What equipment does an assistant need?
If you end up as a first assistant on set, you are the photographers life line, you’re their peripheral vision. It’s often your job to manage the rest of the set so that the photographer can get the job done. On a stressful day with a difficult client it can be a thankless job, on a good day it can be one of the best jobs in the world.
Your responsibility will depend on the trust between you and the photographer, the size of the team, and how they choose to operate.
In my five years doing this, Ie worked with some great teams, and then I worked with some absolutely awful ones. My tip is if you’re treated like shit, take yourself elsewhere, it’s not an environment you should tolerate, and in so tolerating you enable these men (and they’re almost always men). Don’t do it.
The most important skills you can learn are organisational, and will help for your own work. You need to be attentive (phones away unless you’re asked to do something with yours), and always be looking for the next task, for example, if the weather is turning it will be your job to get umbrellas and set up a tent, if the sun is coming out, you may be needed to set up a scrim (an hour before you’re even asked to). The more you can predict, the easier it makes a photographers job, the more care they can take between shots, and the less stressful the job for everyone.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way.
I’ve been talking to a few of us on tips, and tricks and what should go in our bags, big shout out to Brock McFadzean who provided a lot of these from his current kit.
First Aid Kit
Water bottle
Tape: Gaff Tape (non marking) / Coloured Tape / Electrical Tape
Grey Card / Colour Checker
Multitool (Leatherman)
Bulldog Clips
Spring Clamps (1, 2 and 3 inch clamps)
Lightmeter (Sekonic L-308X is what I’d recommend)
Batteries: AA’s / Camera Batteries / Battery Bricks 100 Wh’s w/ USB cables
Reflector (both collapsible and rigid if you own one)
Work gloves
Cable ties / Rubber Bands / Red Ties (Think Tank Product)
Memory cards/Card reader
Tripod + Allen keys to adjust it
Music Speaker
Spare spigots
Torch
Snacks
Deoderant
Massage Gun
One of the main reasons I stopped assisting was a lack of a drivers license, it’s necessary, having your own car will make a huge difference as well.
I keep these all in a duffel bag, I have a smaller Crumpler bag for running around on set, I always recommend wearing comfortable and breathable clothes, in my case you’ll almost always catch me in a pair of Patagonia Baggie 5’ shorts , and a black t-shirt, the no nonsense approach is something I was taught, you don’t want an assistant whose too concerned with their appearance, but also don’t want one who is impractical with their steps. I mention the brand of the shorts because you really should be picking outdoor wear for this stuff because if you’re first on set you’re the most likely to end up doing all the physical labour on set.
