Ashley writes in:
I’ll be moving to LA in the next few months to chase my dream of becoming a screenwriter. I’m also interested in production, though, and have thought about working on set starting as a PA. I’ve read that as a PA there’s usually little to no time outside of work, and I also read in your description that you’re a writer. The classes I want to take require 10 hours of writing a week, do you think that’s possible while also working as a PA?
PAs work twelve hours a day, every day. It’s not even the same twelve hours every day. There is no way you can make it to a regularly scheduled class on a weekly basis. You can barely plan your evening tomorrow, much less all semester.
I’m not a big fan of writing classes, anyway. The way to learn is to write. And write a lot.
And that’s not as hard as it seems, for a PA. Whether you’re on set or in the office, there’s a lot of downtime in this job. You always see people sitting on apple boxes or tucked into a corner, reading their phones.
Instead, take out a notebook
By the end of the shoot, you’ll not only have a first draft of your screenplay, you’ll be surrounded by people who work in film and know you want to be a writer. Someone will want to read your script, maybe even do something with it. Which is more than I can say for a professor at the UCLA extension.
Just be careful not to show them your notebook–
