Staying healthy while working as a PA

With the shooting season gearing up yet again, we thought we'd run a women's magazine-style article on HOW TO STAY HEALTHY WHILE WORKING AS A PA (Insert picture of cheerful looking model with a walkie here).

1) Beware the Crafts Service table:
For those of us freshly out of Emerson with a BA on our resume, craft services is not as much of a metabolism nightmare. For the rest of us, each (feature) job represents about 5 lbs: Consider this: blueberry muffins, snickers bars, medium-regular coffee, and chocolate chip cookies. Never mind the egg sausage breakfast sandwiches they're handing out the side of the truck. Our suggestion? Go nuts for a day or two -- seriously... make yourself sick.** By day 3, you won't want it anymore. You might even reach for the banana and the almonds.
Oh, and drink A TON of water.
(**We're not nutrionists or anything... obviously.)

2) Sleep:
If call time is 6am, and they didn't wrap last until 6pm... there is absolutely no reason to stay up for The Daily Show. Get your sleep. All that stuff's online, anyway.

3) Drive the Speed Limit:
Yes, you have runs to make, drop offs, deadlines (sort of). Everybody around you is stressed, and when they call you on your cell phone, you're suddenly the Jack Bauer of production deliveries. It all comes down to the next few minutes... ("Beep... beep.")
Do us, and the entire state of Massachusetts a favor? Don't speed. Don't run that light. Don't cut that Volvo off. Whatever you're doing, you'll get it done. They're gonna ignore you or yell at you either way... let's not kill pedestrians on route.
And wear your damn seatbelt while you're at it. There are PAs from the other shows out there.

Scoreboard!

We hope everybody who is not trapped in the production office or on set on this beautiful Saturday is having a great time. We, however, have to run and pick up lunch in a few minutes. Weekend? What weekend? We're PAs!

Periodically, we post a scoreboard of everything we have reviewed thus far. Of our Boston Movies Reviews, here are our rankings:

A..... The Departed

A-.... The Boondock Saints

A-.... Gone Baby Gone

A-.... Good Will Hunting

A-.... Shutter Island

B+... Mystic River

B...... Blown Away

B...... Edge of Darkness

B...... Love Story

C...... The Bostonians

C...... Paul Blart: Mall Cop

C-..... Alex & Emma

C-.....What's The Worst That Could Happen

D+.... My Best Friend's Girl

D...... What Doesn't Kill You

D-..... Bride Wars

D-..... The Women

F....... The Pink Panther 2

And for Not-Made-In-Boston Movie Reviews:

B- Practical Magic

D- Knowing

Movie Review: The Boondock Saints (1999)

It's the day of the St. Patrick's parade in South Boston, but none of us are going this year because of the storm. Watching this film was the next best thing:

In "The Boondock Saints", a pair of Irish brothers, squatting in Southie, decide take on the criminal underground. They dress in identical black coats and shoot people in slow motion. They look very smooth. And because they are the good guys, they go to mass every morning and say prayers over the bodies of their victims. Ron Jeremy also stars -- with his clothes on for once-- then dies rather violently... and then, Willem DaFoe shows up in drag to help. This is quite a spectacle.

This film was released the same year as both the spiritually violent "The Matrix", and Kevin Smith's "Dogma" -- where hometown heroes Matt Damon and Ben Affleck run amuck quoting the Bible and shooting bad guys. "The Boondock Saints" seems like a lower budget version of these two films. It works.

The MacManus brothers make excellent hitmen; they keep to themselves, they only harm the bad guys, and they are quite creative at cauterizing wounds with household appliances. They also joke around in a way that makes you want to go have a drink with them. Comedian Billy Connolly shows up halfway into the film playing an even bigger, badder hitman. It's cliche, maybe, but the slow motion entrances into this film make everybody look cool.

Though set in Boston, "The Boondock Saints" mostly filmed in Toronto where it was cheaper to shoot at the time. A few second unit exterior shots were done with a local crew. Just because we like it, we're going to ignore the Toronto part and call this a Boston movie.

Final Score = B**

**This is the first review to be downgraded after its initial review. See our review of Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day for an explanation why.

Television

Let's skip right over last weekend's uneventful (for Boston films anyway) Oscar awards. None of our locally made films were up for any awards. None of our local actors, directors or crew won a prize. Onward.

The air is warming; the Canadian geese are returning. It's the beginning of a new filming season. The location scouts have been quietly eyeing our town, though the big films are waiting to see which way the MA tax credit vote goes. For the lucky employed few, there's the television pilots.

Our local film crews work equally well as television crews. TV pilots are usually lower budget -- so most crew members make a little less on these. The one exception is PAs... we generally get the same as on a film (which is less than everybody else on set, but more than a McDonald's employee, so we aren't complaining).

Last year, we heard that one ABC studios pilot shot in Boston; two shot in Providence, RI. None of them were picked up by the network to be made into full series. This spring has brought us two Boston pilots, one in Providence. Both ABC and CBS are here this year.

Yes, it's almost spring. Start looking for television film crews setting up around town over the next few weeks. Then before you know it, it's the St. Patricks - Opening Day - Patriot's Day trifecta. Spring is finally coming to Boston!

Movie Review: Bride Wars (2009)

In honor of this week's Academy Awards and Razzie Awards, we'd like to review one of the nominees... of the latter.

"Bride Wars" -- an unfunny catfight between two former America's Sweetheart actresses that lasts a tortuous 85 minutes. Seriously, this film felt 3 hours long. It's that bad. The film was shot in Boston, but is set in New York. Once again, we are grateful for the disassociation.

Here's what we would like to think happened: Maybe writer Greg DePaul wrote a fantastic black comedy... something totally R rated with teeth... akin to "Bad Santa" but with Bridezillas. It got greenlit, and popular actresses, eager to escape their princess images, signed on. The studio, however, realized that the two actresses have a large following of Disney Channel and Lifetime viewers. They insist on watering down the script to PG... you know, for the kids....

Probably not though. This movie idea innately sucked. Where "The Devil Wears Prada" carefully balanced comedy with a reverence of what it mocked, this movie fails. It's smarmy. It hates weddings, but expects us to sympathize with main characters who worship weddings. Characters call each other "bitch". They get in dance off fights at a strip club.

"Bride Wars" is a chick flick that hates chicks. Who the hell wants to watch that?

Good luck to both this film, and "Pink Panther 2" for their nominations at the Razzie Awards this weekend. May the worst movie win.

Final Score = D-

Film Crew Protest at the State House

Good morning,

At this exact moment, several of our coworkers have (slyly) left the office to go voice opposition in a State House hearing to Massachusetts House Bill 3854. This bill threatens to cap the tax credit to $7 million... essentially killing our local film industry. And killing our jobs.

We're hoping for a big turn out. Also, this brief but positive article in yesterday's Herald touches on why we need to keep this industry bringing money in:

Hollywood big ‘Fighter’ for tax breaks

21 Drydock Ave, for your Grip, Wardrobe and Set Dec needs...

Good morning PAs!

Among your many tasks, you will often have to locate random, seemingly whimsical items -- and quickly. Over the past few years, we've been sent after: mannequin busts size 8, the dye to make fake blood, the material for a SCUBA suit, hot dog vendor boxes, etc., etc.

While it takes work to find most items, a good start is sometimes at the Design Center over at 21 Drydock Ave. It hosts a number of art galleries, which we've used to rent paintings for set dressing. The most helpful and frequently visited for a film crew are the following:

Backstage Hardware - This hardware store caters specifically to film and theater crews. They have giant spools of rigging wire, velcro, and rope. They also have a ton of gaffer tape. They carry fog fluid and fake snow for the SPFX department. They even have the elusive wardrobe racks. Visit them enough and you might get a free t-shirt.

Backstage Hardware, 21 Drydock Ave, 617-330-1422

Cahill Display - They sometimes let us rent mannequins, steamers and racks, which is useful for both Set Dressing and Wardrobe. They carry tools, fake flowers, and fake snow - the kind you might see at Santa's Village at the mall. For random pieces, it's definitely worth calling over to them first.

Cahill Display - 21 Drydock Ave, 617-737-3232