When I first graduated from college I worked as a P.A. on various films and TV shows for about half a year. A P.A. is a “production assistant,” a Latin phrase meaning “indentured servant.” Like everyone on a film or TV crew, PAs work 12-14-16 hour days and run around like crazy people. Unlike everyone else on a film or TV crew, they do absolutely nothing creative and spend most of their time getting bagels, making copies, shuttling people from place to place, and picking up stuff at Home Depot. And oh yeah, they don’t get paid.
One of the films I PA’d on wasn’t so bad, because it was a micro-budget digital-video indie film, and NO ONE was getting paid. The film was called (at the time) Mondo Cruel, or Cruel World, and it told the story of two Hispanic brothers from Washington Heights and the various trials and tribulations the older brother (an ex-con) goes through to keep the younger brother (who just graduated second in his class from high school) away from their father (I won’t spoil the film, but there’s good reason for this). This was the first film I’d worked on since graduation, so it was a ton of fun seeing how all this stuff worked, even if most of it consisted of the skeleton crew that made it (myself included) riding around in the back of a cargo van, pretending to have permits from the Mayor’s Office for Film and TV, and marveling at the fact that no one above 100th St. gets their dogs neutered. It was a long hot summer and a challenging, involving film.
Now it’s called Manito, after the younger brother, and it’s apparently getting all sorts of good reviews and did well at Sundance and Tribeca. Hell, Slate is writing about it. I haven’t seen it myself, and now I’m all excited to do so. It’ll take me back to one of the only worthwile PA jobs I ever did–worthwhile in the sense that I was part of something good, and worked for good people. I wish them well.
(PS: Yes, Franky G. was a big dude.)
(PPS: Astute viewers of Manito might be able to spot The Missus in the graduation party scene. Hint: She’s the non-boriqua.)