Film Jobs - A Useful List - Part I

Producer: The producer initiates, coordinates, supervises, and controls matters such as raising funding, hiring and arranging distributors. The producer is normally involved throughout all phases of the film making process from development to completion of a project. An investor in the project is called an executive producer.

Production Manager: The production manager supervises the physical aspects of the production (not the creative aspects) including personnel, technology, budget, and scheduling.

Production Coordinator: The information nexus of the production, responsible for organizing all the logistics from hiring crew, renting equipment, and booking talent. The PC is an integral part of film production.

Director: The director oversees the creative aspects of a film, including controlling the content and flow of the film's plot, directing the performances of actors, organizing and selecting the locations in which the film will be shot, and managing technical details such as the positioning of cameras, the use of lighting, and the timing and content of the film's soundtrack. Though the director wields a great deal of power, he/she is ultimately subordinate to the film's producer or producers.

Assistant Director: Assists the director.

Script Supervisor: The person who keeps track of what parts of the script have been filmed and makes notes of any deviations between what was actually filmed and what appeared in the script. They make notes on every shot, and keep track of props, blocking, and other details to ensure continuity from shot to shot and scene to scene. The Script Supervisor's notes are given to the Editor to expedite the editing process.

Stunt Coordinator: When a film requires stunts, the stunt coordinator will arrange the casting and performance of the stunt.

Production Designer: A production designer is responsible for creating the physical, visual appearance of the film - settings, costumes, properties, character makeup, all taken as a unit.

Art Director: The art director reports to the production designer, and more directly oversees artists and craftspeople, such as the set designers, graphic artists, and illustrators who give form to the production design as it develops.

Assistant art director: The person who helps out the instructions of the art director.

Set Designer: The set designer is the draftsman, often an architect, who realizes the structures or interior spaces called for by the production designer.

Set Decorator: The set decorator is in charge of the decorating of a film set, which includes the furnishings and all the other objects that will be seen in the film.

Set Dresser: The set dressers apply and remove the "dressing", i.e., furniture, drapery, carpets—everything one would find in a location, even doorknobs and wall sockets.

Props Master: The property master, or props master, is in charge of finding and managing all the props that appear in the film. The propsmaster usually has several assistants, including: props builders, weapons masters, etc.

Key Scenic: The person responsible for the surface treatments of the sets. This includes special paint treatments such as aging and gilding, simulating the appearance of wood, stone, brick, metal, stained glass--anything called for by the production designer. The key scenic artist supervises the crew of painters, and is often a master craftsperson.

Greensman: The greensman is a specialised set dresser dealing with the artistic arrangement or landscape design of plant material, sometimes real and sometimes artificial, and usually a combination of both.

Make-up Artist: Make-up artists work with makeup, hair and special effects to create the characters look for anyone appearing on screen. Their role is to manipulate an actor's on-screen appearance whether it makes them look more youthful, larger, older, or in some cases monstrous. There are also body makeup artists who concentrate their abilities on the body rather than the head.

Costume designer: The costume designer is responsible for all the clothing and costumes worn by all the actors that appear on screen. They are also responsible for designing, planning, and organizing the construction of the garments down to the fabric, colors, and sizes. They are assisted by the costume supervisor and costume crews.

Cinematographer/Director of Photography (DP): The chief of the camera and lighting crew of the film. The DP makes decisions on lighting and framing of scenes in conjunction with the film's director. Typically, the director tells the DP how they want a shot to look, and the DP chooses the correct aperture, filter, and lighting to achieve the desired effect.

Camera Operator: The camera operator uses the camera at the direction of the cinematographer, director of photography, or the film director to capture the scenes on film. Generally, a cinematographer or director of photography does not operate the camera, but sometimes these jobs may be combined. Various assistants are also named.

Production Sound Mixer: The head of the sound department on set, responsible for recording all sound during filming.

Boom Operator: The boom operator is an assistant to the production sound mixer, responsible for microphone placement and movement during filming.

Grip: Grips are trained lighting and rigging technicians. Their main responsibility is to work closely with the electrical department to put in lighting set-ups required for a shot. On the sound stage, they move and adjust major set pieces when something needs to be moved to get a camera into position. They are divided further into Key Grip, Best Boy (assistant to the key grip), dolly grips.

Gaffer: The gaffer is the head of the electrical department, responsible for the design and execution of the lighting plan for a production. Sometimes the gaffer is credited as "Chief Lighting Technician". His/her assistant is referred to as the Best Boy.

Location Manager: Oversees the Locations Department and its staff, typically reporting directly to the Production Manager and/or Assistant Director (or even Director and/or Executive Producer). Location Manager is responsible for final clearing (or guaranteeing permission to use) a location for filming. Usually he/she has several assistants.

Location Scout: Does much of the actual research, footwork and photography to document location possibilities.

Transportation: Transports cast, crew and equipment back and forth between locations. These people are divided into: transportation coordinator, transportation captain, drivers, assistants, etc.

Film Editor: The film editor is the person who assembles the various shots into a coherent film, with the help of the director. There are usually several assistant editors. Various technical responsibilities are referred to as editors such as dialogue editors (who work with dialogue), Sound editing, etc.

Visual Effects Supervisor: The visual effects supervisor is in charge of the visual effects department.

Compositor: A compositor is a visual effects artist responsible for compositing images from different sources such as video, film, computer generated 3-D imagery, 2-D animations, matte paintings, photographs, and text.

Music Supervisor or Music Director: The person who works with the composer (people who write the music), mixers and editors to create and integrate the film's music.

Foley Artist: The foley artist is the person who creates many of the sound effects for a film.

ADR Editor: Edits the rerecorded dialogue.