Focus Puller - Other Duties

Other Duties

Additionally, the 1st AC also checks for unwanted lens flares during the setup of a shot, and does what he can to eliminate them through the use of a mattebox eyebrow, hard matte, or requesting a flag be set by a member of the grip department.

At the end of a successfully shot scene, the focus puller will be called upon to "Check the gate". This involves removing the lens and inspecting with the aid of a flashlight and magnifying glass the aperture to which the film is held during exposure, the focus puller is looking for any foreign bodies, e.g. hair, bits of broken film, fluff etc., that would show on the film and therefore ruin the just completed scene filming. This obviously is only relevant to shooting on film, but there is a similar task although not needed nearly as often to check the CCD in digital movie cameras.

The 1st AC reports to the director of photography, works alongside the camera operator, and oversees the 2nd assistant camera (also known as the "clapper loader") and any other members of the camera department.