1. Follow this link to a password protected viewing page: http://www.rcediting.com/?p=1246

2. Contact me at info@rcediting.com for the super secret bionic password.

3. Sit back with some popcorn and enjoy the show!

This is a short film written by Austen Rachlis, directed by Brennan Parks, and shot on the Sony XDCAM by David Starks. Sound design was done by Patrick Reilly .

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Prepare to be Underwhelmed.
Life in the film biz is all go-go-go. I get to work around 8:45am, and if I’m home before 8pm that’s considered an “early day” and I’m happy.  The hours a pa/assistant/intern spends at work are filled with runs across town, arrangements with vendors, hundreds of emails, phone messages for your boss, coordination with other assistants, filling out everyone’s time card, keeping track of receipts and petty cash, ordering office supplies, going on coffee runs, shopping for craft services, scheduling meetings… and that’s all before the lunch order. When your first Monday of unemployment comes around and all of a sudden you have all this free time on your hands, it can be a little freaky. If you have another job lined up you can rest easy. Go to the beach, visit your family, drive up the coast. You know you’re safe. But if you are facing the possibility of a month or more of couch surfing and idle down time, be prepared to be overwhelmingly underwhelmed. Later in this article I’ll discuss what you can do about that. But first, you might want to…

Get Free Money (that you already earned.)

Did you know that if you’ve worked for 18 months (in California) you are eligible for unemployment benefits? You fill out a form, they confirm you’ve been working, and the state sends you a check every two weeks to help you survive. Some of you may say things like, “I don’t take charity!” or “What kind of socialist left wing conspiracy is this?!” Well, the great thing is, it’s not a handout, and the government isn’t paying you, YOU’RE paying you. During those 18 months you spent working in the state, they’ve been taking money out of your paycheck in anticipation of you being unemployed. You EARNED this money yourself already, they just took it from you and are giving it back. Actually kind of genius, if you ask me. It’s super easy to apply online, (click here to go to the EDD website) and if you want more info just click here for the EDD FAQ.

Look for Work, (duh!)

The lovely folks at EDD like to randomly ask filers if they have indeed been looking for work, (a requirement for getting those shiny, money filled checks,) so it might help to actually look for work. (This step is also required for “actually getting work,” heavy on the finger quotes.) I’ve got a couple of tricks here.

A) I like to designate Looking-For-Work hours. Why? Dragging the process out all day long isn’t going to help you get a job any faster. Sure, maybe if you spent 8 solid hours a day at a desk searching or interviewing you could, but nobody does that. Err, well, I don’t. I found myself accomplishing the same amount of work if I gave myself 2 hours or 10, so why not do it all in the morning and get it over with? That way you can spend the rest of the day guilt free at the beach.

B) When unemployed I usually spend time from 9-11am doing any or all of the following things:
- Searching the internet to find jobs
- Cold calling places I want to work that are listed in LA411
- Emailing old contacts to catch them up on my unemployment status
- Updating my resume and/or reel
- Updating my website

All of these things can help you procure work, even if it’s not simply leafleting your resume around town. 98% of the jobs I have gotten are from people I know. The Internet is a great resource, but don’t forget about your network. 9 jobs out of 10 will be from someone you know.

C) I also like to keep a log of the places I’ve looked for work. Why?
- It’s easy to report to EDD if/when they ask.
- When I’m feeling down and out I can look back on the list and see how hard I’ve been trying.
- It keeps me organized so I don’t apply to the same place twice. (I’ve done this!!)

Get Out of the House!

Warning: While unemployed you might have urges to watch 12 hour Law & Order marathons on TNT (hey, I only watched the first 8 hours!) or sit through an afternoon of Soaps in anticipation of witnessing Oprah’s next great giveaway. Want to know how I realized I was spending too much time at home? I found myself walking up to a random person at the gym one evening, after I finally managed to get up off the couch at 10pm, and I was like, “Did you see that Tyra today? Usually she’s so into herself, like on last Tuesday’s episode where she tried to overcome her fear of dolphins. She’s definitely nicer when she interviews people through video, wouldn’t you agree?” No one should know that much about Tyra. No one. The next day I signed up for Habitat for Humanity and built a house. Well, I helped put up a few pieces of sheet rock, but the point is that I got out of the house and did something with myself. I also signed up to walk dogs for a shelter and joined the American Red Cross. You may opt for less do-goody things like hiking, a drive down to San Diego, or a trip to the Getty, but what every you choose, just GET OUT!

Stay Relevant.
Just because you’re unemployed doesn’t mean y
ou have to disappear off the face of the planet. Stay in touch with old coworkers, people in your network, friends, and even new acquaintances. Take them out to lunch, go to drinks, or send ‘em a quick “how ya doin?” email. Even if that one lead you had doesn’t pull through, this is LA and you never know who knows who or who knows what. Most likely, if someone is on your radar, you’re on theirs.  And if the jobs aren’t flowing in, don’t worry! Take a chill pill. Jobs don’t appear out of nowhere– whole shows have to begin production. Entire films don’t start shooting over night because someone heard you were out of a job. It might take a few weeks or a month for another production to begin, so check the trades, and keep up with the Futon Critic, (my newest great resource!). Something will come along, someone out there has your back, and you will get work again, but you do have to stay relevant to the right people. Do this with tact and grace, and you will survive.

In Summary:
Being unemployed is simply a part of life in the entertainment industry. First you’re employed, barely surviving the 70 hour work weeks, next thing you know you’re twiddling your thumbs during a Judge Judy marathon, clicking “refresh” on your inbox as you await application replies. Not everyone will call you back, no one is ready to hire you tomorrow, and the world doesn’t owe you anything. (Well, it owes ME, but it doesn’t owe you squat.) You had to work hard to get noticed, and you have to keep working hard to stay noticed. Keep pushing on, stay focused, and you will find that next job. I don’t know anyone who died of unemployment, and I’m not feeding any of my former coworkers down at the food shelf.  You can do it. We’ve all got each others’ backs.

If anyone wants Erin’s resume, please speak now. She’s one of the hardest working people we know, she’s freakishly efficient, and she’s going places fast. We’re sorry to see her go, but will be happy to see her in a new home. Bye Erin!

Meet Sonia and Micah, the amazing folks behind Production Notices (PN) who have the time and dedication to do all this. (Sonia and Micah are pictured to the right, the other photos are from gigs listed on PN. Check out their site for dozens more!)

CRC: You guys run an amazing Facebook page that alerts people to industry jobs. I don’t even have to exert effort to go on Craigslist or Mandy, the PN jobs are just posted right to my Live Feed. While a fantastic resource for people like myself, it can’t possibly pay your bills. What else do you guys do?
 
First of all Thank you!
 
Sonia: I’m a freelance Producer myself. I was working out of Miami and between shows when PN was born, but now I am working for an L.A. based production company for a new show currently filming in Phoenix AZ for WEtv. 

FUN FACT: Originally from Miami, Florida, Sonia has been working in non-scripted TV since 2002, starting from an internship at Late Show with David Letterman to years at MTV in both New York and L.A.
 

Micah: Right now since Sonia, (let’s call her Eve, the Mother of PN,) is working full time, I am the man behind the scenes for the moment at PN. I like to think of myself as the Wizard of Oz, or PN, pulling the cords and puffing the smoke with a microphone that has grown beyond our expectations. Once PN took off, and Sonia started her job, I focus my full time attention on PN (with a scene study class snuck in here or there). We knew PN would not be what it is now without care around the clock, and the appreciation and love we were getting at first was all we needed to get by. Once I realized that the landlord wouldn’t accept PN love as rent, it was time to make a hard decision. So we decided to leave it to the people, the people who post with us and the people who look for jobs through us, we had a Fundraiser. Out of our 30,000 PNer’s, 250 found it in them to donate, which got us through the first month. We realize that we can’t do a week long fundraiser every month, so we find other ways to make money to keep this running.

CRC: How did you come up with the idea for the Production Notices page? 
 
Sonia: I always see people on my Facebook page posting jobs in production – looking for people within their network, and when I have a job to offer, my Facebook page is the first place I got to for recommendations.  But sometimes it just seems to be limiting – so I thought – someone should make a Facebook page where people in production posts insider jobs – a 6 degrees of separation type of thing – I turned to Micah and told him that – and he said WHY DON’T YOU MAKE ONE? And right at that moment, history was made.

Micah: What she said. But the funny thing was, we thought this would be used a couple times a week by at the most a thousand or so people. Two weeks in we hit 10,000 and had a full fledged business. And it grew organically, first we posted all the jobs on the main page until it was getting too much. So we started breaking it down by major cities and states, and now have over 30 pages. Of these 2 others that we requested by our fans, a separate Unpaid page, and an Internship page as well as 2 Casting Pages, one for Reality and one for Actors. We built this city on rock and roll.

FUN FACT: Micah was born in New York and grew up in South Florida. Always prone to being creative, he played in many local bands, such as TV Kills Kids (“go figure”, says Micah,) with Robi Valyi, and he’s hosted everything from concerts to Open Mics.

CRC: I counted 34 related PN pages for cities and countries around
the world. Do you maintain them all? How much time does it take during the day to run the site?
 
Sonia: It takes all day really – it is a full time job. When I wasn’t working, Micah and I would sit all day on our laptops either in our apartment or at a cafe that has wifi and work on PN all day long. But now that I am on a show, Micah runs it – I help out here and there but he really is the mastermind behind it all – for now that is
 
Micah: I’ve posted jobs at 2AM before.. it doesn’t matter the time, when jobs come in, they get posted.. unless I’m sleeping that is!! My apologies to the East coast, sometimes I sleep in!!

FUN FACT: While not PNing, Micah started attending a scene study class in L.A. Look out world!

CRC: Let’s say someone who just graduated film school wants to move somewhere they can get a job on a film, but they don’t like the idea of moving to a huge metropolis like New York or LA. What other cities get the most PN posts?
 
Sonia: LOUISIANA!
 
Micah: What she said!! 

FUN FACT: Sonia and Micah met on a show she was producing in Miami for WEtv called “I Want to Save Your Life“– he was one of the participants.

CRC: You have 21,847 people who ‘like’ you on Facebook, myself included, as of this moment. I bet you get some weird emails. What is the strangest thing people think you can help them with?
 
Sonia: Micah? We get a lot of people who send us their resumes thinking that we are the people hiring but other than that nothing too crazy – oh yea we get hate mail sometimes haha.
 
Micah: Yeah, nothing too bad. Just some people seem to have this misconception that we are the all seeing and all knowing PN. Now, while that goes flawlessly with my whole Wizard of Oz comparison, we do have our limits on what we can do. I think most people get it.

FUN FACT: In 2009 Micah had a run as Vinnie Black in Miami’s “Tony and Tina’s Wedding“, which actually seems like a ton of fun.

God, I love these people. And guess what? They love each other too! HUZZAH!
 
Sonia: We started dating right after ["I Want to Save Your Life"] wrapped, moved in together after 2 months and were engaged after 4 months! We moved to Los Angeles together in March (right when we started PN).  We are planning to get married later this year and live happily ever after together.
 
Micah: I would have never actually done the play if I never met the amazing Sonia. Kinda awesome that I met her on a show called “I Want to Save Your Life” cause she changed mine!!

Tip #1: Streamline your work.  For example, we had a large cut distribution list, and each person had to have their name and their number stamped on their DVD.  To add to this we had an ancient DVD labeler that would jam and have temper tantrums all the time.  I would ask the Assistant editor to get me a cut’s TRT [Total Run Time] as soon as possible and while the cut was being output I would begin labeling DVDs and stamping them with each person’s number.  This way when the cut was ready I had at all the DVDs ready to burn and usually already loaded into the DVD tower.

Tip #2: Try to line up your runs so you can do them in a big loop.  This doesn’t always work out, of course, because sometimes there’s an emergency delivery.  But whenever possible I would coordinate with the post coordinator as to what needed to go where that day and then set out after dailies to do everything in one giant loop of LA.  That way I could be back for any afternoon cuts going out.

Tip #3: Check food orders before you leave the restaurant.  This is important and it keeps you from having to run back and forth in traffic. [Note from CRC: Seriously, check your food orders. People WILL make you go back for the extra rice they ordered.]

Tip #5: Own up to your mistakes.  Everyone makes mistakes.  If you let people know early enough they can be fixed.  If you try to pretend they never happened somewhere down the line it may come back to bite you and it’ll be much worse than if you had let someone know when you made the mistake.  For example, a tape may not be where it needs to be right before delivery and then everyone has to rush like a crazy person to fix it and that means you’ll probably be put out in traffic in the middle of rush hour.

Last notes: Film school taught me the fundamentals of film and media making as well as the basics of the software used, such as the Avid, Final Cut and Photoshop.  Film School, at least the one I went to, didn’t teach us how to be a PA, it taught us we could be a writer, actor, director or DP.  Then, when I got out to LA and realized there are literally hundreds of jobs and different skills that can be used to build a career in the film and television industry and being a PA is a great way to get your foot in the door of whatever department you hope to build your career in.  Also, my school had it’s film and TV departments separate, which doesn’t make too much sense, since they use many of the same techniques and technologies these days.  The main differences really lie in budget and time.  I only point this out because I was a film student and have had great luck and success in TV and don’t really feel a pressing need to break into features.  But anyway I guess I’ve learned to be patient and talk to people.  Being a PA sucks but you meet people and those people were once where you are and they can help you and offer advice as to how you can get to where you want to go.  And then, when opportunities do arise, take them and put in the extra effort to get all you can out of them, this may mean going in on weekends or staying after work to help someone or learn something on your own time while they happen to still be working.  And also I guess just know that there is more to the entertainment industry than just directing, writing and acting, unless those are the things you really want to do.  

Thank you,
anonymous friend! Stay tuned for more Real Stories from real PAs!

Where would 30 Rock be without Kenneth the Page? PA’s, Pages, and assistants are the sturdy foundation of any film department or production company. Should you find yourself in an entry level position wondering whom to emulate, the qualities of this tireless, overachieving, entry level individual pictured left should be what you strive for. He is always the first one in and the last one out of the office. Instead of knowing what needs to be done he’s already done it. He’s freakishly efficient. He never complains. Most importantly, he does all this with a smile. Since Kenneth the Page is a fictional character on a television show, I was unable to sit him down for an interview. Here is something almost as good: I’ve enlisted the help of some friends who have PA’s working underneath them to tell you what makes a great PA. Who better to hear from than someone who might be your future boss? Well, Kenneth the Page would have been great, but these guys have some excellent advice as well. Listen up.

[Note from CRC: The people interviewed in this article work in post production, but you can see how their anecdotes translate to all kinds of PAs, assistants, entry level workers, and even pages like Kenneth!]

GRACE WHITEHOUSE is a Post Production Supervisor on one of my new favorite shows, Sons of Anarchy. Post Production Supervisors are pretty near the top of the ladder, so she knows what it takes to move up. When I asked Grace if I could borrow the SOA box set what makes an awesome PA, here’s what she had to say:

As an Assistant Editor, my friend Lisa probably isn’t going to be your direct boss in the office, but she is definitely going to be someone you will want to impress if you enter into post production. Assistant Editors have a huge work load and PA’s can either make their life a tiny bit easier or a living hell. Here’s some suggestions Lisa has on what makes a good impression:

- Being proactive in such tasks as remembering the daily routine such as dailies paperwork and doing it before being asked.

- Knowing how to listen, thereby both learning things for yourself and assuring you do the job right.

- Having a positive attitude and being someone who adds, not subtracts, to the well-being of the group because we are, after all, a team.     

Ahh, Lisa, you must have read the Check-Your-Ego Checklist! 

As a Post-Production Coordinator on such shows as In Treatment and Flight of the Conchords, GORDON LI-RON is a post PA’s direct boss. His equivalent in a production office would be a production coordinator. Post-production has Post-Production Coordinators, production has Production Coordinators. Get it? Good. Now get what he says:

“Be positive.  Thousands of people would kill to be where you are so remember that before complaining about a task you don’t want to do.

Take initiative and ownership of your work.  If your being micro managed, you might be doing something wrong or you may be working for a tool.”

Well put, Gordon.  Short and sweet, just how we like it here in SpartLa.

If you have any short an
d sweet questions or suggestions about what it takes to do an entry level job well, please feel free to continue the discussion below in the comments section!