you have to do: get coffee, wrangle chairs, whatever they need you to do.
All shows have them and all shows need them. You get paid a flat salary.
You meet a lot of people. That's how you start."
Working as a PA affords an opportunity to see what each person's role
on set is and to better determine what career path you want to follow.
"PA to see how the whole process works. Watch and figure out what you
want to do."
Another inroad to the camera department can be through working at
an equipment rental house. "Go in and offer to help them on preps--
which are the two-week period before a feature--that's where you learn
what we need.
"If you want to be in camera, learn about it. Get books. Read.
Understand it. Get set experience--you get set experience by working
as a PA."
Professional Profile: A. Anthony Cappello, First Assistant Camera
"I got into the business because I love motion pictures," states Anthony
Cappello. "I think movies have a lot to say. It's a great way to communicate
to a large audience."
Cappello also had a love for still photography. The New York native
attended Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), possibly the best still
photography school in the country. Pressured by his parents to take busi-
ness classes, he changed his emphasis to motion picture photography and
enrolled in film school at New York University (NYU). "I thought it was
more specialized and less competitive--silly me."
Before graduating in 1984, he served an internship at Silvercup
Studios. Through the internship he made contacts that led to becoming a
production assistant and then a location assistant. With no relatives in the
business and no contacts within the camera union, he realized early on
that it would be difficult to become a cinematographer. Initially, he told
no one he wanted to work in the camera department and instead used
the opportunity to be on set to watch and learn.
When The Equalizer television series began crewing up, a producer
offered Cappello the job of location manager, with the promise of making
him the production manager by mid-season. "It was an unbelievable
offer." Knowing this might lead him further away from his goal of getting
into the camera department, Cappello turned down the job, confessing
that he had been trying for four years to get into the camera union. Then
he asked if he could work as a camera production assistant instead. The
producer sent him to the first camera assistant for approval.
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