Working for MTV

I was a film school graduate with one non-student film on my resume; I knew I needed to get some more experience under my belt. I also knew that this experience was most likely going to be of the unpaid variety. Sure, I wasn't thrilled with that idea, but my family really wasn't too keen on it.

My first film job had prepared me with the idea of just how unglamorous these jobs would be, too. So with an eager attitude, I set out and joined every listserv dealing with filmmaking in Austin that I could find. I figured receiving newsletters about jobs would be a head start to get some experience.

A few of these jobs panned out enough that I worked on them. Certainly far from the ultimate ideal, these jobs gave me more hands-on experience to learn more - more about what I liked or didn't like doing as well as learning more about how to do things. So even though none of these jobs were something to brag about, they definitely were what I needed straight out of film school.

These jobs also were a good first step in the world of networking myself. On each set I met new people. Sometimes these new people and I would click and keep in touch long after production. These were the people who came in handy for that next level of job searching. When they heard of upcoming jobs, they would call me just as I would call them about other jobs.

That networking is how I got my first job for a company anyone had heard of - MTV. While MTV's Room Raiders is not the television I watch, it was my first official paying gig. Plus, it was MTV and who, at my level of experience, would turn down that opportunity?

So what is being a PA for an MTV reality dating show like? "Hurry up and wait" is a good way to think of it. I had always heard this phrase in relation to working in this industry, but hadn't yet experienced what exactly it meant. Until working for MTV, that is.

To record the number of episodes they wanted in the time given, there were four crews taping an episode each weekend. Yes, they tape four episodes in a weekend. There were about a dozen people in each crew, three of whom were PAs. PA basically meant driver most of the time.