Picking up from two days ago –
But going back to the idea of the first post in this series and the whole taking an interest in people thing (such as when I’d go learn about various jobs) –
I also made this agreement with myself that each week during the summer, I’d try to go to dinner or coffee or whatever with a different person so I could get to know more about them and what they did.
This wasn’t intentionally to try to build a network of people I could use to get future jobs. This was just so I could feel like a contributing part of the crew who knew everyone and felt friendly with them, and so I could get advice and information.
Sometimes it was scary to ask. I had a lovely dinner with one of the producers on the show I hadn’t yet worked with. There was a little part of me before I asked him that thought, “Why would a high-powered super cool producer want to have dinner with a mere production assistant such as myself. He’s busy and such.”
But, he was super nice in agreeing to hang out with me. And I got a great and riveting story of how he made his way up in the business.
Now, the internet does have this whole set of people who talk about how annoying it is when people try to brown nose or kiss up or be too interested in kind of getting people on their side or whatever.
I never found that to be a problem with the people I was reaching out to, but I suppose it could be one.
I think there were possible some other people around who maybe thought I was being a brown noser, but I like people and was just genuinely trying to get to know more people and take a real interest in them.
And I wasn’t concerned with being friendly to only people above me. I definitely was friends with fellow PAs as well. As my high school theater teacher always said, no one is more important than anyone else. Everyone works together to make the final product, and without any one of them, it would be different.
I think that basically sums up advice I have. I don’t know if it will be helpful to anyone trying to make it. And I certainly don’t do everything perfectly. I don’t have all the answers. (If I did, I’d be working on The Simpsons right now.)
If you want advice on breaking into scripted, well, I’ve got nothing for you. Go figure out how to do it, and get back to me. (My guess is, a lot of the ideas in these posts still ring true, it’s just a matter of meeting/knowing different people, and/or getting a different lucky break and/or sacrificing more than I did.)
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about the summer on AGT.