Vanessa Ruane Blog
|
When it rains it pours. My absence from this blog has been due to an overwhelming amount of production hours I’ve been working.
I’ve been working as a PA on commercials. The humbling, ego challenging, grunt, low man on the totem pole job. Where you get paid a flat rate and have no union rights to breaks for lunch or get paid overtime. It’s an entry-level job into the film world. It puts you on set and gives you the opportunity to make connections and learn about how movies get made. The problem is I know how movies get made and this director who is making 8 spots for Volkswagen is a rude and ungrateful individual. It challenges me beyond belief everyday. But it’s also a big chunk of change into my bank account. In my experience in Hollywood I’ve had to justify selling all my energy to learn and grow and get better at what I do. This group is at least green and we try to bring recycling and conservation to production, a notoriously wasteful industry so the scales are balanced despite the bad mannered and abusive director.
I took on the job because I am an Office PA that means I’m mostly in the production motor home/office – behind, behind the scenes. This is an area I’ve wanted to learn more about, it’s where I struggled with connections on my last documentary. You build relationships with rental houses because you find and rent properly all the equipment the production needs, hire all the crew, keep track of everything that goes on financially and how it affects the unions. The people I work with directly are great and I have through this experience nailed down the pieces I felt I was missing to make me feel totally confident as a Production Coordinator. So it’s all good, despite the 16-hour and sometimes longer days and the fact that I have not had a day off in over 11 days.
I try to take each act that the director does that gets under my skin and note it, so when I am crewing the ship on my projects I NEVER behave like that. Not that I ever have but it’s a great example of how I do not ever want to be.
The working is good because I used my savings to gamble on writing my script for two months and now need to replace that.
It is just so hard for me to think that I’m 34 and have been struggling in this business in one career or another since I started acting at 10 years old. My ego thinks that because of the
It started this year with the Very Short Films Festival. An impressive film festival in Hollywood that showed Firefighter at the Egyptian Theater.
I didn’t walk away with a cash prize but had a rich experience nonetheless. What I learned that sparked me most is that there is a place for short independent filmmakers in the market. The rise of the Internet and cell phone movies are creating a need for the clever short, short film. The way that distribution is changing also helps us own more of the profit of these films. It was quite inspiring to learn. You can learn more to by visiting the website of the speakers: www.moviesbywomen.com, www.currenttv.com, www.cinematech.blogspot.com.
The festival also provided the filmmakers with 15-minute pitch sessions with agents, producers and production companies. The setting was the Roosevelt Hotel and it was great and a true Hollywood moment but it didn’t end with discovery.Again as my luck has been my whole life I did not land an agent from these meetings, I got more of the same line I’ve been hearing for years. We’d love to negotiate a deal for you but you need more spec work for us to get you work. How much more do I need? It’s so frustrating. I’ve made two movies, one of which has won over twenty awards. I’ve written a feature script and treatments for two more features and on TV series. Isn’t that enough to get me any kind of directing work?
Finishing my script I thought the next chapter of my life would be getting it made, again another realization that the hill is a bigger climb than I anticipated.
So how do I find the silver lining? Because I must, I can’t live with a negative headspace so how do I keep believing in myself and pushing forward? I just simply just keep trying. I won’t be defeated that easily and perseverance is the option I choose.
I look forward to when this job ends and I have enough money to focus on my own work again. Now I must prepare my self for night shooting, a 4pm call and 6am taillights. It’s brutal but it’s making me stronger. And at least today with the late call I get to go to yoga.
Return from Vanessa Ruane Blog home page
