Working On a Film Set: First Day Survival Tips
Securing the first opportunity to get on a movie or TV set is a huge accomplishment. The next step is to do a good enough job in order to get hired again, and perhaps turn this bizarre (yet awesome!) job into a career. Here are some tips for surviving that first day, and some protocol that’ll help you appear less “green” or “new”: First and Foremost: Learn to Use the Walkie. Listen to it, and for the love of all that’s good in the world, ANSWER it. You will thank me. If you don’t want a giant arrow above your head with the word “NEWBIE” flashing in neon, learn to use your walkie. OK, maybe I’m being unfair- you’ve never used a walkie before, of course you won’t know how to use it! But film sets are fast-moving, well-oiled machines – and when close to a hundred people are spread out all over a set, walkie communication is vital. It doesn’t matter that you’re new. You will be given a quick, 30-second tutorial by the walkie PA on how to use the walkie, and it’s up to you from there. Few things are more frustrating than working with someone who doesn’t listen to their walkie, so pay attention. Paying attention to your walkie and “copy”-ing when you’re spoken to will earn you a gold star and your peers will never guess it’s your first day on set. I promise. Okay, so there’s no gold star, but being walkie savvy is an easy way to showcase you’re not worthless. Do not stand around staring at the action. It’s easy to get sucked in by the awe of being on a set. After all, you’re given a behind-the-scenes look at something just a fraction of society gets to see – but you have to fight the urge to gawk. Standing around observing is the job of the executives, not yours. The AD will get annoyed at you for being in the way. There’s almost always something to do. If you’re not sure what that is, watch your fellow PAs. Do NOT take pictures of celebrities…and definitely don’t post them on Facebook! Unless you want to end your career before it begins, this isn’t smart as someone starting out in the business. Eventually, after you prove you’re not in the business to be a stalker or a fan, you’ll be an AD or producer and you CAN do these things, but if you do this on Day 1, or even Day 50, you will not be asked back. Similarly, do not talk to the actors unless they talk to you. Ask one of your...
Adventures in Uruguay
With 6 full days in Buenos Aires, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dart across the Riviere de la Plata and spend a day exploring Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. Uruguay is, in all honestly, a country I knew nothing about, nor did I ever imagine I’d visit. After wandering around the town for a few hours and with only an hour before our ferry was scheduled to depart, we decided we wanted to venture to an area just outside of town, to see the Plaza de Torros, a now abandoned bullring built in the early 1900’s. We could’ve flagged a taxi, or rented a scooter, as so many other daytrippers had done and were buzzing all over town. But I’m always bent on the cheapest way of doing things, as is Trista. And so, with only an hour left in Uruguay, we opted to wait for the public bus, which we didn’t expect should take very long. After ten minutes with no bus, I started looking agitatedly at my watch – our minutes left in Uruguay were ticking by. I never ride public transportation in Nashville- ever– so in my mind, buses should magically appear every 5 minutes. When that didn’t happen, my anxiety grew. As a lover of foreign architecture, I really wanted to see the Plaza de Torros – but I didn’t want to get stuck in Uruguay with nothing but my passport. I saw a bus appear over the horizon. I lept from the bench excitedly, completely ignoring the bus number. I wanted to get on it simply because at least it was going somewhere, but the old Uruguayan woman also waiting at our stop wagged her finger at me. I took a deep breath and sat back down. Finally, the old public bus bearing the correct number came bumbling up the hill, creaking to a slow stop in front of us. We ambled to the back of the bus, where we were met by stares from locals. Tourists must use the scooters, evidently. As the bus sputtered down the road, taking us further and further out of town, I looked at the neighborhoods, dingy with Latin American spirit from years of dirt kicking up off the dusty road. Traffic lights were nonexistent, street signs were rusty from years of rain and wind, making it impossible for us to follow along on our map. It was the real Uruguay, not polished for tourist eyes. After a good 15 minute ride, the bus stopped at the Plaza del Torros, and we took in the bizarre sight of a Coliseum set in the middle of a quiet neighborhood. Much to our dismay,...
How I Got Started in Production
As I said in my previous post about not having all the answers, networking wasn’t my strong suit. The hardest part about getting into the film industry – especially a smaller, concentrated one like Nashville – was making the initial contacts. I knew I didn’t have any experience. How do you convince someone to hire you over someone else when you don’t know anything about the industry you’re trying to get into? I didn’t know anything about film. Or cameras. Or lighting. All I knew was I wanted to be on a set and see whatever I did on TV. Internships, yay! In the summer before my senior year of college, I landed an internship with a chill music video production company. Unlike my music business internships, I was thrilled! My first day on the job broke down like this: Started at the office at 10am. Ran errands (which consisted of picking up police lights). The music video* shoot began that afternoon at 3:30pm and lasted until 4am the next morning. During that time, I babysat extras (who can get into trouble if left unsupervised, I quickly learned), helped with set dec (which consisted of removing dozens of old, dusty fourth of July decorations from bannisters in the background), and made two separate runs to Wal-Mart at 2am for zip ties to re-tie the dirty decorations. It was crappy work, but I didn’t notice – I immediately fell in love with the energy, and how thirty normal people can create something seen by thousands. I didn’t get home until 6:30am and then had to turn around and go to an 8am class. I’d worked a 20 hour day, didn’t make any money, but it didn’t matter. I knew I’d found what I wanted to do. Want to get into the film industry? Work for free. You don’t have to commit to a semester-long internship in order to get your foot in the door, although it was helpful for me since I didn’t know anything about the way a set flows, and it allowed me to see a little bit of how the office worked in preparation for the shoots. Interning on independent movies can be a good way to get your foot in the door. Call the film commission in your state, ask them what’s going on. You probably won’t get on Tom Hanks latest feature (or maybe you will!), but you might be able to get a few days on an indie movie. It’ll introduce you to people who normally work in the biz, and they may be able to help you secure future gigs. Film School Disclaimer: Having never...
TV Production? It wasn’t the plan.
The responsibility of finding your own “American Dream” is pushed on us early in life. Society forces us to have everything figured out by the time we’re 18. We have to go to college. We have to somehow know what we want to do with the rest of our lives. And we have to be successful. Going to College Solves Everything…. Right? Fully aware of this pressure, I set my sights on Belmont, beginning at age 16. For three years, I worked my butt off with Belmont as the end goal – somehow thinking that by stepping foot on the campus, I’d suddenly have all the answers, and I would live “happily ever after”. Yes, that was naive. Early college years. As you can tell by my outfit, I didn’t have much figured out. After one year in Nashville attending Belmont, I wanted to give up. I wanted to pack it up, go to UVA, get a nursing degree, and live a life I could predict. I’d realized the music business wasn’t for me. My classmates seemed to have confidence pouring out of them. They were all somehow going to change the music business world – and I believed they all would. As for myself… not at all. But, leaving Nashville after only a year seemed like a cop-out. I had made some good friends that I didn’t want to leave, plus, as crazy as this sounds, I landed my dream job on campus as a tour guide. I began to realize that just as it had taken awhile to get my “college life” started, it was also going to take time to cultivate my “real” life, my “post-college” life. And so, I decided to stick around Nashville a little longer. Internships. Blargh! I still stuck with finishing the music business degree (it was a BBA, after all). I even had two internships on Music Row, but it only reaffirmed my gut feeling that the music business wasn’t for me. Granted, they were probably two of the suckiest internships available, but networking wasn’t one of my skills at the time, and I needed whatever I could get! I sat in a cubicle doing data entry, entering dozens of newly written songs into the database. It was miserable. Working just 10 hours a week felt like an eternity. I took numerous trips to the water cooler and coffee machine to try to kill time. I felt like my soul was seeping out of my pores with every minute that dragged on. I felt out of place. I even turned down the only redeeming thing that ever came out of that internship...
Living With Hippies in Wellington
Travelling isn’t a series of endless awesome moments – at least, not in the world of the budget traveler. There are interesting moments that are uncomfortable to live through, but make for somewhat amusing life lessons later. Such was the day I lived with hippies. Rewind: May, 2010. Wellington had won me over. The moment I stepped off the bus and found myself at the corner of Courtenay Place and Cambridge, I was in love. The weather was far colder than that of Sydney and the wind was harsh — but there was something about Wellington – the charm, the friendly atmosphere, the touristy excitement of Wellywood, the endless amount of Lord of the Rings tours to choose from – and I knew I could settle in this corner of the world for awhile and be contented. My first night in Wellington, I struck couchsurfing gold with a young couple named Charlotte and Vaughan. By this point, I’d become used to the concept of couchsurfing and the idea of just wandering into an unknown place, making new friends, and adjusting immediately. Charlotte and Vaughan had only hosted one other person a few months earlier, so the whole idea was still new to them and they were friendly and accommodating with a nervous excitement. Charlotte and I hit it off, as we both worked in production. She worked at a local TV station, and we both had a love for travel that was difficult to fund, given our limited incomes. The night I stayed with them, Charlotte and I went for pizza on Cuba Street (awesome part of the city with dozens of quaint shops and restaurants; the pizza wasn’t so impressive). Before turning in for the night, I checked the location of my host for the following night. He lived in Island Bay, which was about a 10-15 minute bus ride out of the part of town I’d come to love. Staying with Charlotte and Vaughan another night wasn’t an option, as they were planners that had only anticipated housing me for one night. But Charlotte was still gracious and offered to drive me out there the next afternoon. After a nice day of some solo walking around the trails of Mt. Victoria, I packed up my things and Charlotte drove me out to Island Bay. She’d looked up the address and we were searching amongst the numerous houses to find it. At long last, we discovered an older, white house hidden by overgrown trees. The white paint on the house was severely chipped, and there was no door to be seen on the front of the house– but we’d...
About
I'm Laryssa, and when I'm not working in film or television, I'm attempting to travel -- or I'm here, providing resources for working in film or travel. Read more Elsewhere on the internets
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