What’s in it for You?

The purpose of this blog is not to give advice. After four years of film school, and four more of real industry experience, the only thing I know for sure is that I don’t know much. (Which is not to say that youth necessarily equals bad advice; check out Amanda’s blog for a fine example.)

Instead, I mostly plan on regaling you with stories of Hollywood, as seen from the bottom rung of the industry ladder–the production assistant. You know that old saying, that the measure of a man is how he treats those he doesn’t have to treat well? I’m that guy you don’t have to treat well.

As a quick example, I was once a producer’s assistant (which is different from a production assistant, but I won’t bore you with the distinction). My boss wasn’t much into technology. He kept a paper schedule, rather than an electronic one we could both look at; I had to reprogram his new phone whenever he broke an old one (which was frequently); and he never quite understood how e-mail forwards work.

On more than one occasion, he forwarded me an e-mail with some bit of pertinent information, not realizing there was a whole exchange attached to the end. These discussions would often include mentions of me, referred to as “my idiot assistant,” “my dumb assistant,” or the grammatically confusing “my moron assistant.”

I’m quite sure he didn’t realize I knew he talked about me this way. Certainly, it hurt my pride to be considered an idiot by an idiot, but on the other hand, I no longer felt bad about making fun of him.

Back on the first hand, he was the producer, and I was the assistant. He lived in Brentwood, and I lived in Van Nuys. He drove a Mercedes, and I drove a Corolla. Two years later, not much has changed.

So, really, who’s the idiot?