first paying gig in LA
Last Thursday, I received a call from a prominent motion design firm in Santa Monica. Their production assistant had just gotten married. They needed someone to fill in for a week, and asked if I was available. I agreed before they even mentioned what the daily rate is (or that it even paid). After hanging up, I danced and jumped and called my girlfriend and generally freaked out. Eight weeks of searching and calling and being turned down on literally a daily basis had been twisting the coil that sprang loose then. It may only be crap work (PA's do basically what everyone else more important don't want to do, from making coffee to editing footage to designing to picking up lunch), it may only be for one week, but my god, it's certainly better than doing nothing at all.

My first day was Monday. Arrived at 10 am (as requested). Was shown around the offices. It's a neat building - a mix of cinder block, industrialist chic with nice woods, steel, glass, and natural light. The first part of the day was spent learning a few of the pieces of technology I hadn't used before. My desk/computer are in "The Vault" - a buzzing room with racks of decks, monitors, and vectorscopes, opposite a long, tall wall of thousands of video tapes and DVDs. This is their archive of completed work, unfinished footage, and (of the most interest to me) demo reels that had been submitted to them. The man who was showing me around, and who I mainly worked with, Thai, explained that they received dozens of reels every week. The ones they think are of value, and they may want to use they keep; the rest are thrown away. I was pleased to find my own demo reel on the shelf. This pleasure was almost immediately deflated when I pulled it down to take a look. A post-it note had been stuck on the case, on which in capitol letter someone had written "NOT GOOD". I asked Thai if the note indicated the disc itself had difficulty playing, or that it was a commentary on the reel itself. He laughed and said it probably meant there was a problem with the disc - if they didn't think the reel was good, they'd have thrown it away.

We both worked until 8 pm, which is guess is the standard quitting time around there. I'd heard 10 hours days were the norm in the motion design world, but the amount did not fully sink in until I walked outside and it was pitch black. The commute works out well though - rush hour has passed by then, and the freeway was nearly empty.

I'd like to write more, but will have to later. I need to go to work. ;)

Devon DeLapp (ddelapp) wrote, @ 2004-09-21 09:38:00

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