Overview of the role
A production secretary/production assistant is responsible for supporting the production management team with arranging travel, accommodation, and supplies. They will assist with general administrative work on a production as well as preparation for filming. They may be required to assist with hospitality, purchases such as production food or stationery. They will be required to assist the production coordinator and production manager with any receipt reconciliation and tracking. They may also organise release forms and support the production coordinator with production paperwork. They are typically line managed by the production manager or production coordinator.
Core responsibilities
These core responsibilities are provided as a guide and are not exhaustive. The exact responsibilities in a particular job will vary depending on the scale / budget band / genre of the production.
- Set up and equip production offices so they are suitable to meet production requirements
- Research and book travel for production and contributors and providing costs to production management team
- Liaise with internal and external suppliers
- Assist production coordinator to ensure that equipment, people, and facilities are in place
- Arrange production meetings and diary invites
- Organise travel and accommodation for contributors and crew to meet requirements, including any access needs
- Supporting team during filming. Review arrangements and adjust to better meet production requirements
- Deal with urgent matters when they occur and in collaboration with appropriate production personnel
- Collect receipts for production purchases and add to cost tracker for reconciling
- Collate release forms and organise scanning and GDPR-compliant storage where necessary
- Gather health and safety supplies for filming such as first aid kits and any personal protective equipment (PPE)
- Sourcing props from hire companies
- Sourcing information for call sheet such as local amenities and weather forecasts
- Oversee collection of hire cars
- Maintain equipment or props list
- May be required to oversee some runner tasks
- De-rig production office
- Treat confidential and sensitive information and data in line with organisational and data protection requirements
- Delivery of rushes or transport drives to post facility – coordinating runners
- Ensure all receipts are reconciled and submitted to the production coordinator
- Organisation of props and other items to be retained by production in storage
- Support production coordinator with post-production paperwork such as music cue sheets if required
- Ensure all essential information is handed over to production coordinator
Skills
Check out role specific skills, transferable skills, and attributes for the role of production secretary/production assistant (unscripted TV).
- Organise and communicate production travel including any changes to the team
- Liaise daily with production coordinator (PC), production manager (PM) and line producer (LP)
- Organisation of supplies for the production
- Assist in financial control of bookings or spend
- Reactive and quick thinking in assessing each task and then delivering what is needed
- Confident dealing with all levels of talent and team hierarchy
- Team-working: collaboration within own and wider production team and contributors
- Communication: interpreting other’s requirements and communicating requirements to colleagues
- Etiquette: learn and uphold the roles and responsibilities within production teams and communication etiquette
- Time management: able to prioritise tasks and ensure production are kept up to date with progress of tasks
- Planning: assisting team with planning practical requirements for transport, accommodation, equipment, props, and catering, to meet production needs
- Problem-solving: assisting with resolving issues during production
- Resilience and enthusiasm: adapt positively to changing work priorities and patterns, ensuring deadlines continue to be met
- Proactive: explores new ideas and non-standard ways of working which will enhance and deliver the best results for the production
- Productivity: organises work effectively and achieves required results within deadlines
- Demonstrates the drive and energy to get things done in pressurised situations and escalates appropriately when necessary
- Ethics and integrity: honest and principled in all their actions and interactions
- Respectful and inclusive of others and meets the ethical requirements of their profession
- Flexibility: willing to both listen and learn and to accept changing priorities and working requirements and has the flexibility to maintain high standards in a changing production environment
- Professional development: develop an ethos to learn and seek out learning and networking opportunities, identifying those that will be most beneficial