Hey you. Yes you sitting on the couch, watching Top Gun, talking deconstructionism with your film school buddies or drinking beer, or writing scripts, or shooting shorts on weekend with your friends about a zombie fight. But what are you doing for cash talk? That’s right, nothing. You’re a bum. So get off your butt, stop snoozing, give up the reverse snooze, the dream snooze, pick up the phone, give somebody a call that would give you a job as a set PA.
You’re on the phone all day anyways. Look at me I did it. Sure life is hard but so is life. I get paid a $150.00 a day to be s Set PA. I don’t even have to buy lunch. I got to eat after everybody else, eat by myself, I don’t get to eat with everybody but I don’t get to pay. What I do a lot. You know what I do a lot? I stand around the empty set when everybody else is gone and make sure nothing catches on fire spontaneously somehow. That’s called fire watch and it’s important. What do you do when you’re sitting around your house all day by yourself?
Basically making sure that nothing catches on fire, so why don’t you do that except get paid. If I’m super lucky, I get to sit on a curve and watch a combed off parking spot all night. So that if an important person like the DOP can park close to the set in the morning. I got to make sure that nobody takes his parking spot all night. I got to sit there, and if somebody looks at the column and like, keep moving, this column was here.
I get to lock up on set. I get to say, lock it up. If there’s shooting down the block, I got to stand up on the other end of the block and stop pedestrians, tax payers from walking down the street; from doing their lives and getting to work. You think that will make me feel powerful? It does.
Some lessons you’ll learn, lessons for life. Don’t sit down; ever. Don’t look bored ever. Don’t look mad, never. Don’t look at people in their eye, unless they’re talking to you and if it’s an actor talking to you still don’t look them in the eye because they’re tricking you. They’re trying to trick you into getting fired. Don’t walk in front of the camera. Don’t walk in front of lights. Wear comfortable shoes because you’re going to be standing up for fourteen hours.
Get a tool belt. Get a kit together. Electricians have tools. PA’s have tools. You got a toolkit, you’re a professional. Put your notebook in there. Put nine million pens in there. Here’s a tip if you get bored, if you need to check out for a minute, take out your notebook, consult it. Do I look like I’m thinking about Xbox? No, I looked like I’m learning notes on important jobs. Put some aspirin in there. Put a multi-tool in there with a knife on it. Put some gloves in there because you’re going to be touching disgusting shit.
Yes it’s hard. Real life is hard. What are you going to do about it? Always be early, if your call time is seven, get there at 6:30 every time. The thirty-fifth day of a shoot, get there half an hour early.
Be the first person there and the last person to leave. That’s expected of you. That’s your job. You’re going to get yelled at. Have a driver’s license because you’re going to get told to drive somewhere for some damn reason. Literally gets no worse than this. It’s impossible for it to be worst than my job on the set I would have to be an actual garbage can. Look at me I sit by a column. I eat for free. I get to look at celebrities when they’re not looking at me. Eric Bana said please, when he ask me to throw out his kid’s shitty diaper. That’s not nothing.