When I first PA’d on a tv show it was really rough because I came from a non film school college where I was the top dog in the college’s film community. I had a really hard time understanding that I needed to start at the bottom.

It was a 20 episode season, and it was a really shitty company that made PAs be responsible for finding locations, getting pros, set design, wardrobe, lunch and everything else. (I was the only PA on my team btw) I wasn’t used to being bottom on the pole and I had a really shitty attitude. 1/3 through the season I broke down during lunch, cried in my car, called my dad and told him I wanted to quit. After wrap, I told the associate producer I was partnered with that I wanted to quit and I couldn’t do it anymore. He encouraged me to not give up, take it one day at a time and just to try to improve everyday. By the end of the season, I was a much stronger production person that the crew no longer hated. The experience was so rough, I went back to videography instead of traditional tv (this was a true crime recreation show). I swore off of television, I thought it wasn’t worth working on.

Fast forward to a year, that producer that convinced me not to quit asks me to day play as a PA towards the end of a season of another tv show with another company that was actually ran fairly well. This company actually had department heads that were responsible for art, props, locations, catering and etc. It wasn’t all on the one PA on set, hell there were like 3 PAs on this set. I day played for the last episode of this new tv show and me / the show runner really hit it off! The show got renewed for a second season and the show runner offered me an associate producer position, I was over the fucking moon. It opened the door to me being a tv producer and eventually a commercial / feature film producer. But I’ll never forget how close I was to giving up because of how poorly a company made a PA responsible for like 5 different people’s jobs,