Paperwork Manifesto (Part 2)

I was on the phone with mom today and she said, "People have been asking if you're still alive?" Strange that mortality is now determined by blog activity, but I suppose it is an honest question and there is certainly some validity to it. My job has become my life. From Tuesday to Saturday (or, as has been the case lately, Sunday), every waking moment is spent at work. I eat all my meals at work and the only people I socialize with are those people at work. I've even begun to decorate my room in the honeywagon. I've even resorted to leaving jackets in the honey because the chances of me going outside out of work are slim. That being said, work is going well. I'm feeling increasingly more comfortable in my role as paperwork PA, and people have begun entrusting me with responsibilities that extend beyond the M-O of my job. So in light of all my newfound knowledge, I'll continue with Paperwork Manifesto Part 2.

BE A TEAM PLAYER

When I first started on this job, it was clear that there was already a system in effect. Most of the staff PAs had worked together before and had worked with the ADs before. It was almost like a family, with the 1st AD as the father and the 2nd AD as the mother. As one PA told me, "The [2nd 2nd AD] is like their first child and then all of us [the other staff PAs] are like their other children." And from what I've gathered, that's a lot of what this whole industry is about...allegiances. Especially when your job is an all-consuming one, it's good to have people at work that you like and that you trust.

At first, though, I felt like I had no place in the family. I felt like the system in place was too well established to make room for another. But I just buckled down, worked my butt off, and tried to make a good impression. And that's the best advice I can give. Be a team player. Even when it feels like you're out of the joke - because the joke was long ago established - don't worry, new jokes are bound to crop up. The Key PA, an additional PA, and I have set in motion plans to celebrate "Mo"-vember, rocking moustaches for the entire month of November. The 2nd 2nd AD promised me a $200 gift certificate to a nice steakhouse in Brooklyn should I carry out the deed. I'm still just trying to decide on the right look.

DON'T COUNT YOURSELF OUT

There have been plenty of times on this job where I've thought to myself, there's literally no conceivable way I can do this. Usually, in the morning when my alarm goes off is one of those moments. But also there's the occasional time when I feel like cloning technology would seriously come in handy.

Last night was one such moment. So union rules dictate that we break cast and crew six hours after crew call for "lunch" or else every Local 52 union member (basically any crew person not in the AD department) accrues a meal penalty every 30 minutes after six hours. Crew call yesterday was 4:30pm. But we are also contractually obligated to wrap out the children in the movie by 12:30am on weekends (I think 10:30pm on weeknights). So the rumor was going around set last night that we were just going to work through the six hours, break for lunch at 12:30, but also wrap out for the night.

Right as 12:30 was approaching, a delivery from the office arrived with revised one-line shooting schedules. I called up the 2nd AD, "Hey, so new one-liners came out. But we're about to wrap, so I kind of need to be here to get out times and such, right?" "No," she replied. "Take them up to set." Ok...

Now to give you an idea of what we were dealing with last night, we were shooting a night exterior driving scene, so we were on a stretch of road in Queens, right on the East River, underneath the Triboro and Hell Gate Bridges. Basecamp, where the honeywagon is, was probably a mile away from set. Catering, where "lunch" would be served as about a half-mile in the other direction from basecamp. Luckily, we had shuttle service, but there were no shuttles in basecamp. So I hiked up from basecamp with a thick stack of shooting schedules weighing me down. As I finally rolled into set to distribute them, wrap/lunch was called. Uh oh. I dumped stacks of schedules in each equipment truck for each department, hopped on the first shuttle back down to basecamp to call the wrap report into the office, and then hitched a ride with the unit publicist to catering. I gave them they're instructions and then sprinted back to basecamp to finish collecting out times and finish my production report. I've never felt and hopefully I never will again feel so stretched.

The whole time I thought it was physically impossible, that my presence was required in three different places at the exact same time. But somehow, it all came together.