On Mon, 16 May 1994 17:04:41 -0500 Richard J. Leskosky said:
>except on rent and car expenses. Good luck!  P.S.  When you go in for your
>interview, it's probably not a good idea to tell them that you really want
>to direct.
 
I attended the DGA workshop for educators a number of years ago, and
the Guild used that program for both teachers and orientation of their
2nd AD trainees.  I remember the person who ran the trainee program
said that it was definitely not a good idea to try to impress them
by saying you wanted to direct.  Apart from the fact that it suggested
you didn't really understand the function of the 2nd AD (or the AD, for
that matter) as a logistician (is that a word?) and traffic director,
with considerable responsibility for the efficient, businesslike, and
needless to say, economically wary operation of the production, which
requires particular types of creativity, not necessarily the type of
artistic creativity that (alongside all the logistical talents, of course)
that might be characteristic of a first-rate director.
 
They seemed to have devised their tests and interviews according to a
profile of an ideal 2nd AD, and had all sorts of ways of determining
whether or not you fit the profile, and, accordingly, all sorts of
ways of eliminating candidates they deemed unfit.  I vaguely recall
that one of the tests of honesty involved asking whether one's stool
was black and tarry.  I don't remember the reasoning -- it involved
iron supplements -- but it made sense, even as it seemed invasive and
humiliating.
 
Good luck from here, too, and watch out for the trick questions.
 
 
Blaine Allan                           [log in to unmask]
Film Studies
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario
Canada  K7L 3N6