A Curse For Every Job In Hollywood

Cursing a Truck PA

May Galpin not have any 3-tons available on the day you really, really need one. May all your days be pickup days that start late, with vendors who aren’t ready, and productions who haven’t submitted the proper insurance paperwork. May you neglect to return the
truck full of gas. May you incur outrageously dumb L&D — furnie pads and straps gone into the ether, never to be seen again.

Cursing a Director

May you have a hard out. May no one understand your vision. May you be given a 1st AD who’s a real hardass. May your shotlist be unreasonable, leaving you with only enough time for one take of each. May massive story problems only make themselves apparent in editing. May there be no money for reshoots. May your deliverables be uninspiring, and may the studio vow to never work with you again. May you be relegated to projects you feel are beneath you, and may you be too old to do anything else with your life once you realize how unhappy and untalented you really are.

Cursing a Production Designer

May your crew be filled with must-hires straight from the producer. May all your vendors decide they hate you, mysteriously. May you be forced to hire union when the budget begs for non-union. May you be the one who has to tell production you’re astronomically over budget through no fault of your own, in front of the client. May you fail to have the one tool in your kit that you need, that you’ve been meaning to purchase. May your build day go wrong via massive vendor miscommunications. May your on-set dresser be unreliable when it come to continuity when it actually matters most. May your art director make a power move during your busiest season, steal your entire crew and leave you to rot. May Warner Bros. place the one hero chair you need for re-shoots into the archive never to be pulled again, and when you go see The Conjuring 2, may it mock you relentlessly from on screen.

Cursing a Cinematographer

May your puller continually pull slightly out of focus, but impossible to tell until you’re in editing with no way to re-shoot. May your 1st AC neglect to slate correctly, no matter how many reminders. May your dolly grip or steadicam op lose their footing during the longest tracking sequence of your career. May you lose the shot as the sun sets behind the hills. May the budget for reshoots be so inadequate you’re forced to work with “real idiots” and may everyone love your shittiest film the most, and bring up shots you hate with a passion.

Cursing a Grip

May you be a grip all your live-long days.

Cursing Lighting

May everyone assume you’re a grip. May everyone beg you for a worklight though you have none. May you be essentially forgotten in every single way, for all intents and purposes.

Cursing an Editor

May no one understand what you do, how you do it, or why it’s important. May this eat away at your soul, forever. May you consistently get no credit for working miracles as your idiot director is lauded for his incredible vision.

Cursing Transpo

May there be no place to park anything that makes any fuckin’ sense. May you have nothing to read or watch, and no cell reception. May you be forced to move often from the gentle cocoon of the truck cab, and may crafty suck so, so bad.

Cursing Crafty

May you plan and prepare and still not have the one item that the client wants when they wander over, bored out of their skulls. May your cuties be mysteriously rotten, your jar of red vines rock hard, your hot food improperly stored and laden with food poisoning.

Cursing Wardrobe

May you spill a latte all over your onset kit. May your actors lie constantly about their height, weight and size. May there be no place to plug in your steamer when you need it most. May your dry cleaner lose the duplicate hero dress that was aged to perfection. May the WB costume house discover you’ve been pulling and putting things back yourself out of order and ban you. May your single rack break, miles from any replacements. May your on-set dresser be too stupid to do continuity. May you destroy the vintage Chanel dress on loan.

Cursing Hair and Makeup

May you be forced to do both hair and makeup, though they are separate unions. May no one understand what it is that you do, and give you no time to do it in. May there be unreasonable expectations when it comes to the limits of your craft. May your actors sit in stony silence and criticize your work after you’re done.

Cursing an Actor

May pilot season suck for you this year (like it does every year). May none of your shows get picked up for another season. May you habitually forget your lines, especially in the midst of a union commercial shoot, double-overtime situation with a very expensive stunt featuring child actors and animal wranglers. May you be part of a very bad but very long-running sitcom that pays well, gives you an annoying ever-present catchphrase and makes you incredibly famous, but stifles your soul until all you can do is retire to the hills with your money, remembering what it was to want, to desire — once.

Cursing an On-Set Teacher

May you meet with the most obnoxious children alive. May their crappiness only be matched by the awfulness of their fame-hungry parents. May you be given the unpleasant task of pulling your child actor off the job at the most inopportune time to try and “teach” them something, anything for 15 minutes while the producer cajoles and fights you every step of the way.

Cursing a Producer

A month into your carefully budgeted non-union shoot, may you flip and flip hard. May you book many meetings but never sell anything. May your financiers pull funding the day before your shoot begins, even though talent, production and everything is set to start in the morning. May your reputation precede you. May you deeply disappoint those who have been eager to meet you. May you grow disenchanted before you grow old, and may you hurtle down the path of destruction as fast as your feet can carry you.

Cursing a Locations Manager or Site Rep

May the place just burn to the ground.

Cursing Casting

May they say they are available, when in fact, they are not. available. May they hold out on you and string you along. May their headshots be out of date with a hundred useless skills, like fencing, listed. May they just not be right after all for the part. May the chemistry read go horribly wrong.

Cursing a Writer

May only 5% of your original script remain once they’re done with the re-writes. May your best lines be continually stolen or cut entirely. May you get nothing during staffing season. May you sell script after script and nothing ever get made. May this make you bitter, forever.

Cursing a PA

May you be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time when the producer comes storming through, hellbent on punishing someone, anyone. May you accidentally consume the special vegan, gluten-free organic lunch that was reserved for talent — miles from the nearest food source. May you succeed in Hollywood, and may you look back on all this and wonder if it was worth it.