Moving at a steady pace
When I initially took the job that I am working on now, I was offered work on two other films. The first one was for a film that was going to be shooting for ten days in the city with a crew that had already been working for a month or two in Israel shooting the rest of the film. While I was excited to get the opportunity to work on another film so soon after my first one was finished, I was soon offered work on another, bigger, cooler film in the same day.
The bigger, cooler film would have been 19 days of work outside of Philadelphia. It would have meant working in a summer blockbuster if only for a few weeks. It would have been, well, pretty cool. But, in the end, I decided to take the assured work of almost three months and gain several other valuable pieces to my career.
First, after having worked for four weeks on my previous film, I only needed another 4 more working in the city to be eligible for the freelancer’s union and health benefits. Second, after working in the office for a month, I would then be working on set for 25 days while we would be shooting. The days are the important thing to note here. In order to gain access to the union responsible for assistant directors, you need 600 days of on-set work as an ordinary production assistant. There are ways around the 600 days like working in the locations department on commercials or other random departments that somehow cut down on the amount you need (I think working with locations cuts the number down by a lot, but I haven’t got a concrete number yet). And third, working on set, on a bigger budget film, with a crew that is more established, would give me more contacts and avenues to pursue once this film had ended.
Why am I even mentioning this? Well, these are all the positives that I thought would keep me on the fast track to gaining a lot of valuable assets in only a few short months. After Friday afternoon however, I learned that a few of these assumptions aren’t exactly in the pipeline right now…
As of right now, I will still have no problem gaining the necessary days to get health insurance, so that’s check #1. As for the second and third positives, they are both up in the air. On Friday night, the assistant director pulled me aside and told me that the Production Supervisor (the guy who gave me work on this job after having worked with him on the last film) spoke to him and told him I wanted to be on set. The problem is, most of the positions for on-set production assistants are already filled up. I’ve been in talks with the AD and 2nd AD about where I might be able to fit, but it’s not a sure thing that I would be able to move out of the office (ugh).
The good thing about this situation is that I have heard from several people that the Production Supervisor is persistently asking and pushing for me to get on set because he knows what I want to do.
It’s always good to have someone with power on your side. Updates to follow.
When I initially took the job that I am working on now, I was offered work on two other films. The first one was for a film that was going to be shooting for ten days in the city with a crew that had already been working for a month or two in Israel shooting the rest of the film. While I was excited to get the opportunity to work on another film so soon after my first one was finished, I was soon offered work on another, bigger, cooler film in the same day.
The bigger, cooler film would have been 19 days of work outside of Philadelphia. It would have meant working in a summer blockbuster if only for a few weeks. It would have been, well, pretty cool. But, in the end, I decided to take the assured work of almost three months and gain several other valuable pieces to my career.
First, after having worked for four weeks on my previous film, I only needed another 4 more working in the city to be eligible for the freelancer’s union and health benefits. Second, after working in the office for a month, I would then be working on set for 25 days while we would be shooting. The days are the important thing to note here. In order to gain access to the union responsible for assistant directors, you need 600 days of on-set work as an ordinary production assistant. There are ways around the 600 days like working in the locations department on commercials or other random departments that somehow cut down on the amount you need (I think working with locations cuts the number down by a lot, but I haven’t got a concrete number yet). And third, working on set, on a bigger budget film, with a crew that is more established, would give me more contacts and avenues to pursue once this film had ended.
Why am I even mentioning this? Well, these are all the positives that I thought would keep me on the fast track to gaining a lot of valuable assets in only a few short months. After Friday afternoon however, I learned that a few of these assumptions aren’t exactly in the pipeline right now…
As of right now, I will still have no problem gaining the necessary days to get health insurance, so that’s check #1. As for the second and third positives, they are both up in the air. On Friday night, the assistant director pulled me aside and told me that the Production Supervisor (the guy who gave me work on this job after having worked with him on the last film) spoke to him and told him I wanted to be on set. The problem is, most of the positions for on-set production assistants are already filled up. I’ve been in talks with the AD and 2nd AD about where I might be able to fit, but it’s not a sure thing that I would be able to move out of the office (ugh).
The good thing about this situation is that I have heard from several people that the Production Supervisor is persistently asking and pushing for me to get on set because he knows what I want to do.
It’s always good to have someone with power on your side. Updates to follow.
posted by The PA @ 12:38 PM
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