I got this PA job in a kind of random way. I received a facebook post that included someones name, their email address and that they needed a PA. So I emailed this random person, said I was available, and I got the job. Oh yeah, but it was unpaid, but sometimes when you’re just starting out you have to work for free. It is a good way to meet people and gain experience. So I guess Crack Whore Galore was a successful play, and the writer/actors were now going to make a TV pilot for it. I don’t know what they are going to try to do with it, because I don’t even think its appropriate enough for HBO, but, who knows. So the idea behind Crack Whore Galore is Danny and Abby Galore are ex-crack whores who met in rehab (Dannys stint in rehab involved a cat) and now they are in America (they are from Britain?) and they want to become rock stars, and their band is called Crack Whore Galore. They get an appointment with some record company or talent scout or something, and instead of giving them a record deal he talks them into making a porno because they mention to him how much they like having sex. It is all very random, but actually amusing.
The thing about working a 13 hour day for free is that you still have to bust your ass because if you ever work for these people again you want them to pay you the next time, its not like, oh I’m working for free so I am going to half ass everything I do, your attitude should be that you want to make these people feel like they should be paying you. In the end it all kind of sucks because you get the shitty PA treatment and your taken advantage of and treated like an idiot, and you can’t say to yourself “well at least I’m getting paid.”
The whole day was pretty random, I showed up at 8am and spent about 10 minutes helping the producer set some stuff up. Then at around 8:30 she left to go get something to eat, and no one else was around yet, so I was just left alone for a good 45 minutes. Then she came back and the rest of the cast/crew started showing up. Although I wasn’t getting paid, overall it was a really good experience because I was essentially more of an AC than a PA based off of what I was doing. I was swapping batteries, and since they were shooting on the Canon 7D I was also in charge of media management. They left the task of taking full cards, backing them up on 2 hard drives, and then returning the backed up cards to the camera operators in the hands of the unpaid PA. So I was in charge of all the footage they shot, and if I accidentally handed back a card that wasn’t backed up I would have been killed. I haven’t heard from them since that day so I am assuming no footage was lost. Just to be safe I wish I had followed a better system than keeping backed up cards in my front pocket and unbacked up cards in my butt pocket. When I worked camera on the voice every time I pulled a card out of the camera they had me put a little strip of gaff tape along the edge of the card that connects to the camera or a card reader, then after the cards were backed up, the person backing up the cards moved the piece of gaff to the edge of the card so I knew I could take one of these cards and reformat it so it was empty and could be shot on again. So just a little tip, when you are managing footage shot to cards, try to come up with a system to avoid mixing up your backed up cards and your unbacked up cards, because if you lose 16GB of footage, there goes a lot of time and money, and you will probably never work with those people again. Along with this I was also doing all the slating. I was coincidentally lucky enough to have just read an article on slating and then had discussed it with two of my AC friends, so I was all set to slate and look like I knew what I was doing. On a more legitimate shoot there will be a script supervisor and you won’t have to ask the actors what scene is being done and then have them miss count so then you have to slate scene # 10.5 because they miss counted and left out a scene between what they thought were scenes 10 and 11. So I was keeping track of scene number, and then also keeping track of what take they were on. To keep track of take number, immediately after I did the slate I would run off camera and change the take number right away, doing it immediately keeps you from questioning yourself when its time to slate the next take whether or not you updated the slate and have the right take number written down. It is what the script supervisor or people in post or whatever (I am not entirely sure) wants that dictates what you say when you slate. it is common to just say “mark” and then close the clapper. When doing the slate you write down the scene number followed by a letter A-Z (excluding I, O, Y, and Z I guess they look too much like numbers). The letter indicates a change in angle, camera position, or lens. So A could be a close up, and B could be a wide 2 shot. Then you write down the take number. The thing about the letters though when you call out what is on the slate you don’t say the letter, you say a word that starts with that letter. So I would say something like “Scene 11 Apple, take 1.” So slating can be kind of fun, there are some commonly used words, but you can also make up your own, as long as you stay consistent. I’m no slate expert, but, this is what I know from my experience and from what I’ve read.
So my advice based off of what I learned from this experience is that your attitude towards working for free should be no different than if you are getting paid. Especially when doing freelance work where you may be only getting paid for a single day of work. You want to be re-hired when you are working for a paycheck, and you want to be re-hired and also get a paycheck the next time around when working for free. I will be honest, there were a few moments where I said to myself, “well I am not getting paid so I can’t stress too much about messing this up.” Like when they sent me to go get coffee for the coffee maker, and they said to just walk to one of the little shops around the corner, well, there weren’t really any little shops, I did eventually find one, it was small, they had 1 kind of coffee, and it was either decaf or expresso. I don’t drink coffee, I knew not to get the decaf, but I didn’t know how they would feel about the expresso, but then I said whatever, I’m not getting paid, its just coffee. So in a way not getting paid can take a little stress off because you can sort of justify your mess-ups, but in the end you should always work just as hard, and like any day of work, try to learn something. Slating was a really good learning experience, sometimes you have to do the slate again and before you read out the slate you usually say “second sticks,” the first time we had to re-slate I said “second mark,” and one of the camera operators corrected me, so I was learning, even though it was annoying how he corrected me (I also don’t think he had that much experience). Then I read in my book The Camera Assistants Manual that you can say second sticks or second mark. Anyways, back to giving advice, just work hard, there were points where I would run off, grab a fresh battery, quickly slate the scene, and then run off and back up a card. The director took notice to my hustle and willingness to do everything that needed to be done. So do what you can to help out, and do as much as possible, and you will likely get noticed for your efforts, even if you won’t be rewarded with pay in the end.
The Galores, waiting for their meeting to show off their new porno.