Glamorous job of a 'Production Assistant'...

Jon Starr

Jon Starr

Veteran
Hey everyone,

New on these boards, but loving the community so far. I'm wondering though, has anyone here ever worked as a Production Assistant? Whether it was a volunteer job on set of a small indy short, or paid on set of a big feature film.

Anyone has any stories they'd like to share about working on set? How many out there have actually worked as a PA and on what? Any bad experiences, or good ones?

I've taken a year off between CEGEP (a Quebec pre-university program) and University. I studied Film in CEGEP, but didn't learn too much. So in my year off I've been volunteering wherever I can for PA jobs or anything else, just to get a taste of the industry and to put on my resume. Well it paid off cause now I'm working on set of a feature film for some mula. :) Not much, but enough to gloat about. ;) Nah I don't like gloating. But I feel like with my limited experience, working on set as a PA, I learn so much, how it works on set, how the relationships work, the technical aspects and many other things. Not to mention that you can often talk to a lot of the technical people and learn a lot. Been learning a lot about lights and dolleys, and rigs, and cinematography, and directing actors, etc...

The job as a PA is highly under-rated. Not to mention you gain lots of contacts. Great for if you're just starting off and want to understand how things work behind the scenes.
 
congrats on your success. now, you should start practicing for "the conference call." :) gain all the experience and contacts you can while your on & off set.

peace...
 
Man you must be working on some pretty small shows to be learning about lighting and dollies. LOL

Most of the time, if it's a big enough production you're nowhere near the set and off running errands. But hey, thats good that you're learning.
 
Robert86 said:
Man you must be working on some pretty small shows to be learning about lighting and dollies. LOL

Most of the time, if it's a big enough production you're nowhere near the set and off running errands. But hey, thats good that you're learning.
Click to expand...

Well it might have somethign to do with the fact that I don't have a car, lol. How can I? I'm volunteering for jobs as a PA.

I was on one set, fairly small budget feature film, and they had 2-3 volunteer PAs, and I was one of them. But because the grips and lighting crew didn't have any assistants they had me running for things, and would teach me things while waiting.

The one where I'm getting paid, a lot of times I'm running around driving the director's car getting things. But sometimes when there's nothing to run for I'm on set learning from just listening.
 
I've worked on two features as a PA and a few shorts. Everyone starts a PA, you pay some dues, then if you work hard and you're cool to be with, you start to move up.

I'm in San Francisco, so there's more than enough people to crew anything worth doing, so I never picked up any Grip/gaffer experience, but by working on my own projects and taking everything I could get ahold of, I finally started to get enough experience to start getting titled positions on other people's gigs.

It just takes persistence, and as long as you're a good person to work with (and it sounds like you're dedicated), you'll get the experience you need to move up to elsewhere. Now, after 2 years, I won't work a free gig unless it sounds very promising for me. That's how you move up.
 
Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for bright young highly-motivated self-starter to begin at the bottom, and stay there.


Just kidding.
 
if i wanted to work as a PA, where would i find out about a job? tv, film, music video... oh and in Australia so general places to look.
 
My first P.A. job ever led to doing all kinds of stuff onset; from hanging ND gel on windows to doing dolly grip. Nothing wrong at all with being a P.A.
 
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