nall
Production Blog Entry for April 08, 2008
Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:40 pm
Site Admin
Thu May 20, 2004 7:52 am2330The Internet
Gary Martinez, Production Assistant:
I WAS 3RD UNIT SPECIAL EFFECTS COORDINATOR ON THE "MAKING OF CON-AIR."
Contrary to popular belief, being a PA doesn't always get you in to all the elite Hollywood circles. This being said, as part of our job we are often called upon to meet with certain people for the transmittance of sensitive information. You know, like making out with someone just so you can pass the microfiche that is hidden in the cap of your tooth. What, you didn't get that Aeon Flux reference?
Basically, we have to deliver super secret Matt and Trey stuff to and from high-powered lawyers, executives, accountants and agents all over town. And getting past heavily guarded doors in Beverly Hills when you pull up in a purple Sentra isn't the easiest of tasks. So what do all the best P.A.'s know that you don't? We know how to scam the system.
In a town where many feign importance, we use the advantage of knowing we're not cool to our advantage. We may be grungy, but our goal is as clear as day.
Let's take last week for example. I had to get some documents to a high-profile person in Century City. Parking in their lot is out of the question seeing that you need another car just to get to and from your own. In addition, the building in which they reside has a valet stand that won’t help you unless you wear Armani and drive a Porsche, and their security staff would ask their own parents for ID. They can smell a PA coming to make a delivery from a mile away, so playing by the rules here will cost you an hour and a half round trip and your valuable lunch time.
Thanks to the other PA's at South Park I was forewarned on this matter. They taught me to pose as who or whatever is needed. One day we're doctors, another we're the Ambassador to Ecuador. (Hell, that's how Rob and Mike ended up here. They got a one-way ticket out of Africa by pretending to be Malawian children. Now they have really rich parents and a job at South Park.)
When I got to the building, I pulled up and pretended to be hot sh*t in my economy car. I already had the hipster film geek glasses on, so all that was needed was a Bluetooth headset, a black t-shirt, and an accounting folder. I gave the valet a nod as I pretended I was there to pitch my 'Juno meets Lord of the Rings' movie and voila!, five minutes later, I had passed security, delivered the documents, and was back telling the now suspicious valet that my agent's assistant got the times mixed up. Mission accomplished. It sounds a lot easier than it was, but so does SEAL Hell Week.
This week we want you to share your stories about sneaking in places when you shouldn't have been there. Concerts, proms, aircraft carriers, you get the picture.
By the way, congrats to readers verdow, mtait, skrewballx, and superkidwax. The glove pictured in the last post was used by the rotoscopers to prevent smudging on their Cintiqs. You won nothing. Welcome to the club of not being cool.
So I told the receptionist, 'umm, yeah, I have stuff on imdb, Jerry knows who I am.'
YouShallNotPass
Re: Production Blog Entry for April 08, 2008
Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:50 pm
Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:47 pm0
Yeah, that bluetooth headset makes you look the part. I would totally let you deliver a manila folder without asking questions.
But you're lucky it was a fast delivery. You don't have enough product in your hair to fit in for long. And you don't want to know what they do at places like that if they find an interloper. Believe me, I know. It's why I'm posting this from Siberia.
laramina02
Re: Production Blog Entry for April 08, 2008
Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:40 am
Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:23 am2
A strategy that has worked for me is to offer a small token. I needed to talk to the president of the biggest university in my city, so I told the secretary all I wanted to do was give him a small token from our company (token was a pen with laser pointer AND flashlight, aw yeah). i wasn't going to ask for anything, just wanted to say hi.
President of said university was so impressed with laser pen I got to stay for coffee and a chat with other "important people".
Laser pens rule! Be glad to send one over to you guys!
doctorperv
Re: Production Blog Entry for April 08, 2008
Wed Apr 09, 2008 8:52 am
Wed Apr 09, 2008 8:00 am0
I drove through one of the movie sets of One Crazy Summer when I was in high school. Me and this kid were stoned and looking for something to do. We passed the Hyannis drive-in theatre, the marquee said Hemorrhoids From Hell and something other movie I can't remember. That sounded like a cool thing to see when high so I turned in to the entrance. For some reason there were orange cones across the road but I didn't see any potholes to avoid or anything so just drove on by. No one was at the ticket booth either, guess the movie started already and we don't have to pay. I drove down the entrance road and turned into the main lot of the theatre, which is just like a big parking lot surrounded by trees with huge white brick wall on one end to server as a screen and a little concession stand in the center of the lot.
It was like when Richard Dreyfuss looks over the rocks in Close Encounters and sees the alien landing area that the government has set up. There was a huge light tower by the concession stand with bright spot lights pointing to all different places, rows of trailers, a bunch of long tables all setup for eating and people working on stuff everywhere. I drove in a slow circle around the edge of the lot, mouth agape. We were stoned out of our gourds and had no idea it was a movie set, we thought it was some government gathering or something. No one said a thing to us the entire time we were driving around and we just let ourselves out. It wasn't till later on that night we realized Hemorrhoids From Hell was a joke name and that it must have been a movie set.
SirKerrek
Re: Production Blog Entry for April 08, 2008
Wed Apr 09, 2008 9:28 am
Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:56 pm95
I was being interviewed for a job at a local company near my podunk town, and I walk in ten minutes before my appointed time and talk to the secretary. Apparently, she didn't have me down for an appointment, and told me that "the boss couldn't see me now."
Well, needless to say I was pissed, and after sitting in the waiting room for fifteen minutes, I thought "F*** it." I waited until the secretary went off and did who-knows-what, and I just barged right into the boss's office, who was completely un-busy and gave my interview. Two days later, the job was mine.
And even though that job sucked and I quit after a month or so, it just shows that the sneakiest way is sometimes the most obvious way.
James--76
Re: Production Blog Entry for April 08, 2008
Wed Apr 09, 2008 9:55 am
Mon Nov 05, 2007 9:44 am1171Bedford (U.K)
I sneaked into my bosses office at work one night last week while she was having a smoke outside,i went online to see how my auctions where doing and something i was bidding on finished at 1.45am that i wanted.lucky that i knew the password as i heard her say it to another boss a couple of days before.
PAMikesGirlfriend
Re: Production Blog Entry for April 08, 2008
Wed Apr 09, 2008 11:15 am
Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:48 am0
As soon as PA Mike and I break up, I'm totally giving your photos to all the security guys downstairs.
Also, I once accidentally walked into Knott's Berry Farm. I was just walking around, looked up and realized, "Holy sh*t! I'm in Knott's Berry Farm and I didn't pay! I must have walked through some awesome magic hole!" And try, though I might, I never found that magic hole again.
LawrenceTaylor
Re: Production Blog Entry for April 08, 2008
Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:37 pm
Fri Jan 11, 2008 2:20 pm176
Some of these are hilarious! Expanding on doctorpervs, I'd love to see a movie where some stoners find a movie set! Movie sets are often really strange, sad, sterile things, so you'd ironically, have substance. I'd also like to see a movie where a guy with a ten minute memory goes on a journey to learn how to forget. Or a documentary called "Lights, camera, non-fiction!". But thats another story.
I'm a wuss thus far, I've never sneaked (snook? Snuke!?, I kid) into any place. I once stole a five cent hubba bubba without realizing it, and I left a big apology message at the stores answering machine. He thought it was funny. And I paid back the five cents. And the joke died.
Last edited by LawrenceTaylor on Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Aym_Dand
Re: Production Blog Entry for April 08, 2008
Wed Apr 09, 2008 2:39 pm
Tue Mar 30, 2004 7:31 pm2247Santa Monica, CA
I sneaked a picture of myself by the front door of South Park Studios.
I had an informal informational interview with a company that shares the building with them, and afterwards I had my friend, who lived with me just down the street in one of the most awful apartment complexes in Los Angeles, take a picture of me.
I put it up on this site, and about nine minutes later it had been taken down and my thread deleted, and I had an email from a South Park lawyer telling me, "NOT YOURS!"
(I understood, though. I'm sure they want as much security as possible, considering how many people SP has shredded throughout its run.)
Just before that interview, I was gathering my notebooks outside and I saw South Park writer Kyle McCulloch (I noticed him from his Employee of the Month picture) smoking a cigarette. I was thinking to myself, "Holy sh*t, that's employee of the month Kyle McCulloch! I should go say something to him." But then I thought, "What the f*ck do I have to say to this guy?" I realized the answer to that question was, "Nothing," so I just sadly went inside.
Funny/awful side-note: my brother was the head writer at the company I interviewed with, and after a number of interviews and writing tests, I got the call about the job: "NOT YOURS!"
My brother said to me, "The decision was based solely on your writing." That motherf*cker.
I came out here to be a creative TV comedy writer, and in the span of one week I couldn't muster the creativity to say one funny or interesting thing to a longtime South Park producer, and I so completely failed a writing test for a company that did half-assed online content for sh*tty game shows and where my own flesh and blood was one of the principal hiring agents that not even NEPOTISM could save me.
So yeah, I'm thinking about killing myself...