Ted’s note: We are delighted to bring you another book excerpt today, dear HopeForFilm friends.
Somehow when I graduated from undergrad film school, I didn’t even know what a PA was. I sure as hell needed this new book. Anyone you know eager to enter the FKATheFilmBiz probably is going to need to be a PA to get their foot in the door. Give them a hand and give them this book! I ended up being a PA for three years, and really loved it, although the hours were brutal, the pay terrible, and the requirements often quite humiliating. But oh boy, did I learn a lot. Lessons that I follow to this day.
Set Story
There’s a lot of people I’ve met in the industry who will say like, oh, I’m just not good at the paperwork, or I hate base camp so learning about it doesn’t matter to me, and that never made sense to me because I was like, Get strong! Get good! If you have a weakness, dig into that and work on it. Make it a strength. Approach every job and position with that kind of dedication. My grandfather had this saying: When you’re green, you’re growing, and when you think you’re ripe, you rot. As a PA, if it was my job to get Bryan Cranston coffee, you better believe that was the best cup of coffee he had all day! I took a lot of pride in the most menial tasks because I really did believe that the minute I thought I was good, that’s when I was rotting. So, it was always about staying green, staying growing, setting goals for yourself each day as opposed to just writing stuff off because it’s hard. Focus on where you’re at, that’s how you’ll get where you want to go.
– Heather Wagner
It’s OK to not be good at everything, especially at first. You might not ever become good at some things, and that’s OK too. The important thing is to try, to learn from the mistakes you make and keep moving forward. Don’t waste time being hard on yourself, or hard on each other. Criticizing your fellow PAs can be tempting, but energy put into criticizing or undermining each other only makes everyone’s job harder. Give each other as much understanding and grace as you can. If you don’t, you could find yourself in the blame spiral…
The blame spiral and how to avoid it
When things go wrong, people will want to know why, and you’ll have to provide explanations, and sometimes assign blame. Blame is a tricky thing. In one sense it doesn’t exist, because you can’t touch, see, smell, or taste it. In another sense, it can have real life consequences that will affect someone’s experience on the job, or in the industry. I’ve previously talked about the importance of learning from mistakes, and you can’t learn from a mistake without understanding the consequences of it. However, looking to assign blame can be different than understanding consequences. Blame for a mistake can shift depending on who’s perspective you’re listening to. A mistake or problem can be complex, with many contributing factors. While assigning blame is often very simple, it attempts to find one individual and hold them responsible for the whole problem or mistake. Blame erases the complexity and nuance of reality and replaces it with a simple and easy-to-understand narrative of right and wrong. Yet, unfortunately, this is how many people understand the world, and as part of the set management team, you’ll be asked to participate in this process. So, it’s important to understand blame for what it is and understand how it works. That way you won’t cause unnecessary harm to yourself or your fellow crew members. Here are some things to know about what I call the blame spiral.
Blame Rolls Downhill
The hierarchical structure of the set conveniently allows people higher up the ladder to blame those below them for small problems or mistakes. As a PA, you’re on the bottom rung of the AD department ladder. This means you’ll experience being blamed for things regularly. This is, unfortunately, part of the job. No one likes being blamed for something that isn’t their fault. It sucks; there’s no getting around that. There’s a secret to this that isn’t immediately obvious: your response to being blamed for things says a lot about you, and your supervisors are paying attention to how you respond. Remember, blame isn’t real, it can only affect you as much as you allow it to. You can’t control the blame, but you can control your reaction to it.
Here’s an example of how this rolling downhill works on the set. Picture this: the actors are all on set, they just finished the last rehearsal, and the First AD just said “Last Looks. Pictures next!” The boom operator taps the First AD on the shoulder and says none of the five actors are wired, and they need about 20 minutes with them at the sound cart before they can shoot. The First AD knows they’re about an hour behind in the day, and so 20 minutes is much longer than he expected to have to wait. The First AD will get on the radio with the 2nd Second AD and say, “Why didn’t the actors come to set wired?? I don’t have 20 minutes to wait for this!!!” The 2nd Second will call you, the first team PA and say “Why didn’t the actors get wired before they came to set? What’s going on?” Now it’s your turn to explain why they didn’t get wired and you say, “I didn’t know they needed to be wired…” which is just a statement of fact. (However, if you’ve gotten this far in the book, then I hope that isn’t true.) The 2nd Second AD will then say something like “Did you ask the sound department if they needed to wire them???” to which you reply, “No, I didn’t realize that I needed to.” The First AD will likely reply with the equivalent of “ALWAYS ask the sound department if they need to wire the cast. ALWAYS! That’s your job, every time, make sure you ask the sound department about wiring the cast. Don’t forget, EVER. This can never happen again.” And just like that, you’ve been blamed for the problem. Now the sound department could have told you earlier who needed to be wired, or the actors could have asked if they needed to be wired, or the 2nd Second AD could have reminded you about it, or maybe you even looked for the sound department but couldn’t find them because they were all outside smoking, or maybe the actors all just arrived from basecamp and there was no time. There are lots of failures in the chain of events that contributed to this problem, all of them true and valid. However, the blame process in the First AD’s brain has erased all that and focused the responsibility for all of that onto you. So how do you respond in this moment? Do you try to explain all this complexity to your bosses over the radio? Do you vigorously defend your honor as a PA? Or do you just say, “Copy that” and let it go. If you want an extended career on set, the answer is the third one.
What isn’t immediately obvious from the position of PA, is that the downward trajectory of blame is something that never goes away. When the studio complains about overspending to the producers, the producers blame the director. When the producer complains about going overtime to the director, the director blames the First AD. When the director complains to the First AD about how the Background looks or an actor being late, the First AD blames their Second ADs. And when the First AD complains to the 2nd Second AD about the actors not being wired, the 2nd Second blames you. It’s absurd, and unfair, but also unavoidable, so learning to handle it with tact is an essential part of being a PA.
Getting involved in the Blame Spiral
Keep in mind, as your experience grows and you earn the trust of your ADs, they may ask you to engage in this blame spiral by assigning blame to your fellow crew members. This is tricky, because there are times when crew members’ actions consistently contribute to setbacks on set, and those actions need to be addressed. However, as a PA it’s not up to you to address them; that’s for a department head or someone in a higher managerial position to handle. But you might be in a unique position to report what you have observed to the ADs, since they weren’t there to observe it. In a situation like this, remember that what you say will have real consequences for that person, so be sure that you’re being as honest and fair in your representation as possible. If you embellish, editorialize, or make the actions sound worse than they are, it could contribute to that crew member getting fired, or getting a bad reputation. Sometimes firing someone is the best course of action, but it’s not something to be taken lightly. It deserves careful consideration, and if you’re providing information to be considered by the ADs or Production Manager, be sure it’s as close to the truth as it can be.
Staying Out of the Blame Spiral
It’s very important, ESPECIALLY if you’re working with ADs that are really into the blame spiral, not to try to shift blame onto the other PAs. In my experience, if everyone is focused on blaming each other for problems, it distracts from the work and makes for a very dysfunctional team. Some people become afraid to act for fear of making a mistake; others focus all their energy into analyzing and criticizing their fellow PA’s job performance. Things can get personal or competitive, grudges form, and before you know it there’s so much drama and discord that the ADs can’t get anything done. But when you support each other, back each other up, and keep your focus on the work at hand, you’ll be able to weather all the hysterical moments of frustration that the ADs roll down the hill at you. Remember you’re a team, and staying united will make all your days easier.
Set Story
This job only works if we actually have each other’s backs. If something’s going wrong, the move isn’t to throw someone under the bus. The move is to step in and help fix it. If a teammate can’t find an actor, my instinct isn’t to call it out on the radio. It’s to quietly jump in, start texting, start calling, and help them find that person. You keep it off the walkie, you protect each other, and you solve the issue together. I really dislike the tattletale mindset—where someone’s quick to point out another person’s mistake just to cover themselves. I see a lot of cutthroat behavior creeping into the industry, like people think this is a corporate ladder, and they have to take someone down to move up. That’s not how this job works. We’re in the trenches together for 12, 13, sometimes 14 hours a day. If I’m going to spend that much time with you, I want to like you, and I want to trust that you’ve got my back the same way I’ve got yours.
– Lance Anger
About the Author
Chris Riddle is an Assistant Director, Producer, DGA member and all-purpose film maker. He began his career in North Carolina where he worked in every department on the set that he could, before becoming an Assistant Director. He then spent the next decade working on film and TV sets as an AD. He has worked on everything from small, independent features like City of Love and The Rights of Spring, all the way up to high-budget TV series like Homeland, Banshee and The Terminal List. He received DGA awards for his work on Veep season 5, and the Barry pilot and his other credits include Silicon Valley, Never Have I Ever, Agents of SHIELD, 911, and Julia.
In addition to that he is the author of “The Production Assistant’s Guidebook.” A new book from Focal Press to help new set PAs learn the job. The book is available for Pre-Order and will be officially released on October 19th.
Book Purchase Link: www.paguidebook.com
