Television and Feature Film
In unionized television and feature film, production assistants are usually divided into different categories: "Set PA", "Truck PA", "Locations PA", "Office PA", or "Set Runner" and "Extra PA or Daily" - Variations exist depending on a show's structure or region of the United States or Canada.
Office PAs usually spend most hours in the respective show's production office handling such tasks as phones, deliveries, script copies, lunch pick-ups, and related tasks in coordination with the production manager and production coordinator.
Set PAs work on the physical set of the production, whether on location or on a sound stage. They report to the assistant director (AD) department and key set PA if one is so designated. Duties include echoing (calling out) "rolls" and "cuts", locking up (making sure nothing interferes with a take), wrangling talent and background, facilitating communication between departments, distributing paperwork and radios, and related tasks as mandated by the ADs. Set PAs usually work 12- to 16-hour days with the possibility at the end of a shoot to work more than 20 hours a single day and are regularly the "first to arrive and the last to leave".
Read more about this topic: Production Assistant
Famous quotes containing the words television, feature and/or film:
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—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
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“The motion picture is like a picture of a lady in a half- piece bathing suit. If she wore a few more clothes, you might be intrigued. If she wore no clothes at all, you might be shocked. But the way it is, you are occupied with noticing that her knees are too bony and that her toenails are too large. The modern film tries too hard to be real. Its techniques of illusion are so perfect that it requires no contribution from the audience but a mouthful of popcorn.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)