Support Staff 101: The Writers’ PA
Lunch is life.
Welcome to our series on Support Staff, those complicatedly coveted series of jobs one has when trying to build up a network that might lead to a career as a television writer, mainly in Los Angeles.
There are three ways to get your foot in the door that leads to the hallway that leads to the foyer that leads to the waiting room that leads to the (you get it) that gets you a steady career on writing staffs:
Know somebody well. “Knowing somebody” goes along with every step of your career, but it’s that “well” that makes this its own numbered item. We’re talking be somebody’s kid, or husband, or kidney donor. Because there are very few people with enough leverage to just give someone a seat in a writers’ room, and very few of those seats. The right person has to really, really stick their neck out for you.
Be brilliant (in a way they can measure). Win an award with your short story, go viral, get your play written up in the New Yorker and the New York Times. Be someone they can present to their bosses as a slam dunk. The only version of this you can apply for are the fellowships at the studios themselves, but be aware that they get thousands of applicants for every slot, so it’s a tough road. (We can help you get that spec script ready to apply, though!)
Work your way up the assistant ladder, usually starting as a PA.
That third option is the point of this post, and while it’s slower and in some ways more arduous, I think of it as the most rewarding and the one that leads to the most stable, well-informed career. My first job in Hollywood was as the Writers’ Production Assistant for a martial arts show at Netflix called Wu Assassins. I had a great boss and met my two best friends on that show. And, crucially, it gave me the opportunity to observe a Writers’ Room up close.
So what does a WPA do? A lot of the same things as any Production Office PA: Make coffee, make copies, stock the crafty (read: snack) area, watch someone’s dog if their daycare is closed for the day, and most crucially of all, pick up lunch. (This means you can’t do this job without a reliable car, sorry.)
This all looks different depending on the layout of your room and the temperament of your showrunner. There will always be specific little odd jobs, but, aside from lunch, (which is, again, important to get right on a level that will affect your ability to succeed in this role,) you have to kind of just tune into the goings-on of the people and try to predict their particular needs.
And how do you get a WPA job? It’s tough, and some of it is still based on being in the right place at the right time, or meeting the right person at the right time. That’s why it’s the million dollar—well, $17.28/hour—question. I got the Wu Assassins gig because I happened to attend a funeral with the showrunner the same week he got budget to hire a PA. We were sharing grief, and I happened to need something he was able to give. (The widow of the deceased has joked that the job was left to me in the will.)
Most people don’t get lucky enough to have a beloved mentor/grandfather figure pass away at a convenient moment, (that was a joke, please don’t make it weird,) so they have to go about it the old-fashioned way: apply for shittier jobs, first, to try to expand their networks and meet more people.
Most often, an impressive Set PA or Post PA gets the opportunity to slip sideways on a project by meeting someone on set who can connect you to people closer to the writers’ room. (Set and Post jobs are usually a little easier to apply for simply because there are more of them. There’s only ever one Writers’ PA.)
But let’s assume you’ve done the necessary networking to get yourself in the door as a WPA. Congrats!
Okay, you got the job; now what? This is just the first entry in a series on support staff positions, but this is generally considered the entry rung. To advance from here, you need to do two crucial things:
Make a good impression. This means doing a very good job and being a very good hang. They’re only going to bring back the people they both trust and like. The line of qualified people is too long for you to be entitled, lazy, or incurious, but you do need to maintain self-respect. (There will be people who give you bad advice on both ends of this spectrum: You will hear that if you do too good a job, they’ll just think of you as a PA forever, and you’ll hear that PAs should be seen and not heard. It’s possible to be a whole person and respected coworker while still understanding that some parts of your role are menial and getting them done.)
Have a good script ready. It’s not a good idea to be too pushy about this, or jump the gun and ask for favors on week one. The truth is, you have very little control over when someone is ready to read you. Once you’ve got a good relationship, you can always ask, but you have to time that very carefully, since most of the time, you’ll only have one shot to get someone to read your writing. But if they’re thinking about promoting you, or if they’re rooting for you hard enough to want to recommend you to someone else, they may just ask to read your sample. When they do, you have to be able to send them something you’re confident in the same day. It’s important to have a sample script that is proofread within an inch of its life, something that competently displays an ability to perform within the format, and something that kind of blows them away with a little dose of who you are. (Stay tuned for a future blog post about what makes a good sample, and make sure you employ Plot & Page early and often in that pursuit!)
It may take working on a couple shows, but if you’re making solid connections and people with hiring power find themselves invested in your career, opportunities to advance will arise. You’ll also learn so much about writers’ rooms (and the producing work writers do) along the way. None of your time as support staff is wasted if you’re taking it all in.
That said, there will be long gaps between jobs sometimes, especially in this new era or short seasons and smaller rooms. The best thing you can do is apply for that barista job the minute a show wraps, or, better yet, get a Substitute Teacher credential or Real Estate license. The last thing you want to exude—and the hardest thing to avoid—is desperation.
Watch this space for the next installment on Showrunner’s Assistants. (Spoiler: It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever been a bad employee.)
