The following is a common filmmaking joke phrase:
How many Pas does it take to screw in a light bulb?
I don’t know, how many?
Six, one to do it and five to stand around and wish they got asked to do it.
The informant explained that often PAs are not really given jobs to do, so they just want something to do
Context: this was collected during our in class collection time
Thoughts: This joke I found particularly interesting because rather than complaining about having to do work, which I found to be a common theme of occupational jokes, rather this joke is about complaining because you don’t have any work to do. I think it would be interesting to compare the jobs of PAs to other jobs on a film set to see if this is really true.