the first Hollywood PA job: part 2

Andy, the production manager, kept telling us all throughout the morning, "I got Jacopo's for lunch. You like meatloaf? Best meatloaf ever. In the world. You will LOVE IT."

The food came, and Hannah and I set up the buffet in the large lunch room in the second floor of the studio. Oh. Dear. God. I've never seen so much food on a film shoot. On student shoots, you're lucky to get pizza or some sort of snack. Sometimes people shoot in the afternoon after lunch and finish before dinner so that they don't have to feed people. It's understandable if you're a student and trying to save money, but Andy disagreed. "If you're asking students to work on your shoot for free, then you need to feed them well just for being there."

There was so much leftover so we brought it back to the crafts services table. I helped clean up the lunch area and then I was sent on another errand. This time I had to return the little "heater" that kept all the food warm to Jacopo's in Beverly Hills. Another gopher run!

I am so eternally grateful for my new GPS thing in my car, honestly, without it I'd be lost in LA. It tracks my miles so I know what to write in my mileage log sheet and if I take different turns it immediately re-routes me. There was so much traffic though that Andy asked me if I got lost when I got back.

Spent the rest of the afternoon doing other random jobs: get this upstairs, get that. I finally had to go pick up the crew's dinner at Baja Fresh across from the Arclight. The people there were really nice. They gave us free churros! I had to make several trips to the car with food though since there was so much. I kept getting calls from Andy to "speed it up, but get here safely". Dude. I can't do both. I can either speed, or be safe, but there's no safety when speeding. I can understand the pressure he's in when the crew's going hungry, but really, my safety is important, and I'll never give into putting myself in danger for some crew member complaining of hunger when there's perfectly good snacks to gorge on in crafts services.

I got in, set up the food, and several people ate. I watched on since I couldn't honestly eat another bite. Around 10pm, after much standing around and no end of filming in sight, Andy said I could go home since there was nothing left for me to do. I insisted on staying to help clean up, but he said that it was okay. I thanked him as well as some other people there like all the other PAs and Hannah and said goodbye. A lot of the PAs thanked me for doing all that driving and gopher stuff.

The best feeling in the world was getting thanked by the PAs and production manager. When you're working a thankless job unnoticed by the higher-ups, it's always nice to get a "thank you" and a smile from other PAs for doing the crap that no one else wanted to do.

Got home around 11, tired but so happy just re-living what it's like to be on a set. I haven't been on a set or film shoot for maybe two years. How weird. The only main difference is the professionalism and level of experience between a school shoot and a pro one. Other than that, both types of shoots are comprised of hardworking, passionate people all working on this one goal: to get the film in the can.