On my new show, I’m responsible for [glossary slug=’craft-service’]crafty[/glossary] in the morning, lunch midday, and coffee in the afternoon. If it’s a late night, I’ve got to cover dinner, as well. It sounds menial and tedious, largely because it is.
But that doesn’t make it unimportant.
As one coordinator told me (many times), “It’s always about the food.” She took tremendous effort to order the best food and arrange the best spreads for every production meeting or location scout, because that’s what people remember. Well, they won’t remember the good food, but they DEFINITELY remember the bad.
So even though the higher-ups can be infantile (“Make sure the restaurant knows that I’m allergic to onions.” “Wait, are you really allergic to onions?” “No, but I hate them.”), you’ve got to cater to their trivial requests. You’ve got to schlup across town with six bags of food when everyone decides to squeeze every penny out of the $10 or $12 (or the very rare $20) daily limit. You’ve got to circle the block seven times to look for street parking.
And you’ve got to make two trips when the restaurant accidentally includes onions (…because heaven forbid she take them out herself).
10 Responses
Preach. Man, I dont even get to use an allowance at my PA gig. I pay out of my own pocket, calculate who owes what, and chase after them for it and pray that they have some change (and not just hand me a 20, which is 99% of the time). Changing the garbage and hauling it out to the compactor is about 1000 times more enjoyable than lunch-time where I’m at
I HATE THIS. And lord help you if you’ve got union/non-union talent fighting over who gets the best cut of meat/quiche/whatever first. (You’re all BG, you’ve all been here since 7am. You can wait for the last man.) Never ever spend the meal money. I try to remember some calorie-dense foodstuff in my pack/vest….those $10 spots add up quick if you’re a day player and you’re running over into 2nd meal.
This is so spot on.. I was just talking about this tonight. One time the restaurant forgot to include dressing with the salad and it was like the apocalypse had begun.. A 30 minute conversation about how/ and why the salad dressing was missing. GET BACK TO WORK YOU LAZY ASSES!
^ This, a million times.
I agree with you MATTY MATT AKA (SCHLUPE DOG) DUH
As a PA, you should be one of those who milk every last cent out of the meal allowance.
We don’t get paid well, we should at least eat well.
No one picked this job for you! And what other job can you work at and they feed you all day long for free?