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Working on BET�s "College Hill," and Learning

By Rasheem James
Black College Wire

Photo credit: John Amatucci/BET Part of the program assistant's job was driving the "College Hill" cast around Langston University.

I had the experience of a lifetime serving as a production assistant for the BET reality show �College Hill,� in which eight Langston University students� lives were taped for seven weeks this past fall.

I was offered the job through a friend and classmate, Lannie Franklin III, who had been hired as the production coordinator. Even though I wasn�t going to be paid, the experience would prove to be valuable because it gave me the first screen credits on my resume. Not too many people can say, �I�ve worked on a reality show,� or any TV show, period.

More important, by working on the show, which began airing Jan. 27, I gained hands-on experience learning how to use the cameras. I made contacts with TV industry professionals and earned an offer of a future internship.

Professors are always telling us to explore a field while we�re still students. They always say to be willing to start at the bottom. I found out that, actually, they are right. From the director all the way back down, everybody starts as a �PA.�

�You�re a hard worker. If you can get this down, you can pretty much handle anything,� is what the director, Ron De Shay, told me. He wasn't screaming and yelling, although there are some directors who will cuss you out all the time. I learned it�s nothing personal: It's just business. These people want their product, their film, delivered under budget and on time.

According to the Virginia Film Office Web site, which published advice for students aspiring to be on a crew, �The best thing you can bring with you as a production assistant is a good attitude. Someone with a positive, can-do attitude will go much farther than someone with more experience who complains and is not pleasant to be around.�

On my first day, I was asked to run a few errands, such as paying bills and getting lunch for the crew members.

That was a job by itself. Just imagine taking 20 different Subway sandwich orders. Sometimes the orders would get mixed up, and it became my job at times to make it right. People would say, �I don't eat pork, and that has bacon on it" -- and those were not even the stars. When I did food runs, it was my job to make sure no crew member got something he didn�t want on his sandwich. Certain camera operators, who ate only organic foods, were usually easy to please.

After a week or so, I went from running errands to driving cast and crew members to designated locations for taping. I know some of you are thinking, �Hey, man, you were just a chauffeur,� but that wasn�t the case. The first thing I learned as a PA was that timing is everything. A lack of planning could jeopardize a whole day of shooting. And because the entertainment business is so deadline driven, a lack of planning also means a loss of money. It was critical that everything be organized. Because the production team was organized most of the time to the very last detail, even planning the shuttle schedule had a part in whether the production would run smoothly.

The housemates, of course, all are students, and not all of them had cars. The director wanted them to be on a schedule. So we had four shuttles, at 6 a.m., 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5 p.m., to carry them wherever they needed to go, to school or to the doctor or dentist, for example. Cameras were mounted in the car, and a camera person would sometimes be in the car to capture trips.

I drove them where they needed to go, to and from the ranch, which is about a 10-minute drive on the outskirts of Guthrie, Okla. I also drove them to the campus from the ranch, which is an additional 15-minute drive, so they could get to class.

On one of their many field trips, I drove the cast members to the botanical gardens in Oklahoma City. With winter approaching and fall slowly slipping away, the fallen leaves were painted a sun-dance red with a splash of yellow. It gave the illusion of a fallen rainbow. You couldn�t help but soak in the scenery.

I accompanied the cast on a visit to a hip-hop church service. The church had a live band, which played renditions of church songs over hip-hop beats. They treated us all like movie stars. The members of the church set up a VIP section for cast and crew.

When I wasn�t driving or running errands, senior crew members encouraged me to learn how to use the camera equipment, such as the Pelco cameras used throughout the house. They look like the surveillance cameras in a department store. They were on the ceiling, in the bedrooms, in the hallways and laundry room, in the rec room, in the kitchen and by the phone. I was learning to zoom in to get an extreme close-up on a face, or zoom in on what a person was eating, or I would position the camera on someone who was having a phone conversation.

I also learned how to use a boom microphone or boom mic. The boom mic is on the end of a long pole or arm. It is very sensitive and used to record natural sound. I learned that it is important to make sure the batteries are charged and meters are checked. Boom mics are used to record sound from those who don�t have a portable microphone, and for group conversation. That way, everyone�s voice can be heard during a conversation.

I had to fill out log sheets and do tape logging. Now, this actually was fun, because I got to review everything that was filmed for that day. You sit and watch something like nine hours of tape, and jot down what happens every two minutes, so the editors can find certain incidents or conversations on the tape. (I can't give away the plot: That's part of what I learned, too, about working on a show.) I can say this: There are no retakes: Ain�t no startin� overs. That�s why they buy so much tape and use so many cameras: They want to catch every detail, happy and sad.

Most people don�t really know what goes on when it comes to producing a reality show or even being a camera operator. These are hard jobs to get.

�Television, video, and motion picture camera operators held about 28,000 jobs in 2002 and film and video editors held about 19,000,� according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Many were self-employed. About half earned between $20,000 and $50,000 a year, the department says, though some can earn much more.

Many of the skills are learned on the job and many of these positions are found by networking. Camera operators in the film and television industries usually are hired on the basis of recommendations from individuals such as producers or directors of photography, according to the Labor Department�s Occupational Outlook Handbook.

So don�t try to overstep your boundaries: I witnessed many production assistants acting like directors, instead of taking this time to learn as much as they could.

There were times I felt things could have been done differently, and there were times my ideas were overlooked, but I had to keep telling myself, �that�s business�; some things have to be done a certain way. In business, you have to have tough skin.

The article, �So You Wanna Be a Production Assistant,� on the Virginia Film Office�s Web site, had this to say: �We cannot stress this enough. Eventually, you will get yelled at, perhaps for no reason. You might also have an encounter with an actor that may shatter your illusion of him/her forever. Get over it. It's not personal. Remember that this is a job, and everyone involved is under immense pressure to get the film finished on time and under budget.�

My ultimate goal was to gain experience, but I also gained new friends, and a new respect for the film industry and the people behind the scenes.

Rasheem James is a senior broadcast journalism major at Langston University in Oklahoma.

Posted Jan. 28, 2005