It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

I'm deeply entrenched in week 4 of unemployment - or "funemployment" as many friends have insisted I'm in - and living like this certainly has its highs and lows. It's funny, really, because when I first got into the DGA training program, my parents and I scoured the internet for anything and everything about the program. At the time, all we could find was someone's blog about how, as a trainee, you are shackled to the program - "can't even go to your brother's wedding," was how the blogger put it I recall. And yet I've had ample opportunity to travel, take time off, enjoy responsibility-free living (sidebar: I conveyed the same sense of amazement to the program administrator the other day and she said that that blogger likely had gone through the LA program...).

Regardless, after a week skiing in Colorado with the fam, I stopped briefly in Pittsburgh to watch the Super Bowl with the folks I spent each Sunday with during the regular season, before heading back up to New York to move back into my apartment.

And what a time to be in New York! When I got back, the murmurs around town were that Jeremy Lin, a classmate of mine in college, had just been called from the Knicks bench and had tacked up a gaudy line against the Nets. Cool, I had thought. Little could I imagine how the whole thing would play out. Game after game, the legend of Lin built. It finally hit me last Thursday - after he had scored 25 against soon-to-be-BK, 28 against the Jazz, and 23 at the Wizards - as I was sitting in my favorite gourmet mac-n-cheese place. The guy sitting at the table next to me was regaling his girlfriend with Lin exploits with an enthusiasm so utterly childlike it could only be matched by the fact that he was slurping mac-n-cheese. I decided immediately that I had to see Jeremy play before the clock struck midnight, leaving a slackjawed MSG collectively holding an empty black Nike sneak.

So I convinced (not really sure if that's the right word since he agreed to it pretty willingly) my buddy to accompany me to the Laker game to try and scalp tickets. Without needing to go into too much detail on how we got the tickets*, we made our way in. And what a show! Every time Jeremy flinched, the decible level in the place peaked. It was a madhouse. But the interesting thing that my buddy - who was my co-editor of the sports page of the college paper and so we had seen Jeremy play a lot - and I both noticed was that the moves he was pulling weren't necessarily anything we hadn't already seen him do against the likes of Boston College (fortunately, as I later found, Tommy Amaker validated our assessment on the Boomer & Carton show). The only difference was he was busting these moves out on the likes of Kobe freakin' Bryant. It's just a joy to see.

*No, I'm still not going to go into detail on how we got the tickets, but I needed to force a segue into why I felt capable of making such an investment. As soon as I had gotten back into the city, I stopped by the DGA office to debrief with the program administrator. She had gotten positive reviews from my Pittsburgh employers that she wanted to share, and I was hoping to gather some intel on my future prospects. She confirmed my worst fears that I probably won't get my next assignment until well into March (pilot season, baby!) but before I left, she asked if I'd like to work on a commercial. "Sure," I said. "When?"

"Tomorrow. I'll let the production manager know. She'll get in touch with you about the details."

"Tomorrow...? Cool..."

I got a call no less than 10 minutes later. "Be there at 5:30am." Yikes!

That being said, the job was actually a really good learning experience. It was just me and the 1st AD, a one-day, 30-second spot for laundry detergent. We got to an empty stage, built a laundry room, got the coverage, broke down the laundry room, and left an empty stage. As de-facto 2nd AD, it was really cool to be able to interact with the director, director of photography, department heads, and the ad agency people so directly. Granted, once everything was in place and things got clicking, it was a long, painfully-boring day (I mean, how exciting can a laundry detergent commercial get, right?), but it kept me, at times, more engaged than I've ever been and certainly bestowed me with greater responsibility than any job yet.

But aside from that, I've just been reacclimating myself to New York lifestyle and pace. A friend from Pittsburgh visited for a couple of days, which motivated me to get off the couch (my preferred New York lifestyle and pace...only kidding) and get out. Saw Ground Zero the 9/11 memorial for the first time, which was an awe-inspiring sight. You see pictures of the fountains that mark the footprints of the Twin Towers, but there's really no way of getting a sense of the size of these fountains without seeing them in person. I noticed on my Google maps app on my phone that the fountains are illustrated as actual square-shaped bodies of water - on par with the ponds of Central Park. Simply breathtaking.

Oh and lest you think my time spent lately has been totally mindless, I picked up a valuable little nugget of education today. If you lose something in an NYC taxi cab and pay with a credit card, you can call Creative Mobile Technologies, the company that manufactures and operates the credit card swiping machines in the back of cabs and they can trace your transaction back to not only the medallion number, but the actual driver. Of course, if you pay with cash, as the nice guy at Style Management Co - one of the many cab dispatchers I had till then been contacting one at a time - told me, "You're shit out of luck."

Ah, New York, it's good to be back.

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Well I'm now a little over a week removed from the working life. Time to kick up my feet, take a load off, lay back, rest up, stress out...wait, what? Yeah, hard to say it but as hard as working life is, the hangover that ensues when you're dropped from employment cold turkey can at times be worse.

Having done this three times before, I decided to try a slow withdrawal and the jury's still out on whether I made the right move. I stuck around Pittsburgh for a few extra days, because after living there for four months I couldn't stand the idea of leaving the people I had come to know and love so easily. That was certainly well worth it!

But now I'm out of house and home - I let my subletter keep the apartment until the end of the month. I stopped by New York briefly this past weekend to drop some stuff off and catch up with old friends. It was bizarre feeling, like being a stranger in a familiar land, being back at my apartment but sleeping on the couch. Watched the South Carolina primary results come in with my brother, and played a drinking game to Gingrich's speech. "History?" Drink. "Radical?" Drink. "Fundamental?" Drink. "Baloney?" Eat bologna. I was home.

But just as New York was beginning to feel familiar again, I hopped back on an airplane bound for home in Birmingham. Birmingham in late-January is a strange time, that I don't have a lot of recent experience in. The last time I came home in late-January was for a weekend to be an escort at a debutante-like event when I was a senior in high school. It was warm then, and it's surprisingly warm now. It was 73 degrees when I stepped out of the airport and I felt ridiculous wearing layers, especially one with "omni-heat." And it's weird being home at such a non-traditional time to be home. Usually I'm only home during the holidays, when all my friends are also home.

I'll be kicking around for the next two weeks, before returning to New York to move back into my room and start hoping for a new job. As grueling as life is while on the job, the waiting game while off the job can at times be worse. I may not find another project until March, and when you're so used to being on your feet all day every day, it feels strange to pull such a 180.

An Up-At-Dawn, Pride-Swallowing Siege That I Will Never Fully Tell You About

There's really no easy way to describe my current state of life. There always comes a time in every job, sometimes it is the entirety of the job, where you just set your speed to ludicrous speed. I mean I think this whole industry operates within the realm of "ridiculous speed," but there's something about these last two weeks that's just made everything go plaid.

And I suppose it's a misnomer to call it ludicrous speed, because what it really boils down to is endurance, not speed. It's a marathon, not a sprint. In the final 15 days of shooting, I will have one day off. It was last Sunday, and it was spent primarily in bed.

It's now been about a week since I wrote the first two paragraphs of this post, and I'd be hard-pressed to remember any specific detail of the last 168 hours. It literally has been "an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege" - with the only thing changing throughout the week was whether I was waking up at dawn or just getting back to the office at the end of the night at dawn. Either way, I saw the sun rise every day this week.

That being said, this week couldn't have been better in every aspect of my life. For six of the eight days, we split off the C camera from the Main Unit to shoot a variety of inserts, and I had the good fortune of being assigned to that "splinter unit." It was a highly educational, highly hands-on, and highly exhausting experience. I don't know how someone can do that on a larger scale for an entire 60+ day schedule!

And so, another day has passed in the process of writing this post, and so it is that we have officially wrapped on this movie. I'm at the production office, tying up loose ends on the paperwork front, and I was struck by a quote that's haphazardly taped up outside the AD dept office.

"You have never been inside a film studio? It is really a palace of the 16th Century. There one sees what Shakespeare saw: the absolute power of the tyrant, the courtiers, the flatterers, the jesters, the cunningly ambitious intriguers. There are fantastically beautiful women... incompetent favorites... great men who are suddenly disgraced... insane extravagances... unexpected parsimony... enormous splendor, which is a sham... horrible squalor hidden behind the scenery... vast schemes abandoned because of some caprice... secrets which everybody knows and no one speaks of. There are even two or three honest advisors: These are the court fools, who speak the deepest wisdom in puns, lest they should be taken seriously. They grimace, and tear their hair privately, and weep."

It's easy to look back on a job and be nostalgic. As brutally painful as every job has been and will be, at the end of it all, your mind paints over all the rough parts. Call it denial, call it a coping mechanism, but it keeps me going. It is that balance of tyranny and courtship, flattery, jokes, and intrigue that wakes me up every day, keeps me going for 16-20 hours, and then allows me to sleep with peace of mind. [Oh and as one training to become an AD, I am training to be the court fool in that scenario].

Pittsburgh will always have a special place in my heart. I was reminded of an old Calvin and Hobbes strip that I enjoyed as a kid, and now have a whole different take on. I'm not dead yet, but somehow I landed in Pittsburgh. And fear not, my anthropomorphic stuffed friend, things are good in Pittsburgh.

Rubbin' is Racin'

So I've decided to title all my blog posts from here until I end this job - what two, going on 10, weeks? - after random quotes from Tom Cruise movies. [Bonus points to whoever can name this post's reference]

But aside from that, I also wanted to throw up a quick post here before I go to bed (just got back from the office...it's 1am) because something rather exciting happened at work today. I mean, to everyone else at work, it was nothing and certainly, within the grand scheme of the movie, it was nothing. But to me, it was a reminder of why I got into this line of work and why I could not sit at a desk for 60 hours a week. What happened today was fresh, thrilling, it was a rush!

Basically we've come to the point in filming where you've got to tie up loose ends. Throughout a filming schedule, there are always those little things - inserts, close-ups, push-ins - that can't quite fit within the confines of a day's shooting schedule and are cast out in the milieu of last weeks' work. And so without fail, here we were at the stage trying to get those missing shots. One such shot was a push-in on Tom in a car. Sounds simple right. The car doesn't have to move. Tom just needed to move his head ever so slightly. But to make the scene feel alive and natural within the rest of the scene we shot over three months ago, there needed to be movement of other traffic behind. That's where I came in...

The 2nd 2nd AD has done a terrific job of immersing me into other aspects of the job of an AD. Before the holiday hiatus, he had me place a street full of background actors, give them intentions, what have you. It was exciting to feel like an active contributor to the creative process, since after all this is a creative industry. But today, he had a new job for me: Be part of the traffic moving behind to keep this push-in alive.

And so, I swiped the 2nd AD's keys, hopped in his car, and got to my start mark. The mission was simple enough. Be one of two cars to drive behind Tom's car at a natural speed, a distance of about 100 feet. Easy, right? Oh wait, but we're going to keep rolling for a while and do numerous looks all in one take, so as soon as you clear the frame, whip around and get ready to cross again. Because, may I remind you, there are only two cars. Yes, it would make sense to have more cars, but the road was tight (made even tighter by a condor lift in the middle of the road. So, as the two cars are crossing, you basically graze past each other and then attempt to do-si-do around until you're lined up again. Oh yeah, and there's always the chance a train might roll through. Sounding a little more tricky now right?

But for me it was awesome! It beat the mundane monotony that is paperwork. I was pushing pedal to the metal, doing some epic K-turns (is that an oxymoron?), and reacting to my surroundings. I felt like a stunt guy (God only knows what kind of driving actual stunt guys are expected to handle).

At the same time, it was a humbling experience. I was so jazzed up about an element of the movie that is so miniscule within the greater scheme of things. Surely the shot is so tight on Tom's face that my peeling out in a silver Nissan Sentra rental only provides a hint of reflected light on his cheek. Yet it actually felt like something. Something real. And that's ultimately the role I want to have within this industry, preferably on a larger more noticeable scale. To further quote the mystery movie that lent today's blog its title, "I'm more afraid of being nothing than I am of being hurt." What department I need to be in to best achieve that goal is anyone's guess, but right now I appreciate being where I am and being able to do the diverse things I get to do each day.

The Things We Think and Do Not Say

"That's how you become great, man. Hang your balls out there."

You know that feeling where you go into a situation totally set. You’ve got your lines down, your game face on, you can make this shot. Then the actual situation passes in a blur, and you walk away thinking, “Wait a second…” I've come away from a lot of situations lately with that nagging feeling, and I always come back to the same phrase: “The things we think and do not say.” Initially, I just assumed it must be a Shakespeare quote, maybe the title of a Faulkner short story, it just sounds so damn poetic. But finally giving into my curiosity and the almighty Google, I did a quick search... Jerry. Maguire. Of course! I thought. How could I not remember one of the great quotes from one of my all-time favorite movies! My excitement was quickly replaced by embarrassment, however, as here I was at my computer, watching a clip of Tom Cruise have "a breakthrough. Breakdown? Breakthrough." And just a few yards away, Tom Cruise was having a similar breakthrough in the scene we're shooting that day.

But I find it interesting that there are things I think and do not say all the time, both at work and outside of work. What's more, those at work have a tendency to work for me, while those in life have a tendency to undermine me. I don't know if that speaks more to the nature of my work or to the work of my nature. Yes, I work with an assortment of "sharks in suits," and sure, there are days where "I hate my place in the world." But I think more than anything these diametrically opposing phenomena are characteristic of a work/life balance that I just haven't seemed to figure out yet.

I'll admit such a realization might be a little touchy-feely. One could argue that a healthy work/life balance is about as attainable as the Holy Grail. But I think the film industry is especially susceptible to that dilemma. When working on average 80-90 hours a week in a self-contained, autonomous community, it's easy to see why there are times I feel closer to my on-set "brothers" than my actual brothers (ok, maybe that's a bit exaggerated...). But the bonds I've made with the people I've worked with are intense, seemingly irrevocable, until we are ripped apart by those four little words.

"That's a picture wrap!"

And I confess that part of me really loves that kind of lifestyle. I was talking with an old high school friend earlier tonight, who's curious about entering the film industry, and I told her that, in many ways, the film industry is like high school or college. Projects only last somewhere between two and four months, so a bad job is like a bad class. Sucks you got a bad grade on the first exam and the teacher picks on you. But hunker down, get through it, because eventually all bad classes/jobs come to an end.

"That's a picture wrap!"

And like that, I'm back to my first day of a new semester, trying to make friends with the new kids...

But the thing that makes work so great, I think, is that you're almost expected not to say the things you think. Barriers are inevitably set up at work, a certain professional detachment is commonplace. And apparently I live for that. But, to quote a guilty-pleasure show I've occasionally indulged in, "At some point, you have to make a decision. Boundaries don't keep other people out. They fence you in. So you can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them." And that's where things have gotten murky in my life. On the off chance that I actually dare to cross the line, the things I'm thinking are racing so fast, I trip over trying to say them and invariably recoil back within my boundaries.

So what am I getting at? I suppose it is the realization that, at least for now, my work is my life. And in the words of Jerry's mentor, the late great Dickey Fox, "The key to this business is personal relationships." So I will continue to foster personal relationships at work and, as best I can, in life. Hopefully that line will eventually fade and those boundaries will break down, and I will "become the me I was meant to be."

This Nomadic Life

Let me start off by saying that I did not take this picture. I a) do not have a small child and b) would never strap a suitcase strap across a baby's forehead. But I will acknowledge that it made me chuckle, so I thought I'd share.

So I made it to Pittsburgh and was greeted by snow flurries. One of my friends from home wrote that I had gotten out just before it got cold down there. I responded that it's like the cold version of out of the frying pan into the fire (out of the ice cream into the ice box? I don't know, I'll figure something out). But yes, at long last I've returned to my home away from home for the last four months: the Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh Downtown. There is something very magical about this city, even when dipped in the hues of drab wintry grey. The trip from the airport into downtown (or "dahntahn" as the locals would have it) is for the most part pretty sparse; billboards, shipping depots, trees, lots and lots of trees. But then you go through the Fort Pitt Tunnel, through Mt. Washington, and the city just opens up - the Ohio to the left, the Monongahela to the right, the Allegheny streaking across, Heinz Field and PNC Park smack dab in front of you, bridges galore (apparently only second to Venice, I've been assured), and buildings that look like comic book bad guy hangouts. This past weekend I actually had a spirited conversation with a friend, who had visited Pittsburgh once, about how underrated it is. She said something to the effect of "if you can get past the name, it's actually a really cool city."

So here I am, perched in my urban asylum, contemplating the life I have begun to forge for myself - or at least the one that's being forged whether I like it or not.

There's something to be said for a nomadic lifestyle like this. For one, you come home to a made bed and clean towels daily. But at the same time, you're coming "home" to an antiseptic cave, devoid of any character or personality other than the cookie-cutter nautilus shell and flower vase still life that hangs above the toilet. So it got me thinking... really it's had me thinking for a while now. There are basically three jurisdictional zones in the Directors Guild - New York, Los Angeles, and Everywhere Else. As I get further into this industry (and as the industry gets increasingly less centralized around LA and NYC), I'm seeing the benefit of living in a more tolerable city - like Pittsburgh... Or Atlanta, New Orleans, New Mexico even (not a city, I know). Then from there, I could navigate the "Third Zone" and basically live my life out of a suitcase (like the baby pictured above, lest you thought I'd forget to somehow tie that in!) Is this a sustainable lifestyle? Suitable even? So I've started weighing the pros and cons of a nomadic life like that.

PROS

• A lot of exciting traveling to a lot of potentially really cool places.
• A steady stream of new friends coming into my life.
• No commitments.
• The hope of living in warmer climes.

CONS

• A lot of exhausting traveling to a lot of potentially really lame places.
• A steady stream of old friends exiting from my life.
• No commitments.
• The threat of living in colder climes.

So as you can see, my analysis needs to dig deeper. I suppose I need to get my priorities in order before I make any binding decisions. I always go back to the age-old parental advice to never close off any doors. My time in Pittsburgh over the last four months has been eye-opening. It's encouraging to see that there is life in this industry outside of New York and Los Angeles, and there are people within the industry - within my own department - who have chosen not to live in New York and Los Angeles and are still working on really awesome jobs!

I don't know what the future has in store, but boy am I psyched for it! And so we beat on, boats against the current, and if we're borne back ceaselessly into the past, as the quote continues, so be it. If my past has any bearing on my future, then I say bring it on.

No Resolutions Without Some Resolve

I'm sitting in the Baltimore Airport, going on hour two of my epic layover before my flight to Pittsburgh (explanation to follow). A flight to Portland just left from my gate, a couple hundred people clearing out to a city I've never seen. And as I continue to wait with my paltry Pittsburgh-bound "family" of fellow passengers, it has occurred to me that I never once updated my blog in 2011.

So as we set off on 2012, with a renewed sense of conviction and a self-awareness of my inability to communicate well, I'm back.

This past year has been, for lack of a better word, eventful. I'm now going into my "4th quarter" of the DGA program - basically all that signifies is that I get a slight uptick in my pay rate and I'm just moments away from being discharged to the fun-filled, fast-paced world of freelance. But before getting too bogged down in the prospects of the future, I suppose I should attempt to make some sense of the past. I'm in the homestretch of my fourth job since becoming a DGA trainee - a Tom Cruise movie, called "One Shot," which is filming in Pittsburgh (thus why I'm awaiting a flight to Pittsburgh). Since finishing "The Sitter," which apparently is my only frame of reference for this blog so far, I worked on Season 2 of HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" and Sacha Baron Cohen's new soon-to-be-released shock-mock "The Dictator," which "tell[s] the heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed." Every job has presented unique challenges and opportunities, and I've had the privilege of working with some of the best people in the film industry. As I delve deeper into this blog in the coming weeks and months, I'll elaborate more, provide fun anecdotes, and ruminate on the film industry and my place in it.

Outside of work, I've had the chance to check off more world destinations from my bucket list - visiting Paris in late-May and Kaua'i, Hawai'i in late September. I climbed the Eiffel Tower at midnight and learned to surf (sort of) in the embrace of Puff the Magic Dragon, but I still get no greater contentment than when I fly home to Birmingham (my Alabama license expires this year, and I'll be damned if they make me switch over to New York!) In an industry with such uniformity of experience, my Alabama-ness is probably the most interesting thing about me.

Oh and I'm no longer waking up in Brooklyn! My roommates and I finally sold out (more like got kicked out) in June, making the big move from downtown BK to a much much much much smaller place in the East Village. My room, which I'm subletting while in Pittsburgh, isn't much larger than my bed and makes for fun times trying to get to the bathroom on the other side (depending on my mood, I do some kind of variant of a hood slide or somersault).

So I welcome 2012 and the prospects that come with it! Thank you 9 followers for sticking with me, I promise to keep things exciting and will hopefully attract new converts. I'm too lazy and uncreative right now to think of a new, more appropriate blog title, so WUIB it'll have to remain.

Fitting In

A lot has happened since last I updated this blog, mostly a lot of working and a lot sleeping. I joke that I really only have two speeds, work and sleep. I get home from work, collapse on my bed, wake up, repeat. But my dedication is paying off and I'm beginning to feel more comfortable both at home and at work. I've had several conversations with people on the crew, where they've asked me if we've worked together on something before. "I don't think so," I'll reply. "Did you work on 30 Rock?" They'll ask. "Nope." "Criminal Intent." "Nope, this is actually my first job." "Really?!?!" It's encouraging that I've got people fooled, but it's also now a bit nerve-wracking that I may now be called on to know more than I actually do.

Work is cruising right along, tomorrow is Day 35 of 50, the home stretch. The final couple of weeks are broken up nicely. This past week we had Veterans Day fall smack dab in the middle to split up the week. Now we've got a full slate, but then next week we're on two days and then off four for Thanksgiving. By then we'll only have nine days left. And as far as the actual movie itself, we've been doing some pretty awesome stuff lately, including explosions and green screens. Through it all, we've shot in Brooklyn and Queens and couple of days in Manhattan. I've traveled pretty much every train line the city has to offer, and I've walked hundreds of streets. So in a way, work has forced me to become a better New Yorker.

That was something I suppose I had taken for granted until I was walking around with my brother yesterday. We got off the subway at Union Square, in hopes of hitting up the farmers' market there. No luck. So we walked a little ways up Broadway till we got to the Flatiron District. I had passed the Flatiron building on one of my epic, pre-The Sitter walks from the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum to Union Square. But my brother made a comment about how he only knew the Flatiron building from the old Spiderman video game we used to play. He felt bad that he hadn't really been around New York much, granted he's working an office job and travels most weekends.

So I'm thankful that work has basically forced me to get out of my apartment and see the city. As far as the development of my specific job as the paperwork PA, like I said, I'm beginning to fit in. I've developed a pretty solid routine and I know what is expected of me, when and where I need to be. I'm accruing more downtime by being more efficient with my uptime. I've, of course, been reminded that not all jobs will be like this and I've been lucky to have really nice Best Boys (the second-in-commands for each department, who I have to get the manpower for each day). But as my dad reminded me, I am the maker of my own luck. As long as I bring a positive attitude and confidence to my job, they'll be more accommodating, because at the end of the day they'll know that my job is important to them getting paid and if they blow me off, there will be problems with their paychecks.

Inevitably, on my next project, this will all have to repeat itself, but for now, I have good friends, good work, and good sleep. Ok, so maybe three speeds.

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.

Paperwork Manifesto (Part 1)

So I realize that one of my primary goals with this blog was to shed some light on the nature of the DGA training program. And well, to date, I've done a pretty lousy job of doing that. But I'm now a week into my first DGA assignment and this is what I've learned so far.

WEAR COMFORTABLE SHOES

Yes, yes. This one seems like a no brainer. It was one of the first things I was told in my training seminar and it was said over and over again on my additional days on Premium Rush. My shoes are pretty comfortably broken in and I like to think that I walk a lot. But I think the best way to describe the amount of walking you do on the job is to liken it to the dilemma the NFL is currently dealing with. Like with concussions, it's not the big walks I've had to take, but all the little walking that occurs. All day long, it's stand up, sit down, file this, file that, get me this, don't stand there. As a result, I'm constantly shifting. And when I'm doing that five days out of the week, it eventually takes its toll. My back aches, my knees are sore, I think my feet are now flat, and I have a perpetual crick in my neck. So yes, wear comfortable shoes, but also stretch frequently.

As a side note, wear comfortable pants, too. Wearing a heavy pair of jeans on a rainy day or a pair of shorts that constantly rides up can be mighty uncomfortable around hour 7 or 8.

IT IS LEARNING ON THE JOB

I'm not going to lie, I felt pretty confident going into my first day. Man, all I've got to do is a PR, I thought. After that training seminar, those things are a breeze. Then, "Hey Dixon, can you grab me a one-liner?" "Have any day-out-of days?" "You gonna eat your corn bread?" Ok, so that last one was never asked of me, but the first two...hunh?? Needless to say, I was constantly kept on my toes for week one. Fortunately, the other staff PAs were super helpful and cued me in when I was messing up. No matter how prepared you think you may be in the theoretical sense, you'll never know what you've gotten yourself into until you're knee deep in it. By the end of day one, I was a wet rag, and not just because it was raining (something that makes a job that deals with paper very difficult to carry out).

Okay, there's still a ton more that I wish I could share, but I'm totally beat. So I'll leave it at Part 1. Aside from providing me with the above life lessons, work has been going well. I'm beginning to settle in and I'm finding that I actually have some down time during the day. I've befriended some of the other PAs, as well as a bunch of the Grips and the Special Effects guys. Everyone on our crew is really genial and all of them are generous with their assistance whenever I'm at a loss.

But yeah I'll post a Part 2, maybe more, when I'm better rested and can think more clearly. To be continued...

Whoa! or The Importance of Being on Time

Note: I started this post last night after I got home from work. I promptly fell asleep (as you will soon understand why). So for chronological accuracy pretend like this post actually went up last night.

There are only a handful of paths to attaining immortality. Maybe conquering a Holy Empire. Saving a nation from Civil War, perhaps. Walking on water often does the trick. But one knows he or she has really reached the upper echelon of immortality when he or she has landed his or her (man, I should have just picked a hypothetical gender for "one") name within the comfy confines of computer screen, splashed across IMDb in all its pixelated splendor. Well I finally made it. And it's glorious!

In other news, I got back to NYC, from my restful and relaxing 10-day trip home, about 48 hours ago and what a crazy 48 hours it has been. I got an email from the production office on Wednesday about a "kick off party" that night. I arrived right at 8 (when the party was supposed to start) and I was the first one there. A guy from the props department showed up shortly thereafter and we started talking. A couple then arrived and the guy of the couple turned to me and said, "I don't think we've met yet, I'm David." I turned from my conversation with the prop guy and realized the extended hand was that of the director! I shook his hand, introduced myself, and managed to get in a conversation with him before the place filled up with people. He was a very nice guy, interested in my involvement with the DGA program and that I came to New York from Alabama.

Yesterday was my first day on the job. I was the only set staff PA called in, so I took on a kind of hybrid responsibility that combined all those of each of the individual PAs. I began my day by discussing the production report (PR) with the production accountant. Straightforward enough. But then the 2nd 2nd AD asked me to wait outside for the kids (the movie has kids in it, if I hadn't already made that clear), their parents, and the set teacher (SAG mandates that children have 3hrs of school on schooldays when they're working) to arrive. So I was temporarily switching over to the 1st team PA.

Their van arrived and I took them upstairs to the rehearsal space on the 3rd floor (the production office is on the 4th floor, this detail will be become important soon). I got the kids and the teacher settled into their classroom and made sure the parents were comfortable in the adjacent rooms to the rehearsal space. Jonah, his assistant, and the 2nd 2nd entered the room soon after and Jonah came over to me. "Hey dude, I'm Jonah." Also a very nice guy. Just about 5 hours into my first day on the job, I could tell that this film is going to be a very enjoyable experience. The 2nd 2nd had me hang out on the 3rd floor and be available should anyone need anything from the production office. I set up shop in one of the other empty adjacent rooms and began reading the shooting script that I had picked up earlier in the morning. Through the wall I could hear the rehearsals and hear how they all work and improvise. It was a great learning experience for me and great hilarity could be heard. In the afternoon, I temporarily switched over to walkie PA, took the walkie delivery inventory, and labeled all 100 walkie talkies so they matched up with the inventory.

Though I was split among the work of three different set PAs yesterday, at least they were one after another. Today, I felt like I was balancing four (add background PA) at the same time. We were doing a photo shoot, involving background, so I had to get them started on all their paperwork, take them to wardrobe, and basically make sure they were ready to go when we needed them. After the photo shoot, I continued to prepare the walkies (walkie PA) and the AD kit (paperwork PA), but had to be ready to wrap out background whenever they were wrapped.

Needless to say, I really hit the ground running with this job. But it's what I signed up for. The DGA training program is not going to teach you to do your job, your job is going to teach you your job. It's all on-the-job training, as it has become all too abundantly clear. And I love it. I come home with tired feet, a tired back, and a tired mind, but in the end it's worth it. My brother gave me some great advice tonight. He reminded me that, while I may be getting carried away by the little jobs I have to do, I can't lose sight of the bigger picture. I recall one of the great tenets laid out in the seminar week...GET THE SHOT. As long as the movie is being made, everyone's happy. I will screw up, but as long as filming continues to move forward, everything will be okay.

At the end of the day yesterday, Jonah was walking through the hallway saying his goodbyes to everybody and he saw me at my makeshift desk. "Hey Dixon, have a great weekend! See you next week." Whoa.

I Got a Job!

Hard to believe, two posts in one day. But such a groundbreaking step in this blog's plot warrants the day's second entry. The day started off innocent enough. I woke up later than I expected, finally rolled out of bed even later. I knew it wasn't going to be quite as active as yesterday (though the weather today couldn't have been better). But everything started to pick up when I finally decided to venture out of the apartment to run some errands at around 4pm.

First I discovered on the kitchen counter a paycheck (yesterday's mail) for the day I worked on Premium Rush two weeks ago. Then I checked today's mail and in it was my paycheck for the commercial I did two weeks ago. Then to top it all off, as I headed to the bank to deposit the aforementioned checks, I got a call from the DGA program administrator.

"Get out a pen and paper," she started. "Cause I've got a job for you!"

It was music to my ears.

But wait, what could it be? She had been saying for awhile that it might be Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

"And it's not Criminal Intent," she continued.

Phew, I was kind of hoping for something more fresh, more new.

"It's a movie."

Woah! A movie! But the first three trainees got assigned to TV shows. Can I really handle the big leagues?

"It's called The Sitter."

Hmm, ok?

"And it stars everyone's favorite, Jonah Hill."

YES!

"Oh great," I calmly replied.

She proceeded to give me all the details about who I'd be working with, when I'd be working, and what I should expect. Apparently the 1st AD on The Sitter is good friends with the 2nd AD on Premium Rush, and the 2nd AD was the one who asked if I could continue working as a PA after my week of shadowing. So hopefully I can get a good recommendation from her. Needless to say, I am psyched to start my new job. I won't be starting until late September, but in the meantime, I've been given the ok to continue moonlighting on Premium Rush.

All told, though the day started out slow, it was a banner day in the life of me. I got paid, I got a job, and I barely had to get off the couch (which is finally losing its new couch smell and starting to feel like home).

Only in New York

Work today was "cancelled" due to rain. I feel like I'm in an esteemed group, reserved for professional athletes and film crews, that I can say that. I still showed up at 6am, and I still moved some traffic cones to close off three lanes of Columbus Ave., but as the rain picked up, a large group of PAs were told we could leave as the crew would be shooting interior scenes in a studio in Brooklyn. So with all this newfound time, I figured I might as well update my blog.

The past couple of days have been fairly uneventful. It's frustrating that I have my entire week free (when all of my friends, with their 9-to-5 jobs are busy) and then I'm busy on the weekends when my friends want to go out. Hopefully my first DGA trainee job will have a more conventional production week (especially with the football season fast approaching!). Yesterday was more of the same: locking up one of a number of New York City blocks while Joseph Gordon-Levitt rode his bike through stunt traffic with the PursuitCar close behind. The high point of the day was when this guy...

...rolled through set, blasting Snoop Dogg. Apparently, David Koepp, the writer-director of the film, was thoroughly impressed with the guy so hopefully we'll see him in the movie. Other than that, not a lot's happened. The apartment's pretty much broken in and I'm acclimating myself to waking up at ungodly hours of the morning. Now I just need to slowly introduce sightseeing into my daily schedule. If the weather's cooperative tomorrow, I may try to go to a beach or Coney Island tomorrow while everyone else I know wastes away at their desks.

Martini, Shaken Not Stirred

No, I didn't get assigned to the next installment of the Bond franchise. And no, I haven't been shaken by my work so far as to put my entire life (starting with this blog) on hold. At least not yet. Martini is the designated name in film speak for the last shot for the day. Seeing as I have finished my first week (or two), I figured it was appropriate to update those still reading my blog on my latest.

Upon returning from my trip home, I began my shadowing on the film "Premium Rush"—starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Day 1, I felt like I went from 0-60. I figured I had learned all I needed to learn, and that I would be able to put it in cruise control for the rest of the week. How wrong I was! First of all, I was initially signed onto this shadowing gig as a shadow of a second-year trainee, who's running 1st team stunts. If you were paying attention to my earlier blog posts, you'll know that 1st team involves handling all the needs of the principal talent. So 1st team stunts handles the needs of all the principal stunt talent. You know when you're watching a movie and a character's running through a crowd of people? Stunt people. Or through a busy intersection? Stunt drivers.

So for the most part, I was helping out with that—the bulk of my day came at the beginning and end of the day when I had to assure that the stunt people's walkie-talkies were checked out and checked back in (because all the stunt people need to be kept in the loop for obvious reasons). But when I wasn't doing that, I tried my best to avail myself to the rest of the crew. I perfected the art of being actively-passive. I didn't want to get in the way, but I wanted to be there when someone needed something. As such, Day 2 took me from 60-120, Day 3 to 180, and so on. Needless to say, I'm moving pretty quickly right now and just hoping I'm hanging onto everything I've learned.

At the conclusion of my shadowing week, I found out that I had been hired by a two-day Converse commercial shoot. The assignment didn't compromise my #4 spot for a big project, which is good, but it gave me my first opportunity to be out on my own. The commercial was shot by Antoine Fuqua—who directed, among other things, "Training Day"—and starred Dr. J and Jim Jones. Day 1, I was asked to stock the talent's campers with sodas and such. While in Jim Jones's camper, one of the fridge door shelves somehow came loose under the weight of some seltzer waters and one exploded upon contact with the ground. Stifling the urge to say something loud and obscene at the catastrophic flood I had inadvertently unleashed upon the camper floor, I sprung for the roll of paper towels I had also brought for stocking. On my first pass at mopping up the mess, I leapt up quickly to discard the waterlogged ball of Bounty and smashed the back of my head into the underside of the camper table. This time the urge was too great. "S***!" I was convinced Jones was going to materialize at that point to see me simultaneously mopping seltzer water from his floor and blood from my head. But fortunately my head wasn't bleeding, the seltzer water got cleaned up, the fridge got stocked, and I got the hell out of there just as Jones and his entourage rolled onto set.

Once we were set up, the 2nd AD called for a safety meeting and then called me on the walkie talkie. "Ok, Dixon," he said. "For the PR, safety meeting was called at 6:25. Make a note." Hunh? PR? I know I've been trained for this, but I was under the impression they already had someone to do paperwork. I thought I was just hired as an extra hand. "...Noted," I replied and tucked it in the new expansion of my throbbing head. I finally tracked down a copy of the PR (production report, b-t-dub), made a note of 6:25 safety meeting, and went about confirming all the personnel on the shoot. The PR ended up being way more straightforward than I had been led to believe from the training seminar. I was assured that that's because it was a commercial and not a TV show or a movie, but still, I think I may actually be able to do this.

After the commercial wrapped on Day 2, I found out that the 2nd AD on "Premium Rush" wanted me to come back. So while I'm still awaiting my fate for my first project, I'm able to get some invaluable set experience on a well-run machine of a film. As of yet, things couldn't be better.

The Power of the Network

Well I've officially begun my first "period of unemployment," as promised by the DGA training website. So with my free time, I've been taking the opportunity to better understand the nature of the job and connect with friends in the City.

As for the job, it couldn't have been more stressed throughout orientation week that I was signing on to freelance work. I will be paid by the production companies I work for, not the Directors Guild. If I work on a film that gets nominated for and wins a DGA award, then I get to fly out to LA with the rest of the Director's team to accept it. So this is as real as it gets! For those who, like me, don't really understand many of the positions that roll by in the credits, here's a quick breakdown: every department (Lights [Electrical and Grip], Sound, Hair, Makeup, Wardrobe, Camera, etc.) has a Head or Key guy. He's the top dog. The Best Boy (usually only for grip and electrical) is the number two. On the production team, there is the 1st AD, the 2nd AD, sometimes a 2nd 2nd AD, and then sometimes a DGA Trainee. That's where I come in. There are also four staff Production Assistant (PA) positions—Key PA, who oversees all the other PAs; 1st Team PA, who responds to the needs of the principal actors; Background PA, who responds to the needs of the background actors; and Paperwork PA, who does all the paperwork. As a DGA Trainee, I will essentially operate as one of those four staff PA positions on each project I work.

It's pretty much guaranteed that I will be a paperwork PA on my first gig. Why? Because we spent two full days out of seminar week discussing how to properly do paperwork. It's not the most romantic of positions, but it's a pretty solid start. And it should provide me a great opportunity to interact with everyone on set.

As for seeing friends in the City, it's almost hard not to meet someone I know. On an island with over a million and a half people, I thought I'd inevitably get lost. But then of course, all those people are packed into a 23 square mile area. So it's pretty easy to be exposed to a lot of people. The other night, I was out with a couple of friends, and we went to this place called Pommes Frites. As the name suggests, they make one thing...french fries. But the rub is that they make an endless amount of sauces. I got pesto mayo. It was delicious. Unfortunately, there's a line out the door, so seating is scarce. My buddies and I got our fries and ate them out on the sidewalk. All of a sudden, I hear my name. I look up and there's a group of about 4 or 5 people from college. I saw one of them again the following night, and she said that her friend asked her later about the homeless guy she was talking to. I know I need a shave, but homeless?!

In other news, we're pretty set to move into the Belltel building in Brooklyn, and tonight I'm going to make some pesto gnocchi and watch the Bravos rattle Stephen Strasburg. Till next time...

First Day of Work

Wow! I don't know where to start, other than to say, I can't wait to get assigned my first job. Everything about the program sounds right up my alley—I got a new laptop, a sweet t-shirt, and about 50 pounds of books dictating every contract agreed upon by every union involved in stage, film, television, or commercial production (wait, what?). Luckily it sounds like I'll have over a month to familiarize myself with all of them. Unluckily, however, is the reason why I should have over a month. Apparently, the New York state budget is caught up in the legislature, and in that budget are the tax incentives for the next year pertaining to films being shot in New York. So while that's still held up, a lot of productions are holding off shooting, making job availability terrible for us trainees.

I'm really impressed with the group of trainees that will be going through this process with me. They're for the most part all over the place—though a lot of them have a connection to New England and particularly Boston. They also seem to have all had more experience than I, especially in New York. But they're all good people, so I look forward to getting to know them better.

After work, Brother and I went and looked at the apartment in Brooklyn and, as promised, it had that "wow" factor. The building is a converted, old-timey telephone company building, so it has this cool art deco lobby. Also, as I learned from my mom, her grandfather worked for a phone company while he lived in Hell's Kitchen. She's going to look into it, but I may be living where my great-grandfather may have worked.

Brother and I got pizza in Times Square, and he said it perfectly that Times Square is like Blade Runner. I still feel like a tourist in the City, but I'm slowly getting comfortable with the subway, the traffic, and the overall hecticness of big city living.