What to Expect When Visiting Oak Harbor, Washington
Oak Harbor, Washington is nestled on Whidbey Island, one of the islands amidst the waterways of western Washington. If you’re driving to British Columbia by way of Seattle, you should absolutely take a detour to Oak Harbor. The sunlight is always up, it seems. Full sunlight would spill through my hotel’s curtains every morning at 5am, and every morning I’d wake in a panic that I’d overslept. The sun wouldn’t dip beneath the horizon until after 10pm. The best parts of Oak Harbor are right off the highway. It felt like I was in a painting. To be this far north in the winter must be brutal, but Oak Harbor in the summertime is enchanting. And apparently, the Puget Sound is one of the best places in the country to become a raw oyster fanatic! While I enjoy oysters Rockefeller, the thought of raw oysters makes me gag (the only time I’d tried one was in Charleston — and it was gross). I wasn’t the kind of person that ate raw oysters before visiting Oak Harbor. One of the guys on our crew is from Washington, and promised I wouldn’t regret trying an oyster from his homeland. I learned that the Pacific Northwest provides the sweetest oysters in the country, specifically the Baywater Sweet variety — which are farmed in the nearby Thorndyke Bay. I had my first raw oyster from the Pacific Northwest at Fraser’s Gourmet Hideaway. We sat at the chef’s bar and got to talk a little with the owner and head chef, Scott Fraser. We watched him prepare each dish with scrutiny; every plate a masterpiece. As soon as I took a sip of my glass of Maryhill Viognier paired with a raw oyster, I knew I was in for one of the best dining experiences of my life. Each appetizer was better than the last. The crabcakes were delicious, the calamari was perfectly breaded and tender — but the tapas plate was my favorite. Have you ever had a bacon-wrapped date? It is absolutely exquisite. After an excellent meal, we walked to the nearby shoreline. It was almost ten o’clock at night, and the streets were quiet as somewhere behind the clouds, the sun finally began dipping beneath the horizon. It’s hard not to think about the infinite when staring into an endless canvas of blues and dashes of a fading sun. There is a LOT of driftwood on the banks of Oak Harbor – I’d never seen so much in my life! If you’re headed to Victoria from Seattle in the summertime, I highly recommend a night’s stay in Oak Harbor. It’s a hidden gem in the United States, a...
Guide for Finding and Filming Locations (and How to Keep Them Happy)
The majority of film and television shoots are accomplished outside the comforts of a studio lot. These shoots happen on location — whether it be at a warehouse, apartment, restaurant, bar, or store. Someone has to make the initial contact with that location, nurture the relationship, and ultimately secure enough trust to accomplish a film shoot that keeps both parties happy until long after the film crew leaves. First of all, your priority should be ensuring the location has a positive experience — you don’t want to burn a bridge for the next film crew that wants to film there. There are four steps to establishing a relationship with a location, but if you can only remember two things, remember this: Be Honest and Be Genuine. NOTE: This post is written for smaller shoots, where the coordinators/producers usually do the location management and try to get locations for free. For larger scripted projects, there’s an entire department to handle the locations! 1) Learn How to Cold Call. Cold calling is scary and in the age of e-mail, it’s a skill that’s overlooked and not taught in school. When I first started as an associate producer, I was terrified of picking a phone number off of Google, cold calling, and trying to convince an unsuspecting stranger to let a 30-person film crew interfere with their business. I didn’t have a confident on-phone personality. To make things even more daunting, my very first assignment was to cold calls gigantic oil corporations in an attempt to find an offshore oil rig for us to film on. (Mind you, this was less than a year after the Deepwater Horizon incident.) Throughout my first season on that show, as I called numerous other locations (restaurants, bars, etc), I got a lot of confused reactions met with a lot of Hell No!s. But with guidance from a great mentor plus the practice of cold calling hundreds of businesses, I was able to craft a sales pitch with a high success rate. Once you’ve cleared 100 different locations in 20 different states, you’re bound to start remembering what works! The turning point was incredibly simple: I believed what I told them. This is a project you’re happy to be working on, and they should be excited you chose them, too! Your enthusiasm and belief in the project will sell the show better than any well-written sales pitch. When You’re Cold Calling, Make Sure You’re Speaking With the Right Person. This is simple, but key. Don’t unload your pitch on the first person that answers the phone – make sure you’re speaking to the owner/manager (or public relations if it’s a big company). My first line...
Building a Film Gear Package/Videographer Kit For Less Than $1,000
Purchasing film gear is expensive. I’ve been in the market for a new camera, one that shoots HD video. (Maybe I can earn a few extra bucks uploading some crap to a stock footage website, right?) And then I thought of all the additional gadgets I’d need to pull off a successful shoot on my own: Good lighting, a tripod, editing software, and maybe even audio equipment. Before long, I’m assembling my own film gear kit! I wondered…can a basic videographer’s kit be built for less than $1,000? The Camera (1-2 Lenses) – $700 Canon T3i or Nikon D3200. This kills the majority of the budget, but a decent camera and good lens are (obviously) vital. Occasionally, Amazon will run a deal that includes not just the kit lens, but a telephoto lens as well. Smaller budget commercials, music videos, and independent films have been shot on the T3i and the quality is impressive. Tip: Choose one brand of camera that you plan on “upgrading”, that way, your lenses will be interchangeable between camera bodies. 1/2016 Update: This is a space that is constantly changing since I wrote this article 3 years ago. I’ve been impressed with the quality of video from Sony’s mirrorless cameras. Check out the a6000 or, for full-frame and bigger budgets, the a7. Recommended Add-On: Polarizer filter & lens hood (additional $15-$20) Tripod – $50 A tripod is necessary for any interviews or lock-off shots you may need. High-end tripods cost $2,000+, but for $50, pick up a heavy-duty tripod capable of supporting the weight of your DSLR. Note: If you want to do a lot of handheld recording, shop around for DSLR shoulder mounts or learn how to build a DSLR shoulder mount out of PVC pipe. Cards and Card Reader – $75 This will depend on the type of camera you purchase – you can pick up a 32GB Transcend SDHC Flash card for $25. Get at LEAST two memory cards to start, three if you can fork it over. Recommended Add-On: External Hard Drive ($100-$200; FireWire 800 highly recommended for fast transfer of media) Spare Camera Battery – $50 This is enough to get a name-brand backup battery. You can find an off-brand for a lot less, but in my experience, they don’t hold as much of a charge. Audio Equipment (Shotgun Microphone)– $30 Eventually, you will need to invest in lavalieres and a mixer (or better yet, an audio guy), but for now, a budget shotgun microphone will boost the audio quality without breaking the bank. Note: If you have a little more money to spend, pick up a portable Zoom ZH4N recorder, which are easy to operate and will record 4 audio channels. ...
How to Get a Job as a Production Assistant
I’ve gotten a few inquiries asking about getting that first film set or television job as a production assistant, so here’s an attempt to help! There are several paths into the film business, but speaking from my own experience, this is what I would recommend to someone just starting out in the film or television business with their sights set on that first production assistant job. Don’t Ask for a Production Assistant Job. Work for Free. It’s tough to convince people they should hire you as a production assistant and pay you when you don’t have any credits to your name just yet. If you’ve never worked on a real set (film school doesn’t count), offer to work for free. Money talks in this business, and they’ve got nothing to lose by giving you a chance. That will be the fastest way to get you on a set. From there, you can work your butt off and prove yourself while making contacts that will eventually hire you. I know it’s painful to think of “working for free”, so instead…consider it your audition to the film world. You may feel like you’re insignificant and your good deeds are going unnoticed, but I promise, producers and ADs are always on the hunt for the next great worker. Common sense, following orders, and having a good attitude will get you a LONG way in this business. Cold Call Production Companies. When I started out, I only ever gotten one production assistant job blindly by emailing a production company, and they ended up screwing me because they “released” me via email the day before the shoot. Talk to people first, then email them as a follow-up. When you cold call, ask if you can come by and introduce yourself. Be approachable and confident, but don’t brag about your film school accomplishments as if they’re comparable to the real film industry. Call the Local Film Commission. Are there any big film projects in town? Call your local film commission (or office of Economic Development) for leads. Explain you’re a student/recent graduate seeking experience. Ask for the name of the production company, and if they know of any contacts. When you cold call the production, use the name of the person you spoke with at the film commission. Your phone call to the production should be something along these lines: “Hello Brad, I got your name from Susan Carlton over at the film commission. I’m a recent graduate looking to get into film production. I was wondering if you needed any extra hands on your project?” Ask about any low-budget independent movies, as they can be a great way to...
So, You Want to be a Television Executive? Get to Los Angeles. Now.
I’ve been stationed in Los Angeles for three months now, the longest I’ve been away from Nashville since first moving there in the fall of 2005. Coming here has been a great opportunity professionally, and it has also managed to quench that eternal desire of wanderlust…somewhat. (I’m still pricing tickets to Kiev and Southeast Asia on my off-hours. But I digress.) I’m a big fan of mid-level television/film markets. It’s been my bread and butter for five years, while also providing a rich quality of life in addition to an affordable lifestyle — plus giving me ample stories to last a lifetime. However, now that I’m temporarily located in the mecca of the film and television industry, it’s been impossible not to wonder how much further up the ladder I would be if only I’d moved out here five years ago. But as I’ve said before, I knew basing myself out of LA wasn’t at all what I wanted. The same may not be true for you. If you’re new to this career in television and film, what is it you hope to achieve? Do you want to… Be an executive producer for a highly successful television series? Write an Oscar-nominated screenplay? DP the next hit AMC series? Get in to the DGA and become a 1st AD? If you said yes to any of the above, while you may be able to eventually achieve these goals from anywhere USA, you’ll get your foot in the door a LOT! faster if you move to Los Angeles immediately. I was a PA for three years before I moved up to a position I could’ve gotten within a year had I been based in LA. There’s a lot of work out here; enough opportunity for both the talented and the terrible. If you’re an ambitious, smart, and competent production assistant with clear direction of what department you’d like to pursue, you’re going to get promoted very quickly. If you’re a terrible production assistant, well, luckily for you (and unfortunately for the rest of us), there’s enough work out here that will keep you from ever getting completely blacklisted. (Not that anyone would ever deliberately be a bad production assistant, right?!) All that said, I also don’t want to mislead you into thinking just the act of moving to LA will immediately lead to getting jobs in the business. As always, tenacity and networking are the trick to landing that first gig. Once you get in the loop and prove yourself, you’ll be set. But remember…you don’t have to move to LA. I have several work comrades in the Nashville area that are living proofyou can make a living...
The Truth about Being a Production Assistant: How Much Money Will I Make?
We all work to earn a living. For most of us that go into the film industry, we have career goals beyond that of simply paying our bills. Either we have those dreams, or we’re just stupid — otherwise, we would’ve found an easier avenue! For the entry-level world of production assistants, the pay is meager compared to the union wages of your fellow crew members. But, as you will find, a lot of it will depend on what time of project you work on. Day Rate vs Weekly Rate For short-term gigs, PAs receive a day rate, with no overtime. For long-term jobs, you will still typically get a day rate, with overtime only kicking in after 14 hours. Occasionally, PAs get weekly rates, and you will get one set amount of money per week, regardless of whether you work a humane 60 hours or an inhumane 91. Music Video Rates for Production Assistants There’s no set rule to music video rates; it will depend on how cheap the production company is that you’re working for. In the beginning, I made $200/day (with no overtime) on music videos, but the majority of music video shoots only lasted a day. Maybe there was a prep day, but usually not. As I worked for more and more companies, the going rate was typically $150-$200 per day, with a few laughable productions offering a meager $125. Towards the end of my PA tenure when I was acting more as a 2nd AD, a few kind-hearted companies offered me $225 per day. Reality TV Rates for Production Assistants I haven’t PA’ed on too many of these, but on the few that I did, the rate stood between $125-$150 per day, $150 per day only coming after serious negotiation. Movies/Scripted Television Rates for Production Assistants One would think that movies with 20 million dollar budgets would find it within their hearts and wallets to offer their production assistants more than just bread crumbs, but that is NEVER the case. Unless you’re working on an indie movie for your friends, I found that the bigger the budget, the smaller my paycheck. On Country Strong, the rate was $130/14 hours. I was raking in about $500/week after taxes, after putting in 70 hour weeks. That breaks down to less than $10/hour. On one television pilot, I was again on the horrible $130/14 hour pay scale, and we worked 91 hours in one week. After taxes were taken out, my paycheck didn’t even total $1,000. I cried. Commercial Rates for Production Assistants COMMERCIALS ARE KING. They are the cash cow of this business, especially for production assistants. Most pay...
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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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