What does a production assistant do?

How can you become a production assistant?

• I want to become a production assistant, and then eventually a celebrity assistant. But I know they're no degrees offered for these jobs. So how can I get there?

• Answer:

  One of my family members (a few years out of college) is a production assistant for a major network drama that is filmed in NYC. She majored in film in college and then moved to NYC after graduation with four of her classmates. They rented a two-bedroom apartment and started looking for jobs, sending out resumes for production assistant jobs and going on interviews. She was hired first, probably because she's smart, personable and a very pretty girl. She worked long hours at low pay (her parents subsidized her for the first couple of years), fetching coffee, running errands and doing all the go-fer jobs that a network TV show requires. She's worked her way up to better jobs on the show since then. Her friends did not all find jobs in TV or film -- some of them took whatever jobs they could find just to stay in NYC, much like actors do. It's a tough business in a very expensive city (Los Angeles is expensive, too), but she doesn't regret her choice. She has the necessary job skills to be in production -- she's highly organized and efficient, she knows where to go for information, she works hard and is willing to work long hours, and she gets along well with people. She's also very persistent and not easily discouraged, which is essential in this industry.