Note: I wrote this article for Agenda Magazine
when I was a production assistant at Star Cinema. Thanks to writer Mouse Muñoz
for helping me make this article better. While it's been years since I was a production assistant, I can only hope and pray that conditions are better for PAs now.
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Mike de Leon, director of Kisapmata, Kakabakaba Ka Ba?
and Batch ’81, was once asked by a
production executive how many PAs he needed for a film project. De Leon
answered, “I don’t know how many. I don’t know what they are or what they do.”
Production Assistants or PAs, as they are
lovingly called, are those hapless young new graduates who do anything (perhaps
virtually everything) on a movie set or television taping set. Their tasks may
include finding a seat for the star, coercing bystanders to become spot extras,
blocking anybody who might disturb the shoot (a.k.a. “trafficking”), running to
wherever to purchase or find last-minute requirements, like for example,
trained ants. There isn’t a particular job description. As long as there is
something to be done, and it isn’t the problem of the director, production
designer, or cameraman, who are you going to call? “Hoy, PA, halika dito!”
There are male and female PAs. However,
experience has shown that more females tend to stay on the job. That is not a
gender-biased opinion, but merely a statement of a fact. Or one of the greatest
mysteries in TV and cinema.
PA-ing is such a difficult job. For anybody who
would want to go up the entertainment field’s corporate ladder, he or she would
most likely start as a production assistant. Unless you’re such an extremely
talented person, then you might be fortunate enough to be given a directorial
debut in your 20s, like Steven Spielberg. Mere mortals would need to sweat it
out at the bottom rung.
As I’ve said, it’s a very difficult job because
of its ambiguous nature. Any bit of unsolicited advice might come in handy to
anyone contemplating on venturing into the unknown battlefield. Take it from a
three-time movie PA veteran who didn’t know better.
 |
| With my fellow PAs Annette, Rizza, Jenny, Monette, JD and artist Gilda at the pictorial of Christopher de Leon for the movie Madrasta. |
Right from the start, inquire about your salary—if you are entitled
to one.
Don’t be shy to ask how much you will be
getting for a project. Some bosses or producers would state the amount of
compensation before a PA starts working. Other would keep mum about money
matters. Speak up or forever hold your peace, at least until the end of the
project. Some producers are sensitive enough and concede you deserve something
for your efforts, even a measly allowance for transportation and food. Face it,
PAs are fed scraps. If you want a high-paying job, then don’t plan on being a
PA.
Forget your school or where you came from.
Don’t be boastful about being a college
graduate, even if you came from a very prestigious university. You don’t need
to know Descartes, Calculus, or the five axioms of communication to perform well
as a PA. Common sense is the key and not theory. Giving meal stubs to the crew,
buying makeup and technical requirements and bringing the footage to the
editing studio may seem like menial jobs. But what must be done must be done.
And oh, you need enough endurance to ride rickety and rusty service vehicles.
So don’t forget your tetanus shots.
Color bars cannot be bought from the grocery.
When I was a PA, I heard of this long-standing
joke. TV PAs on their first day will most likely be asked by the technical
staff to buy one kilo of color bars. The naïve, innocent person would search
markets and grocery stores, search throughout the network to no avail— only to
find that the color bars were in front of him all along! Right there on
the television screen!
Color bars are those multicolored vertical
lines you see before a TV station’s sign-on. You can’t find them in the grocery
and you can’t buy them at all. You’ll learn. And the next time they tell you to
get some canned laughter, don’t run off to the nearest 7-Eleven. The T.O.C.
(Technical Operations Center) is your one-stop shop!
Learn to smoke. If you already know how, develop the astig stance.
Members of the technical crew have a nasty
tendency to intimidate newcomers, specifically new PAs. They tease or provoke
anyone who might seem a bit weak or defenseless. One determined PA started
smoking to look astig and gained the
respect of the crew. So help me. Why? I don’t know but a cigarette seems to be
a more effective weapon than a Magnum .357. I’m not saying that you should
develop a vice, but don’t hide in a corner either. Learn the art of deadma… or take kickboxing lessons!
Forget holidays and weekends. Forget romance.
If you love going out, then you can’t be in
movie or TV production. While all your friends are partying, you have to be at
some god-forsaken shanty in Payatas, taking note of camera grind and sequences
taken. You can’t rest on holidays, either. Some production outfits have been
known to schedule shooting on Election Day, Labor Day and Christmas Eve.
Thankfully, no one shoots on Good Friday (unless it’s a documentary shoot about
the Lenten Season). At least that’s one guaranteed holiday.
Don’t expect to have a love life, too. You’ll
be too busy to have time to date, much less meet eligible mates. Settle for
someone nice and cute on the set like uh, the tanod in charge of crowd control.
Stars are people, too.
They have moods. They have needs. They have
lives, just like you do. And they love shopping. One PA was tasked to call an
actress in time for a take. There were no cellphones then so he didn’t know
where to find her. He had to look for her inside SM Megamall and he didn’t have
a clue where to start. Did he find her? Let’s just say that the shooting had to
pack-up. And guess who was blamed and crucified for not being efficient enough?
Other stars need to be pampered. Sometimes they
need someone to listen to them ramble on and on, and you the PA, have to say
and shall we say, make chika, to keep
the artist entertained. Always look interested—even if you heard the star’s
story on the news weeks ago.
Never get the director angry.
Directors have artistic temperaments and
terrible tempers. Once enraged, get ready to duck! They throw the first thing
they get their hands on— a script, a chair, or even the wardrobe mistress.
Directors can be clever writers. They drop memorable lines like, “Huwag mauulit ang kapalpakan mo, kung hindi
lalabas ka sa set ng walang ulo!”
When that happens, don’t fret. Think of it as part of the job. Remember,
you’re supposed to be a master of the art of deadma. (Refer to previous item.)
If the job’s so tough, why would anybody want
to be a PA? Life was never easy, especially in show business. I can only
surmise that it’s prestige. When the film or TV show is in the can, you have
that 15 seconds of fame (not 15 minutes, Andy Warhol never knew what PAs were
or what they did, either) when you see your name in the end credits… right
beside the guy who managed to find the trained ants.
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