Back in 2012 when I was still living and going to school in Chicago, I had a weekend job as a Production Assistant (PA) for productions filming in the city. Since being a PA was a contract position, meaning you were hired only day by day, there was an intense amount of competition among people wanting to work each day. I personally got lucky on one of my first days and happened to be in the right place at the right time and was able to work directly with one of the Assistant Directors, who was impressed by some of the work I was doing, Since that day I started getting personal invitations to work each day and was doing more important work than the average PA. Because of my new recognition on the set, the producers started asking me to come in during the week too, which unfortunately I had class during that time. Even though I could have skipped a couple of classes to have an opportunity to work with some of the higher-up executive producers and maybe really get my name known in the Chicago film industry, I decided not to. Instead when asked if I can work those days, I referred them to one of my friends who was not as lucky as me in getting noticed. With my recommendation my friend got an opportunity to work personally with the executive producers and was able to impress them enough to become a regular PA on the movie.
Although it does seem like I missed out on a chance to act opportunistically and continue progressing within the Chicago film industry without a major dent in my academics, I did have reasons not too. One of my reasons was ethical, since my friend was the one who got me involved initially and this was his main career goal and source of income, I felt like it wasn't fair I was getting the job calls just because of luck. My other reason was that I would not have been able to commit myself 100% to this movie because of school and would not have been able to progress as much as my friend did. I viewed my recommendation as an investment, hoping that when I was off of school and looking for a job, I could always count on my friend to pass on the favor and mention my name to whatever new production he was working on. Unfortunately I ended up transferring to UIUC so never got another opportunity to work on anything else, while my friend has been excelling and getting his name known. Maybe sometime in the future I will be really grateful I did not act opportunistically back in 2012.
This is an interesting essay. I haven't had students before who had some experience in the film industry. But I have had some close members of my family work in that area. Most recently, my brother-in-law who is a sound man, won an Emmy for his work on Boardwalk Empire. But that was in New York. I wonder if the Chicago scene is an entirely different animal.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about what it was you did to get recognized and how you knew to do that. Might it be that you were better suited for film than economics? (I say that knowing you hardly at all as a student. This is just idle speculation.)
It would aid this story, which at its heart is one friend helping out another, something I hope we talk more about in class, to understand the events that lead up to you getting your first job and what your friend did for you at that time (and why he did it). If you fleshed this out more, we could see your subsequent act, perhaps, as reciprocation. That would have made a nice story as reciprocation is one of the themes we've talked about in class.
I have had some experience with the film industry in New York also, but it was only for one independent project, so I can not compare to on a larger scale. From what I can tell New York is a much more film friendly city (in terms of taxes and regulations) so there was a lot more going on, especially independent films. Although Chicago has recently been experiencing a surge of TV shows and movies being filmed, so much that the demand for labor exceeded the supply of people willing to work (at least back in 2012), which was in part how I got my opportunity to work on the set.
ReplyDeleteOriginally I started working as a background actor with my friend, who was working as a stand-in actor. For me it was just an odd job to do on my days off, for my friend this was his main source of income and relied on getting positions. In 2012 a high-budget Bollywood movie, Dhoom3, was starting to film in Chicago and the Stunt Director was desperately looking for more production assistants to help close streets and maintain crowd control. By pure luck me and my friend happened to be present for this conversation and were invited to come back as PA's.
Because of the large scale of the stunts, many of the PA's were sent pretty far off the set to make sure nobody walked in the street during a car chase scene. I did that a couple of days, but was lucky to come in at the right time on my third day to be assigned as personal PA of the Stunt Coordinator. My job was to basically to make sure the Stunt Team had everything they needed, before they even asked. And after that it was easy to have my work noticed, because I was always getting selected for special assignments. After they finished filming the stunt sequences most of the PA's were let go, but my name was recommended when the choreographer was looking for an assistant. Unfortunately My friend was one of the people not invited back after, but I was able to recommend his name when the Transportation Director was looking for help and asked me while I was in the Production Office. After that it was easy for him to get noticed because he was working one on one with some of the producers.
After that we worked on a few more productions together, mostly because one of the Assistant Directors from Dhoom 3 stayed to work in Chicago. My friend is still working in the industry as regular crew now, I however got accepted to U of I in 2013 and decided to transfer, so have not had much opportunity to continue, although I do still get the occasional call.