I’ve been working on 2nd unit shooting some action stuff for GI Joe. Though I’d love to take credit for the amazing stuff we’re pulling off, I’m just a lowly Production Assistant.
Some ass hole shot some of the stuff and put it up on YouTube. Free publicity for Paramount! Enjoy the Euro music choices.
Today, HackCollege reached 1,017 feed readers. That’s a huge milestone.
This article, called “Technoslave,” recently appeared in Adbusters. Here’s a convincing little statement:
Scientists and psychologists are now beginning to classify technology dependency as a major health problem, putting it in the same categories as alcoholism, gambling and drug addiction. The stress it creates is causing arthritis, migraines and ulcers.
Technology is all about how you manage it. Most of the time, I don’t answer my cell phone. I pick it up, see who’s calling, and calmly press “Decline” if it’s just going to be a further distraction. If you look at it this way, technology doesn’t seem any more stressful than someone bursting into your office to ask a question.
Not to mention, the general point that this article makes is pretty weak when you apply the same logic to other forms of progress. Have we become “wheelslaves” or “toiletslaves?” Just because we’re a “slave” to something, that doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad.
I published this piece in the Los Angeles Loyolan as part of a Myspace versus Facebook debate — indeed, a hackneyed topic. I think we both bring new things to the table. You can read the Myspace article here and mine below.
Let’s talk about our campus as though it were a social network like Facebook or MySpace. The students are represented by their profiles, McKay is like a Facebook group and John O’Connor is kind of like Tom. The confines of the bluff are what make this geographic location into its own social network. Our particular geography makes us feel safe – we’re bordered by a bluff on one side, a quaint neighborhood on the other and there’s only two gated entrances to this cute little compound. When I stand out on the bluff and watch from afar as a helicopter beams its spotlight on a burglar (hacker) in the streets below, I feel safe – which is just good enough. I feel safe, but in reality, this is Los Angeles, where people will come from off-campus. People get harassed right on Loyola Boulevard, or shot right outside the back entrance.
Michael Kinsley has an excellent article in Time about the editor/writer dynamic at publications. He sides with the writer.
Writers, [editors] say, are whiny, self-indulgent creatures who spend too much time alone. They are egotistical, paranoid and almost always seriously dehydrated. Above all, they are spectacular ingrates. Editors save their asses, and writers do nothing but bitch about it.
It’s absolutely strange to watch the transformation of someone from staff writer to editor. Everyone who goes through it experiences this loss of the romanticism about writing. Being an editor makes a person realize how haughty, demanding and spoiled a writer can be. The focus for an editor is readability and getting the issue in on time – nothing about artistic merit or “voice” – just the realistic fact that people have to read this newspaper.
I think there’s value to that, though. It crosses the line (and Kinsley especially acknowledges this), when the editor mistreats the writers like they’re complete underlings: ignoring emails, hacking at random paragraphs to save a few words, etc.
Being an editor at the Loyolan has sucked the creativity right out of me, but I think it’s made my articles better. I can’t wait to see what happens over the summer when I’m completely out-of-touch with editorial.
I really like Virginia Heffernan’s blog. Here’s her article from the NYT magazine about Evites and the complexities of online party invitations. Afterwards she suggests alternates to Evite:
For the supremely confident only: Twitter to tell your followers where you’ll be in 10 minutes, and expect a crowd.
I think she’s on to the Kelly Sutton idea for Twitter usage.
There’s a great article about the culture clash between Silicon Valley and Hollywood in the New York Times yesterday. The whole thing is interesting, but I’d like to highlight part of it. It’s a quote from a Sony exec:
“I don’t know if they feel they don’t need us or are going directly to the talent,” he said. “There are always going to be huge cultural differences between us because the interests are different. On their side they are fundamentally interested in technology and, on our side, we are interested in the content.”
The strange thing is that right now a huge percentage of the new media audience is fundamentally interested in technology also — and not content (the entertainment sense of content translates to “Brad Pitt”). Companies like Revision3 are banking on this. In fact, the internet is creating its own celebrities based around geek-dom, like Gary Vaynerchuk, Veronica Bellmont and Kevin Rose.
But my inkling is that if web entertainment is going to stay completely afloat, some people better start flying their private jets north.
This was an article originally written for the Los Angeles Loyolan but it was also published at HackCollege.com.
I’m part of the last generation of “Film Production” majors to go through LMU. The School of Film and Television is phasing out the major and already, the sophomores and freshmen major in something different: just plain old “Production.” The point is to encompass both television and film (and maybe even new media) into one major. The class structure is altered now so that students have to take both television and film classes. The idea is that the two workflows are gradually converging, as one-hour television dramas shoot on film and action movies get shot on digital video. That sounds pretty progressive for a film school, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, changing the name of a major doesn’t do the trick. If you’re going to shoot a junior thesis, AKA PROD 300, you have to use film – actual film, like the stuff we used in still cameras once upon a time. Real film is expensive. That means the bare minimum budget for a junior thesis is about $3,000. Indeed, it’s as goofy a requirement as it sounds. Effectively, when you’re a junior, you can’t shoot a fictional piece on a digital medium in spite of the dawn of iTunes, high-definition television and outstanding digital cameras like the Red One. Granted, 35mm is certainly not obsolete, but it’s noncore for a media person these days.
Our school is chock full of such techno-hypocrisy. Tenured professors who still use AOL meet in 2008 with young people holding iPhones. These bigwigs sit on boards and control policies to prepare students for real life – if our students were graduating 10 years ago. Someone out there saw this happening at LMU and decided to do something about it: hence, the ITA. Every school at Loyola has an Instructional Technology Analyst, whose sole job is to push people toward podcasting and blogging. The ITAs report to IT – not the deans and Jesuits from the past – which gives them enough autonomy to make changes quickly. It’s a step in the right direction, which I applaud, but I still have to watch my peers struggle with celluloid just to meet the requirements for graduation.
Why do people need to learn digital video instead of film? It seems silly to ask this question, but it sheds light on other situations. If the industry is moving towards cameras with hard drives instead of clockwork, then shouldn’t our students be learning about those instead? By the same token, if PR is moving towards MySpace and lectures are moving towards iTunes U then shouldn’t the same follow for our communications and education majors?
In the technology biz, people are critical of one such new phenomenon: the wiki. A wiki is a simple online space for organizing and sharing information. There are other wikis besides Wikipedia – ones for traveling, planning weddings or Philosophy 101 classes. Few would argue that there’s anything inherently bad about a wiki. The resentment is for the “throw a wiki at it” mentality that many leaders trumpet – where letting users put all the information in one place can supposedly solve every problem. Wikis can’t solve every problem and neither can digital video, blogs or Blackboard. One might say: “But isn’t that what these ITAs are doing? Just promoting technology for the sake of it?”
They are, but in the classroom, it’s different. I never thought I’d be doing this, but this is an argument for “technology for the sake of technology.” I really think that educational institutions are an exception to the “throw a Wiki at it” misconception, because throwing a Wiki means a class of students has to learn how to catch one. Students need to know these technologies so that they can use them when they graduate. In other words — if we still wrote our papers on typewriters none of us would get jobs.
This article comes from the now defunct “Film Student Blog.” I still think it’s useful, so I thought I’d backdate it and toss it to the web again. It used to get a lot of traffic.
It’s right about time to be scrambling for a summer job and for a film student, there is no better job than being a set PA on a studio project. PAs work long, stop-and-go hours, aren’t paid well, and are generally demeaned by most of the crew — but the amount of experience you can get is mind-blowing. It’s also a great way to start yourself off with a small network of good contacts.
First, a little job description. A production assistant does what people in the industry call “jumping on grenades.” In other words, you will practically risk your life in an effort to solve problems that no one else can solve (or wants to solve). It mostly involves getting things: coffee, a lighter, batteries, Advil, a TX-90 6″ hex screw… that type of thing. But because of the versatility of a PA, they are one of the most important parts of a movie crew. Working as a PA, you will do at least one thing that will save the entire production from complete failure and disaster. How about that for your resume?
PAs are constantly bossed around by almost every department, but for the most part, they technically work in “Production” directly under the Key PA or Second Assistant Director. That being the case, working as a PA is an important component to eventually getting into the DGA or becoming a successful director.
Even though the production assistant is technically an entry-level position, actually getting a legitimate (paying) PA job is difficult. There is a huge amount of competition from other students and recent graduates. But there’s definitely a few things you can do to make sure you’re the one who’s working this summer. And if all else fails, get a job at Starbucks and write a screenplay instead.
Because if you don’t know people, you’re pretty much screwed. Don’t get scared yet – you probably know someone who’s connected, but you don’t realize it. Even that cocky grad-level student producer (the one who always says, “Hi,” but doesn’t know your name) can probably hook you up.
Here’s why you need connections: PAs get hired on a whim. Good productions rarely put out a classified. If they do, they probably hire all the PAs before you’ll even read it. That’s because the best PAs are connected enough to find out about a production before you read about it on Craig’s List.
The main factor here is loyalty. Production Coordinators (who normally hire PAs), have a reliable handful of workers who they call every time they need them. The trick is becoming a part of that handful or the back-up for that handful. And for that, all you really need is one good production (so you can get friendly with the Production Coordinator). And all you need for one good production is one good contact.
First of all, don’t be afraid that you’re going to “waste” a contact. You aren’t “using” the person. You don’t have to save your connections for one good favor. People expect to get this call — just do it.
Now down to the nitty-gritty. You’ve got your contact. What do you do? What do you say? It all depends on how legit they are. If it’s a good friend or a lower ranking person (PA, 2nd AD, APOC) just ask them if they know about anything that’s crewing up soon and get the production’s contact info. Meet for a cup of coffee or something and keep touching base.
If you’re lucky enough to know a big-shot, you have to handle things more carefully. It definitely comes off as demeaning to call a VIP only to ask for a lowly PA job. You need to butter them up a bit first. Try to get into their office for a 15 minute meeting. Pitch it as an “informal interview” — tell them you want to use their infinite experience to inform your summer job decisions (which you probably do anyways). Talk with the person for a bit about your aspirations and ask for some advice. You want to subtly coerce them into offering you a little job — and if you play it right, you might even get a bigger job than you expected.
If you “don’t know people,” go back and read the section about “knowing people.” You are going to exhaust yourself for no reason if you don’t at least try to milk some connections first.
And, as a last resort, do it cold. There are a few good resources for finding what’s in pre-production and production right now, and that’s where you should start. Probably the best place: the trades. Look in Variety every Friday for film, and every Thursday for television. The Hollywood Reporter does film every Tuesday (that’s the issue that lists the date as Tuesday through the following Monday), and television the first and third Tuesday of each month.
And here are the best websites:
Here’s the trick to the websites. Most of the time, the ad will not read “Great chance to PA on a big studio action flick with Bruce Willis and Michael Bay! Please apply!” The Production Coordinators I know normally stay really low-key and discreet. It will look like a sketchy independent film. I guess it’s just to mess with people.
Okay, so between those resources, pick out about 30 viable productions and get all the information you can. Again, you’re trying to get in touch with the Production Coordinator. Here are two ways to do this once you have the numbers and addresses.
Probably the best idea is to just walk right into their production office. You’re going there to hand-deliver your resume. The person at the front desk (an office PA) is probably going to tell you that they’ve already crewed up, which is probably true. Try to give them your resume anyway, in case they need back-up. They are going to throw away your resume when you leave. Who knows.
If the person says they’re still crewing up, try to meet the Production Coordinator as long as you’re there. It might turn into a mini-interview. In fact, you might even get hired right on the spot (like I said, PAs are hired on a whim).
Your other option is to call or email. Get them your resume. Follow up in a few days. Then, again, a few days after that. Pray. It’s much easier to get turned down this way.
No matter what you do, be as friendly as you can to everyone, especially that office PA who will answer the phones or greet you at the door. Soon, that person might be your co-worker, but more importantly — that person is probably going to read the resumes and pick a few PAs (because everyone else is too busy). So, make small talk, and remember names. Do your mother proud.
If you don’t live in LA or New York, it’s going to be tough. If you’re really lucky, you might be able to cold-call until you get an on-location shoot where the production will fly you in and put you up, but rarely would they go to that much trouble just for a PA. They normally opt to hire locally for on-location shoots.
Your best bet is trying to work on a mini local production. Try to get in touch with your state/city film/television commission/association… they might be able to help you. Even if you’re working for free on a fitness program on public access, you’ll still gain valuable experience. In fact, in an intimate setting like that, the director might even know your name.