On this page
- Resume guide for a production assistant resume
- How to write a production assistant resume
- Choosing the best resume format for a production assistant resume
- Include your contact information
- Make use of a summary
- Right vs wrong: the same production assistant summary, twice
- Outline your experience
- Track your days, your roster status and your union path
- Build a snapshot of your key skills
- List your education and certifications
- Choose the right layout and design
- Production assistant job market and outlook
- What salary you can expect as a production assistant
- Key takeaways for a production assistant resume
- Related administrative resume examples
- FAQ
In short, a production assistant resume is a one page document that lists credits, not jobs. Specifically, it names each production, its format, the department you sat in, and who you answered to, and it does that in a layout a line producer can read in about eight seconds between phone calls.
This page sits in the administrative category because that is where job boards file it. The work is not administrative. For context, a production assistant is entry level crew on a film, television or commercial set, hired per production, paid per day, and judged almost entirely on who will vouch for them.
Resume guide for a production assistant resume
To start, this guide and the corresponding production assistant resume example will cover:
- How to write a production assistant resume as a credits list rather than an employment history
- Why the department line matters more than the job title
- First, three adaptable summaries: first credits, key PA, and coordinator
- Then, how days accrue toward union eligibility, and where that belongs on the page
- Finally, what the freelance day rate reality looks like and what the Bureau of Labor Statistics can and cannot tell you
How to write a production assistant resume
In total, five blocks: contact header, summary, credits, skills and certifications, and a short references or referrals line. One page, always. By contrast, a two page PA resume reads as somebody who has not worked enough to know better.
BlockWhat it is answeringWhere it goes
- HeaderCan I reach this person tonight, and can they drive?Top, with city and phone
- CreditsWhat have they actually been on, and at what scale?The body of the page
- DepartmentWhich desk do they belong to: set, office, art, locations?Inside every credit line
- Days and roster statusAre they tracking toward union eligibility?One line, near the certifications
In other words, the credit line is the unit of the document. Everything else supports it.
Write the department into every credit, because that is the hiring unit
Production assistant is not one job. A set PA works to the second assistant director and spends the day on lockups, background wrangling and moving people quietly. An office PA works to the production coordinator and lives in distribution, runs, petty cash and travel. An art department PA answers to the art director. A locations PA works to the location manager and handles parking, signage and neighbourhood relations.
These are different skill sets hired by different people. A resume that says "Production Assistant, Untitled Feature" makes the reader guess. A resume that says "Set PA, second unit, reporting to the 2nd AD" tells them which pile to put it in.
Write the department, the person you reported to by role, and whether it was main unit, second unit, or splinter.
Run the file through the free ATS resume checker before you send it. Studio and network productions increasingly recruit through applicant systems even for day player crew.
Choosing the best resume format for a production assistant resume
As a rule, reverse chronological by production, grouped by format. The industry uses only that format, and departing from it signals that you have not seen many crew resumes.
Group your credits under headings such as Episodic Television, Feature Film, Commercial and Music Video, and Live and Broadcast. Within each group, newest first. If you have two credits in one group, keep the group anyway, because the heading is doing the work of telling the reader what kind of set you are used to.
However, functional and skills-first layouts fail badly here. A production manager is checking whether you have survived a real shooting schedule, and a format with no dates reads as somebody who has not.
Include your contact information
Tobias Ferreira-Lund
Set and Office PA, Atlanta, will travel and work local anywhereClean license, own vehicle, 15 passenger van experience, OSHA 10(404) 555-0117, tobias.ferreira-lund@example.comTobias Ferreira-Lund
Aspiring filmmaker and creative storytellerHard working team player with a love of film(404) 555-0117, tobiasfilms4life@example.comAlso, three details belong in the header that would look strange on any other resume. Whether you drive, whether you own a vehicle, and whether you will work as a local hire in another market. After all, crew calls come at nine at night for a six in the morning start, and coordinators call the person who can say yes to all three first.
Make use of a summary
Three or four lines: the department you work in, the formats and scale you have handled, the last twelve months of volume, and your certifications or roster status.
First credits production assistant adaptable resume summary example
Key production assistant adaptable resume summary example
Production coordinator adaptable resume summary example
Right vs wrong: the same production assistant summary, twice
Put simply, the right column has a scale attached to it. Meanwhile, somebody who has never been on a set could write the wrong column, which is exactly the risk the reader is screening for.
Outline your experience
Every credit gets one line of identification and, if it earns it, one or two lines of detail. Even so, most credits do not earn the detail. A national commercial gets a line. A season you keyed gets three.
- Instead of
Assisted with daily set operations
UseRan lockups on a five block exterior with 22 background and two picture vehicles
- Instead of
Helped the production team as needed
UseDistributed call sheets, sides and script revisions to a 96 person crew across two units
- Instead of
Handled paperwork and filing
UseBuilt daily production reports and exhibit Gs, reconciling 140 crew timecards a week
- Instead of
Drove cast and crew
UseDrove a 15 passenger van on a 4:30am crew shuttle for 26 shoot days, no incidents
- Instead of
Worked on several film projects
UseEpisodic Television: two network seasons, 38 shoot days; Commercial: 9 national spots
Adaptable resume credits example
Episodic Television
Key Set Production Assistant, Hollow Creek, season 2, one hour scripted drama, Silverpine Television for a national streaming service, Atlanta GA, March 2025 to October 2025, 42 shoot days. Reported to the 2nd AD. Ran a team of four PAs across main and splinter units, owned the walkie plan, and handled background holding for calls of up to 180.
Set Production Assistant, Hollow Creek, season 1, Silverpine Television, Atlanta GA, June 2024 to November 2024, 38 shoot days. Lockups, background wrangling, cast set walks and paperwork distribution.
Feature Film
Office Production Assistant, The Long Field, independent feature, Beacon Ridge Pictures, Savannah GA, February 2024 to April 2024, 24 shoot days. Ran distribution, petty cash reconciliation and crew travel for a 62 person unit.
Commercial and Branded
Set and Office PA, 9 national spots for agency and brand clients, various production companies, Atlanta GA, 2023 to 2025, one to three day shoots.
Two things make that block work. At minimum, every credit carries the format, the production company and the number of shoot days. Also name the role you held precisely, because "key" is a title with a meaning and using it when you were not the key is the fastest way to lose a reference.
Track your days, your roster status and your union path
Above all, this is the section that only exists on a production assistant resume, and it is the one that decides where your next five years go.
In practice, below the line crew work is credentialed by accumulated days, not by qualifications. In the Los Angeles area, Contract Services administers the Industry Experience Roster, which covers more than 125 job classifications represented by IATSE and the Basic Crafts unions, and many of those classifications require 30 days of qualifying work experience within a 365 day period before you can be placed on the roster (Contract Services work experience FAQ, revised 4 March 2026). Other markets work through their local directly and through the Area Standards Agreement rather than through that roster, so the rule you are tracking against depends on where you work.
Similarly, the industry counts the assistant director path the same way. The Directors Guild of America Assistant Directors Training Program runs a full two years and requires a minimum of 350 production days worked in that period, and graduates are eligible to join the DGA in the category of 2nd Assistant Director (DGA Assistant Directors Training Program FAQ, accessed September 2026).
Adaptable resume days and eligibility block example
Days and eligibility
Non union days worked, last 12 months: 118 across 3 productions
Total days worked since 2023: 287
Markets worked: Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana
Tracking toward: 2nd Assistant Director qualification
Union status: non union, available for union productions as a permit hire
Log every day the week you work it
Nobody reconstructs three years of day counts from memory. Keep a spreadsheet with the date, the production, the production company, the classification you worked in, and the name of the person who hired you.
Two years later, that spreadsheet is the difference between an application that goes through and one that stalls because you cannot evidence the days. It is also the only reliable source for the credits block on this resume, since production titles change between shooting and release and you will otherwise be searching for what a show was eventually called.
Build a snapshot of your key skills
For skills, eight to twelve entries in three groups: set craft, systems and paperwork, and the practical licenses that make you hireable on short notice.
Adaptable resume skills example
Set craft: Lockups and crowd control, Background wrangling and holding, Walkie discipline and channel plans, Cast set walks, Basecamp and circus layout, Set etiquette on a hot set
Office and paperwork: Call sheets and movement orders, Daily production reports and exhibit G, Script revision distribution and color order, Petty cash and purchase order reconciliation, Crew travel and accommodation
Systems: Movie Magic Scheduling, StudioBinder, Scenechronize, Google Workspace, Adobe Acrobat, Dropbox
Practical: 15 passenger van, own vehicle and clean license, OSHA 10, first aid and CPR, passport valid for travel
The practical group is not filler. A production coordinator staffing a distant location needs to know before they call you whether you can drive the van, whether you can be on a plane on Tuesday, and whether you will clear a set safety orientation.
List your education and certifications
Next, education goes near the bottom and stays short. After all, film school is common enough in this occupation that it is not a differentiator, and the credits above it are what the reader came for.
Adaptable resume education and certifications example
Certifications: OSHA 10 Hour General Industry, Occupational Safety and Health Administration authorized trainer (2024). Adult First Aid, CPR and AED, American Red Cross (2026). Safety Pass orientation courses completed for set operations.
Bachelor of Arts, Film and Media Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta GA, 2023
Also: Georgia driver license, clean record, comfortable with a 15 passenger van and a cargo trailer.
If you have no degree, this section becomes two lines of certifications and a driving record, and that costs you nothing. In fact, crew hiring in this occupation genuinely does not screen on degrees.
Choose the right layout and design
As for layout, single column, plain type at 10 or 11 point, one page, PDF. No photograph, no reel stills, no color blocks, no logos from the productions you worked on, which is a rights problem as well as a taste problem.
Name the file for yourself and the department: tobias-ferreira-lund-set-pa-resume.pdf. People will forward it four times before anyone hires you, and the filename is what survives.
Do
- Group credits by format and give shoot day counts.
- Name the production company as well as the production.
- State the department and who you reported to by role.
- Keep a running day log and put the current total on the page.
- Put driving, vehicle and travel availability in the header.
- List a referral line naming the roles who will vouch for you, such as a 2nd AD and a production coordinator.
Don’t
- Do not inflate your title; keying a show is a specific job and the person who actually keyed it is one phone call away.
- Do not list productions you were on for a single unpaid day as though they were credits.
- Do not include unreleased project names that are still under a non disclosure agreement; write the format and the company instead.
- Do not add a reel link on a crew resume, since it answers a question nobody asked.
- Do not run to two pages.
Production assistant job market and outlook
The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not publish a separate production assistant occupation, so the honest framing is to look at the occupation the job leads to and the industries that hire for it.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Producers and directors jobs, 2025 | 181,000 |
| Projected change, 2025-35 | 4 percent, or 7,300 jobs |
| Projected annual openings | About 12,100 |
| Typical entry-level education | Bachelor's degree |
| Related work experience usually required | Less than 5 years |
| Median annual wage, May 2025 | $90,360 |
One in five works for themselves, and the work follows the format
Among producers and directors, 20 percent are self-employed, and the largest employing industries are motion picture and video industries at 19 percent with a median annual wage of $105,300, media streaming distribution services and social networks at 13 percent at $98,520, performing arts and spectator sports at 9 percent at $74,240, and television broadcasting at 7 percent at $65,230 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025).
Read that table as a map of where PA days come from and what they are worth later. The two best paid industries are also the two that hire in seasons and blocks, which is why crew resumes are organized by production rather than by employer.
It also explains the self-employment figure. Nobody in this line of work has a single employer, so the resume's job is to prove a pattern of being rehired rather than a tenure.
What salary you can expect as a production assistant
Production assistants are paid a day rate, not a salary, and the rate depends on the format, the budget tier, the market and whether the production is union.
The published federal figure covers the occupation this job leads to rather than the job itself. For reference, producers and directors had a median annual wage of $90,360 as of May 2025, with the lowest 10 percent under $45,780 and the highest 10 percent over $198,540 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, May 2025). However, that spread is the career, not the entry point.
In practice, three things move a PA rate, and two of them are things this resume can carry:
- Format and budget tier. For example, a national commercial day and a low budget independent day are not the same money for the same hours, and your credits block shows which rooms you are already in.
- Department and title. Keying a set, coordinating an office or running the art department truck all pay above a general set PA day, and each requires you to have been named in that role somewhere.
- Union status. Once you are working under a collective agreement, the rate, the turnaround, the meal penalties and the overtime structure are negotiated rather than offered, which is why the day count block on this page matters more than any bullet point.
Because you are paid per day, annual earnings in this occupation are a function of days worked as much as rate. As a result, two hundred days at a modest rate beats ninety days at a good one, which is the argument for keeping the day log and for being the person who can travel.
Key takeaways for a production assistant resume
- First, build a credits block, not an employment history, and group it by format.
- Then put the department and the role you reported to inside every credit.
- Give shoot day counts and production company names; both are how a credit is verified.
- Also keep a running day log and put the current total and your roster or union status on the page.
- Put driving, vehicle and travel availability in the header, because it decides who gets called first.
- Never claim a title you did not hold, because this industry checks by phone, and quickly.
- Finally, one page, single column, PDF, named for yourself and your department.
Related administrative resume examples
- Administrative assistant resume
- Administrative coordinator resume
- Office administrator resume
- Office assistant resume
- Office clerk resume
- Office manager resume
- Personal assistant resume
- Executive assistant resume
- Receptionist resume
- Virtual assistant resume
- Data entry specialist resume
- Business manager resume
Production assistant resume questions, answered
How long should a production assistant resume be?
One page. Crew resumes are read in a hurry, often on a phone, and the credits block is the only part anyone studies. If your credits list outgrows a page, start cutting the oldest one or two day commercials rather than adding a second page.
Do I put unreleased or confidential productions on the resume?
Write the format, the production company and the dates, and leave the title off if it is still covered by a non disclosure agreement. "One hour scripted drama, Silverpine Television, 42 shoot days" tells the reader everything they need and breaks nothing.
What goes on a production assistant resume with no credits?
Any production adjacent work you have actually done, described the way a set would describe it: student films with shoot day counts, live event crew, theater run crew, camera or grip assistance, and driving work. Then the practical block: license, vehicle, van experience, OSHA 10, first aid. A first time PA who can drive, will travel and will not touch a hot set is exactly what a 2nd AD is looking for.
Should I list every commercial separately?
No. Group them: "9 national spots for agency and brand clients, various production companies, 2023 to 2025". Name individual commercials only where the production company is one you want the reader to notice.
Is production assistant an administrative job?
Job boards file it in administrative categories, which is why you found this page there, but the work is entry level film and television crew. The paperwork side is real, particularly in the production office, but a set PA spends the day outdoors managing people and vehicles, and a resume written as though it were an office role will be read as a resume from somebody who has never worked a shoot day.
How many days do I need before I can join a union?
It depends on the classification and the market. In the Los Angeles area, Contract Services notes that many classifications require 30 days of qualifying work experience within a 365 day period for placement on the Industry Experience Roster (Contract Services, revised 4 March 2026). The assistant director route is counted separately: the DGA Assistant Directors Training Program requires a minimum of 350 production days over its two year term before graduates are eligible to join as a 2nd Assistant Director (DGA Assistant Directors Training Program, accessed September 2026). Track your days from your first one.