I hated camera assisting!

[DS Williams]

Forgive my ignorance, but I have a question. And I do not want to sound rude.

 

Do most camera assistants go into the business as Aspiring DP's? Or do they want to specifically operate and operate only. I know that many DP's go into the industry saying they are DP's and DP's only. Are camera assistants the same?

[Bob Hayes]

I’m sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy the job of First Assistant Cameraman. It is a great job and I love the time I spent as one. Hear are some of the highlights.

 

1. There is a lot of job security. A lot of people want to work in this industry but very few people have the technical knowledge to run the camera and the hand eye co-ordination to pull focus. It takes a special person to take your place.

 

2. Your job is key to the success of the project. And if you decide to move up to DP you know you can make that camera work. Camera failure is the number one catastrophic cause of failure for new DP’s.

 

3. You are in the center of the action. The camera is the center of the storm and you are standing right next to it all day. If you want to learn how films are made there is no better seat. You get to watch film school all day. You’ll watch the DP, the Director, the Actors, the Gaffer and Grip. You are on the set almost the entire period of film making. No other person sees what you see. If you want to learn to light you watch the Gaffer and DP solve problems all day. The electric best boy is in the truck and the electricians are picking up banded in the alley.

 

5. There is simplicity to your job. No mater where you go in the world your job is exactly the same. Same camera, same lenses. You can step on to a set in Russian and start pulling focus. You can work on a commercial one day and a documentary the next and there is one constant; the camera.

 

It isn't the easiest or most glamorous of jobs but it can be a great career.

[Brian Drysdale]

Forgive my ignorance, but I have a question. And I do not want to sound rude.

 

Do most camera assistants go into the business as Aspiring DP's? Or do they want to specifically operate and operate only. I know that many DP's go into the industry saying they are DP's and DP's only. Are camera assistants the same?

 

There are camera assistants who are happy being a 1st AC and don't aspire towards being a DP. If they're established, experienced people they can earn a lot more than many DPs do. Quite a few 1st ACs work with the same successful DP a lot of of the time as part of their crew.

 

A friend of mine said after graduating from the National Film School that the lower the grade the more people you can work for. You have to think carefully about the timing of moving up a grade. Although, perhaps there's a little bit more flexibility now, but perhaps this amounts to having a lower grade on higher end productions

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

I’m sorry to hear you didn’t enjoy the job of First Assistant Cameraman. It is a great job and I love the time I spent as one. Hear are some of the highlights.

 

1. There is a lot of job security. A lot of people want to work in this industry but very few people have the technical knowledge to run the camera and the hand eye co-ordination to pull focus. It takes a special person to take your place.

 

2. Your job is key to the success of the project. And if you decide to move up to DP you know you can make that camera work. Camera failure is the number one catastrophic cause of failure for new DP’s.

 

3. You are in the center of the action. The camera is the center of the storm and you are standing right next to it all day. If you want to learn how films are made there is no better seat. You get to watch film school all day. You’ll watch the DP, the Director, the Actors, the Gaffer and Grip. You are on the set almost the entire period of film making. No other person sees what you see. If you want to learn to light you watch the Gaffer and DP solve problems all day. The electric best boy is in the truck and the electricians are picking up banded in the alley.

 

5. There is simplicity to your job. No mater where you go in the world your job is exactly the same. Same camera, same lenses. You can step on to a set in Russian and start pulling focus. You can work on a commercial one day and a documentary the next and there is one constant; the camera.

 

It isn't the easiest or most glamorous of jobs but it can be a great career.

 

Great insight Bob, thanks for that.

 

;)

[Baburam]

Of course you do more than just 'pull'... but you did not 'shoot' F&F.... that was a stretch. You 'worked on' in a capacity that went far beyond 'pulling'.. but 'shot', no.

 

The camera ops shouldn't even be making those assertions.

Hi David,

Do you think only shooting is great? I think it is greater to make shoot than to shoot. I enjoy in feeding more than eating. An AC is right hand of DOP.

[Tom Jensen]

Of course you do more than just 'pull'... but you did not 'shoot' F&F.... that was a stretch. You 'worked on' in a capacity that went far beyond 'pulling'.. but 'shot', no.

 

The camera ops shouldn't even be making those assertions.

 

It's common terminology. I have heard wardrobe use that term and we all know that the wardrobe person wasn't the DP. Hey, it's a collaborative effort. That's why they are called "film shoots." Everyone's working on "the shoot."

[Brenda Gough]

If you actually were able to get an assisting job other members of the camera crew were often unhelpful and did not want to provide training to camera trainees in order to protect their jobs which is understandable and of course there were some exceptions, people who were very helpful. I think this would have been okay if I had felt that I was learning about lighting but on most of the pro shoots I worked on the dop's did very little lighting and it seemed that the gaffer would just always come in and do a bog standard lighting set up the same as the one they did for the last TV drama they worked. It just did not seem creative at all and I felt I learnt a lot more shooting low budget or student films.

 

I just wondered how many others felt the same?

 

I worked as an AC on a small budget film and a fellow student worked on a larger budget film. I had a wonderful experience and she practically had a break-down. :blink:

It really depends on what a person expects to get from the experience and who you are working with. People ARE out to protect their jobs in this current climate but isn't it just doing the decent thing by passing on some knowledge. Surely they were in the same learning position at one time ;)