PRODUCTION ASSISTANT
The Production Assistant or the PA is the lowest position on
a production. But having said that, please don't underestimate the
value of the PAs to a production, especially on low budget productions.
Sometimes half the crew is PA-caliber -- because of budget
considerations of course!
Needless to say, the PAs are the lowest paid. On one
production a director friend of mine had to fire two PAs who'd broken a
breakaway glass window (fake glass window made of crystal sugar, it
breaks by shattering into thousands of small pieces and therefore is
safe for stuntmen crashing through it). It was especially painful to
fire them because as my friend said, "Vic, they were working for free!"
But the window had cost $800 dollars and this was a shoestring
production.
In a more pathetic situation, I had to beg the producer to
keep a couple of PAs on for the remaining two days of production. Even
though they'd worked for a month free, just for the sake of acquiring
experience, the producer wanted to save money on catering. Luckily I
prevailed and we were able to maintain the same crew to the final day
of production.
The PA does anything and everything for which there is no
one else to do the job. But be nice to them, because sometimes they are
potential producers trying to learn the business from the bottom up;
therefore, on the next production you're on they may be the Producers!