Should it just list the title of the production, your position, production company and dates you worked on it?  Or should it be more descriptive and explain everything you did?

Honestly, I don’t really know the true answer.  So I am throwing this question out to everyone out there, how should a resume for a production assistant look?

When I find out more I’ll post it here.

0
comments

Posted in Being a Production Assistant, Job Hunting

Aug 24

Office PA Vs. Set PA

In the world of production there are two main PA jobs that you can score.  Of course there are others depending on how big the production is, however, the two main PA positions you will apply for are a Set PA or an Office PA.

I bet you are thinking, well a PA job is a PA job right?  I mean what really is the difference?  Well there are some pretty big differences between the two.

Set PA

As a set PA you are mainly working on the production set.  You are essentially the gopher that everyone comes to with their problems and needs.  If equipment needs to be picked up they send the Set PA.  If there is 100 gallons of fake blood that need to be cleaned up after a scene is shot guess who is grabbing the mop?  On set you will be thrust into the production with a sink or swim mindset and trust me you better learn to swim quick.  The good thing about being a set PA is that you get the opportunity to be apart of a lot of different aspects of the production.  Here is where you get to learn every job and then start to figure out for yourself what you really want to do.  If you stay a set PA you will most likely eventually end up working in the camera, lighting, or grip departments.

Office PA

As an office PA you are mainly working in the production office.  Here you work directly under the production coordinator and the production manager.  You will also most likely get to work with the executive producers, the associate producers, the line producer and sometimes the director.  As an office PA your tasks mainly include making copies, helping with expense reports, doing runs to and from set, and anything else anyone needs.  The good thing about being an office PA is that you are basically a coordinator in training.  The great thing is that you get to learn from everyone in the office which will most likely lead you to a coordinator, manager or producer position.

Which one is for you?

Well that is honestly up for you to decide.  Normally you start as a set PA and then move up to an office PA, but like most of the positions in Hollywood there are no official work tracks so you could land you first PA job as either one.  From experience I’d suggest trying to get both positions on different projects.  That way you can see what you like and don’t about each position and begin to plan your official take over of Hollywood.

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Posted in Being a Production Assistant

Jul 21

D-List Celebrities With Their Own TV Shows

So I am currently working on a new reality show in A about a “Celebrity” and how amazing her life is.  Now I put celebrity in quotes because I honestly don’t think that many people care about this woman but nether the less she has a reality show and I do not.

On set this week we had to do interviews.  This is pretty normal for reality shoots because the interview usually helps the story move along kind of like narration in a movie.  Now on a normal reality show set without “celebrities” you can usually tell them when to be ready for interviews and what not.  This was so not the case for our interview day.

My call time was 7 am, which is pretty darn early in my book.    All of the pa’s are to meet at the production office and then drive 15 passenger vans to pick up the crew at the crew parking lot.  As a side note seeing me drive a 15-pass van is just hysterical because lets be honest I can barely see over the steering wheel.   Anyway, since LA traffic is god awful we get to crew parking around 8am which is close to the D-listers house that we are shooting at.  At this same time this said D-lister is supposed to be in her makeup chair getting her face put on.

After picking up the crew myself and other pa’s drive to house and start to unload gear into the interview room.  9am rolls around and we are supposed to begin interviews…

And the waiting game begins..

11 am rolls around and we finally get the D-Lister into the interview room.  Yes you read that correctly.. 11am.  Apparently the D-Lister’s husband refused to wake up at his call time so the entire production had to wait for him.

Seeing as it is an interview day and there is not much to do during them as a pa, I got to sneak a peak at the monitors to see how the interviews were going.  Now I have never before felt bad for an executive producer, but while watching the monitors I wanted to go hug him or give him a very strong drink.  Not only was this D-lister refusing to say certain things because she thought they sounded stupid, she constantly complaied about having to do the interview.  Her ranting and complaining lasted for three hours.

At around 7pm we finally wrapped production, when we were originally supposed to be wrapped at 2pm. And thus are the extreme joys of shooting a reality show about someone who believes that they are above everyone else.

Seriously, does anyone besides my mom watch these shows?

0
comments

Posted in Being a Production Assistant, Production

Jul 10

Being A Casting Recruiter

 

I received this email in my inbox today:

Hi Rachel,

I came across your blog and wanted to reach out to you and tap into your knowledge of the casting industry. I have an interview to become a casting recruiter for an MTV show on Wednesday of this week and wanted to ask you how your experience was working as a casting recruiter. Was the work difficult? How was the pay? Better yet, any advice for how to nail the interview?

I’ve always been a fan of reality tv and view working in the casting industry as a dream job, so to speak. I’m currently working for a publishing company but would love to do casting on the side… just not sure where to start. I read in one of your blogs that being a casting associate for MTV was your foot in the door type of job.

Looking forward to hearing back from you… any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated!

Being a casting recruiter or associate can be wonderfully fun or terribly awful depending on the show you are working on and the company you are working for.   I’ve done casting for four different reality shows and each experience was very very different.  There are a few main things that I think you need to ask before taking a casting recruiter position.

First and most important what show are you working on?

Certain shows are very easy to cast for while others are extraordinarily hard.  Take for example a show like Is She Really Going Out With Him?  For me it was fairly easy to cast for because around where I lived there were tons of douchebag guys going out with hot girls.  However when I had to cast for a show about parents with troublesome children  it was extremely difficult because no parent really wants to admit that they can’t control their own kids let alone show that on national television.

What is the rate?

I know this is an obvious question to ask when taking any job but it especially important with casting because you need to find out if they pay you based on your quota or not.  This means that some companies will either pay you a set amount each day or week like a production assistant or that they will only pay you only if you reach your quota of potential  cast members.  If you think you can reach your quota then by all means take the job.  But, trust me from personal experience it sucks to work a full 12 hour day, not reach your quota, and find out that the company won’t pay you for your efforts.

Is there a daily/weekly quota and if so what is it?

This ties into the question above, however, it is still important to ask.  Before you start casting you need to know how many people you have to turn in on your contact list each day.  Some companies will be great and your quota will be 2-4 people, while others will have unrealistic quotas of 20 people.  Take this all into mind when accepting the position.

As for nailing a casting recruiter interview the best thing to do is to come off as an outgoing person.  The position involves you going out to the public and finding potential cast members for the show, therefore you can’t be shy or scared to talk to people.

Check out some of my older posts to read stories about my casting experiences.

Good luck!

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Posted in Casting, MTV Casting

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