behind the scenes: ucb comedy video shoot

setting up the reverse dolly shot.  hope i don't kill him.

On Saturday, I was a production assistant for UCB's Diamonds Wow shoot.  I was a little nervous cus I had never PAed before.  Not to be dramatic, but what if I killed someone?!

My friend Dave said that being a PA is really easy and all I had to do was follow directions.

I'm sorry, what'd you say? I wasn't paying attention.

I showed up to the shoot bright and early on Saturday morning . The first thing the director asked me to do was LAV up the actors. Being the professional that I am, I said "Sure!" and waited till he left the room to say, "Um, what's a LAV?"

Luckily, there was another PA who was nice enough to show me the ropes. In fact, everyone on the set was really nice and helpful.  I don't have any photos of them but that doesn't mean I killed them, okay?

I learned that a production assistant is responsible for:

1. Setting up sound and putting the mics on actors.  You want to conceal the mic so you have to go up the actor's shirt or down their pants. Note: do not tape mic to a man's chest hair. It will really hurt.

2. Holding traffic- when you're shooting outside, you make sure that cars don't pass by and kill the actors. I did a pretty good job except for one guy who tried to run us over and gave everyone the bird. 

3. Watching guys move furniture- what I lack in upper arm strength I make up for in striking the set. And by striking the set, I mean eating leftover pizza.

My favorite part of the shoot was shadowing the director. (I hope he didn't think I was trying to kill him.) I tried to digest as much as I could and learn about the technical aspects as well as the creative side like giving acting notes or deciding where the unicorn poster should go.

important set piece

All in all, it was such a fun experience. Especially the part when no one died.