Confessions of a Production Assistant: My Life as a Hollywood Pee-On

Chapter One

Moving to Los Angeles right after graduation was a good idea. One of the best I have ever had. I had just finished college and was full of ambition and drive to succeed. I was determined to make it in Hollywood. Make myself a household name. Coming from a small town in Virginia I realize now that I was not fully ready for the City of Angels. I was naive but not ignorant about the city. I figured that I would come across some shady characters and those kind of people I would learn to avoid. Or for the most part learned from my experience with them. I wasn’t really prepared for the culture shock and overall mind blowing experience the city had in store for me.

But I am getting ahead of myself. I should first tell you why I want to work in the movie industry. Well, the answer is quite easy. I absolutely, unconditionally and annoyingly love movies. Good movies, bad movies, western to romantic comedy, and all the ones in between. It started when I was younger. I loved Disney cartoons. The way they could transport a child into another world where animals talked and carpets flew. My mom says that the first movie I saw in theaters was Sleeping Beauty. Shortly after that my grandma Walker gave me Disney movies on video. Since then I received a Disney movie from her every Christmas and Easter. This causes my collection to grow and over the years my sister and I had a complete Disney archive. As I grew up my love for movies hasn’t changed. It’s just, now I am allowed to watch more than cartoons. (Wink wink.)

When I was 11, I learned in school how movies began as written scripts and went into production to become films. It was at the age of 13 that I began to surf the internet looking for scripts to read. Since I couldn’t drive to Blockbuster to rent the movies, I would find the scripts to the movies I wanted to see and read them. I think it was then that I fell in love with screenplays and the movie making industry. One of my favorite things was to read a script of a movie that I had already seen, so that I could see how the director read the words on the page and translated that into visual medium. Some I could remember doing this to were The Fifth Element and Clueless. I would also read scripts of movies I had never seen and then made it a point to rent those when I went to Blockbuster. Two I can remember were Halloween and Cherry Falls (some scenes for this were filmed in Warrenton, Virginia, where I grew up.) Then I could compare what the director had done to what I imagined the film would look like.

It was shortly after I began reading scripts that I developed an unhealthy obsession with Hollywood. This started because I wanted to be a big player and I wanted to know who the other players were. I wanted to follow actors and the way they behaved on set, the way they behaved off set and everything in between. I would religiously check celebrity gossip magazines looking for actors on location, read the “behind the scenes” interviews and articles in film magazines like “Total Film” and “Empire.” I even developed a weird hatred of carbs. I began to “diet” so that when I moved to Tinseltown I was prepared to fold right into the masses with their trendy diets and alternative exercise regiments. I even took up yoga and smoking, which after four painfully slow classes and two cigarettes later decided those were two LA staples I could not partake in. I did however cultivate my caffeine addiction, which I knew would be an asset in the fast paced world of film-making.

But it was over my fall break that I took my first steps into the production side of film. I stayed up late one night and began writing a short film. It was originally an idea that my friends and I talked about over a two PM breakfast at iHop after a night of partying. It needed to get on paper and I took the liberty of doing it. After some phone calls the next morning I made plans to produce the film for my school’s film festival. It was a Public Service Announcement in the case of a zombie infestation on my college campus. It was full of government propaganda and anti soviet comments, which I thought were funny. Apparently the judges did not. I did not win the festival. Shit, I didn’t even place within the competition, which really bothered me because the other films that did place were ass. I’m not just saying that because I was mad. The others really did blow.

I moved passed the film festival and as my college graduation approached people began to ask that dreaded question that all college students must eventually answer. The one question, made up of eight simple words that strike fear in the hearts and causes anxiety attacks in those students who are not sure of the answer. “What are you going to do after school?” I finally just started telling people that I was going to move to LA, work in television and film and ultimately start my own production company and marry an Olsen twin. That plan ultimately grew into me spending my weekends reading scripts and drinking coffee at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Hanging out in Malibu mansions and coordinating multimillion-dollar movie deals over my blackberry while I drive down the Pacific Coast Highway in my black Mercedes SL. I mean, I had real simple goals. Easy to visualize (PCH, Malibu, car) and highly probable. Right? Well, maybe the Olsen twin fantasy was far fetched but the rest is possible. So, with those fantasies disguised as goals in my mind, I felt I had a “solid” plan and that was good enough for me.

But like most well thought out plans, mine hardly happen the way I wanted it too. (In the biz, we call that a “teaser.” It entices the audience into wanting to know more.)

It started two weeks after my college graduation when I had a meeting with a producer in Los Angeles. On Wednesday I drove to the production office, parked my car and checked in with the producer’s secretary. It went something like this.

INT. Production Office- 3:00 PM.
Doors to the elevator open. Standing in the corner wearing a blue shirt and tie is Joey Bersack. A recent college graduate and current job candidate as a Production Assistant at Universal Studios. Joey exits the elevator and walks the floor till he reaches a secretary typing at a computer. She looks up from she is doing.

Secretary
Can I help you?

Joey
Oh, hi. I’m Joey Bersack. I’m here to see Dave Pullano.

Secretary
Right, well, Dave has someone in his office now but he will be with you shortly.

Joey
Okay.

Secretary
If you want to take a seat I’ll let him know you’re here.

Joey
Thanks.

Joey sits down in a nice big leather chair. He picks up a Variety and starts flipping through it. He notices that Drew Berrymore’s production company just inked a deal with Paramount for another Charlie Angel’s film.

Joey (Over Voice)
Well, if this doesn’t work out maybe I could get on that project.

Secretary
Did you want something to drink? Water? Coke? Coffee?

Joey
Oh, no thanks. I’m fine.

Dave Pullano opens his office door and ushers out an older man. They are discussing the Lakers.

Dave Pullano
Okay, John. So I will see you next Friday for the game, right? I’ll pick you up, say 6:00?


John Mystery Man
Sure, sounds great. See ya later Dave. Bye Jessica.

Jessica (Secretary)
Bye Mr. Kent.

Dave
So, you must be Joey.

Joey
Yes. Thank you for meeting with me.

Dave
Oh, no problem. Come on in.

Joey and Dave enter the office and the door closes.

Fade to Black.

Okay, I have to confess. None of this really happened, but I was using “creative visualization.” I believe that if I could picture in my mind a positive, great interview that resulted in me getting the job then I it will become a reality. It is like creating the reality out of the fantasy. Which is exactly what movie making consists of. I wrote it as if you were reading a screenplay because I think that it was easier to read the conversations that took place in script form. Also, I thought it was interesting and creative, something new. Besides my life practically revolves around scripts and screenplays. They’re all I read besides the daily trades and gossip rags.

It was shortly after I started as a production assistant that I got the idea to write down my trials and shit jobs. I want to chronicle them in this book. Some are awesome, some are stinky (really, the smell was overbearing) but most of all of them are funny. This is my life as a Hollywood Pee-On. The confessions of a Production Assistant.


Side Note
What I had in mind for this work is that it will eventually become a memoir. I want to chronicle my first years in the industry because I don’t think there are enough production, behind the scene, tongue in cheek books for kids now a days. I want to get my experience out there for them.

This blog was...

created to be a behind the scenes look at my life. I will post pictures and chapters from my memoirs.