An Assistant Director Says: ‘There Are 100s of Us Sitting at Home’ as Production Shrinks

Holding on in Hollywood, a Wrap Series: Paul Lindsay, assistant director and DGA member

The post An Assistant Director Says: ‘There Are 100s of Us Sitting at Home’ as Production Shrinks appeared first on TheWrap.

Twenty years ago, Paul Lindsay bought a one-way ticket from New York to California with only $125 in his pocket and without telling anyone in his family, other than his cousin in LA, whose couch he hoped to crash on.

The New School grad “hustled” his way onto film sets by donning a headset and looking important. He got hired as a PA and later as an assistant director on top shows like “Six Feet Under,” Grey’s Anatomy,” “Westworld” and the Jordan Peele feature “Us.”

Now the 53-year-old is shuttling between Los Angeles and Atlanta to find enough work to keep his Hollywood dream alive.

“From when I was young, all I wanted to do was make movies,” Lindsay told TheWrap. “And I finally got there but I may not be afforded to finish that journey.”

Lindsay is part of a private Facebook group, Crew Stories, where 96,000 crew members commiserate about how they may have to drop out of — or already have left — the industry. 

The mantra for many, he said, is embodied by #SurivingUntil25, a hashtag nod to the belief espoused by optimistically minded industry executives and workers alike that 2025 will somehow be better than 2024. As TheWrap has noted in its Holding on in Hollywood series, the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, double Hollywood strikes, linear television decline and industry consolidation have led to fewer employment opportunities for both above and below-the-line workers in the film and TV industries. Many people are suffering — and struggling to forge a path forward.

When productions aren’t calling, Lindsay can rely on a few non-industry sources of income, including two Airbnbs he rents out. And when he’s not in LA, he often sublets his Sherman Oaks apartment to friends in the business.

In one of his Airbnbs, he set up a studio where he records a podcast about below-the-line workers that he’s shopping around, which he created to “give a face and a name and a personality to prop masters and production secretaries and wardrobe stylists.”

 Lindsay also has a dotcom brokering business in which he sells web domain names. “I’m on it a few hours a day, and in those other hours, I can write, I can reach out, I can prospect on other jobs,” he said.

Lindsay spoke to TheWrap from Atlanta, where he was visiting family members. He expected to work while he was there as well, but he was unable to line up a gig before he flew in. “There were a number of shows I was up for in LA and Atlanta,” he said. “And because of the looming strike, it either didn’t happen, or it went to someone else.”

A one-way ticket led to “Six Feet Under”

Lindsay’s parents, who came to New York City from the West Indies, were skeptical that he could make a career out of his “filmmaking hobby,” as his father once phrased it. 

After he graduated with a master’s degree from The New School, Lindsay found work in New York City as a PA on commercials.

On the night of the Oscars, he decided to head West to Hollywood. “On the flight from JFK to LAX, the flight attendant asked me, ‘Are you going home?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ I had never lived in Los Angeles before, but I knew that that’s where I wanted to be,” Lindsay said. 

Once he hit LA, he didn’t put out resumes. Instead, he slipped onto sets wearing a headset and volunteering to help. “I stayed hungry, and one thing led to another,” Lindsay said. A TV pilot he was hired on shut down after the lead actress got ill, but it was shooting at Sunset Gower Studios — and next door to the set of HBO’s “Six Feet Under.” 

Lindsay hustled onto that set and got hired as a PA for the Emmy-winning series’ final season.

“I kept working as much as I could, sometimes doing double shifts,” he said.

But Lindsay wasn’t making enough on a PA salary, so he dropped out of the industry for a year to work for various websites, including one for Serena and Venus Williams, and took a job as a project manager for Blitz, an ad agency. “I saved up a nest egg, and then came back into it,” he explained. 

By then, he knew he wanted to become an AD.

That seemed more possible during the boom period from 2015 to 2023 when he sometimes worked 11 months out of the year. And in 2018 and 2019, Lindsay said, new streaming platforms ordered so many shows it created a glut — which seemed to portend endless growth. 

But then came the pandemic and the strikes and the new Hollywood approach of shelving series or movies, sometimes for tax write-offs, which meant residuals from past shows were no longer coming in. 

Lindsay lamented the cancelation of “Westworld,” seemingly because of a dispute between HBO and the series creator. “They can take away all the royalties from the actors, writers and the directors, which is an atrocity, because people put work into that show. They dead end the cost and that’s it,” he said.

He credited directing mentors including Bill Purple for showing him it was possible to go from AD to the director’s chair. And he called Joe Lazarov his “‘ambassador of Quan,’” to quote ‘Jerry Maguire.’”

Another mentor and good friend was Rico Priem, the veteran grip who died in June after suffering a heart attack while driving home for a night shoot of “9-1-1.” 

“When you see that Rico was killed in the car, it may not be anyone to you, but it was someone who brought your favorite TV shows and movies to life. They’re your neighbors, they’re your friends,” he added. 

Among his career highlights was an episode of “Genius” where he and his team had to recreate both the Tulsa riots and the shooting of Malcolm X within two days in Macon, Georgia, which doesn’t have the same level of infrastructure as Atlanta.

“We used background [actors] from Macon because we couldn’t afford to travel to Atlanta or bring people down,” Lindsay recalled. “When you walk onto set and see all this, you’re, like, ‘Wow, this really came together.’ It was such a rush. You think about the shows and the days and the long hours, but then you look at [results like that], it was an amazing thing we did here.”

He also recounted a recent shoot in Joshua Tree at a house that was built into the side of a mountain. “It was an amazing house, made of poured concrete, granite and stone… How many people would see this? It was 104 degrees, and people were passing out, but still, you do what you do with that,” he said.

The bonds he formed on film sets were stronger than even when he was in the Navy or on a basketball team. 

In 2016, he was working in Atlanta when his daughter was about to deliver his first grandchild back in California. “The executive producers chartered me a flight to Burbank so I would have no delay,” Lindsay said. “That’s the type of people that this business has, family-centric people that are really amazing.” 

But lately, with cost cuts and fewer jobs, Hollywood is less generous to its workers.

And not working takes an emotional as well as a financial toll, he admitted. “When you’re not working, you miss that,” he said. “It’s a communal thing. And by not working, you miss that camaraderie, you miss being part of that machine.”

To increase his chances of finding work, Lindsay has also registered as a local in Atlanta, and he splits his time between the two cities. One problem, however, is that LA productions often bring their own LA crews. “More than likely the person who you’re bringing in was somebody who trained me or someone that I worked alongside of,” he said.

From when I was young, all I wanted to do was make movies. And I finally got there but I may not be afforded to finish that journey.

Paul Lindsay

Lindsay said that being Black can also mean he and his colleagues are sometimes overlooked when producers simply hire their friends. 

“The most common lament heard between a lot of my peers is, ‘Oh, I don’t know any Black ADs, so I didn’t call anyone,’” he said. “When someone says, ‘I didn’t know any,’ you didn’t really look, because we’re all over,” he said. “As a result of more people being available… I don’t want to say it’s gotten worse, but it’s become more evident.”

He had hoped to achieve his goal of making it as a director — and then retire early by 60. He and his girlfriend have talked about moving to a different country, somewhere that is not as expensive, where life is a little bit easier.

“I don’t need to make gajillions of dollars,” he said. “I live very simply. I’ve been homeless as an adult,” he said, referring to a brief period in New York when he was in his 30s. “I know what it’s like to live below your means and under your means. I want to make sure that my people, and my tribe, are taken care of and that’s that.”

Lindsay likes to focus on the positive. But the game has changed so drastically, he knows he may soon have to consider a day when he can no longer do what he loves.

“It’s like, damn, I’m close,” he added, “but I’m not going to be able to do it because it’s not fiscally sustainable anymore. It’s like going 90 meters in a race and your shoes fall off, so you can’t continue. And now it’s $4,000 to buy new shoes.”

Next week: The series continues.

Catch up on Holding on in Hollywood:

Part 1: Hollywood Workers Grapple for a Foothold in an Industry at a Crossroads (Erin Browne)

Part 2: A Development Executive Wrestles With How TV’s New Normal Is Crushing the Job Market (Erin Copen Howard)

The post An Assistant Director Says: ‘There Are 100s of Us Sitting at Home’ as Production Shrinks appeared first on TheWrap.