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Dealing With Running Orders

Tips for Production Assistants to help beat the clock!

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1. When dealing with running orders, always round to the nearest five seconds (it always comes out in the wash!)

2. If you miss a timing/timecode going into a VT grab it at 10 seconds and then minus the ten

3. Grab timecodes/timings a minute from the end of a VT and add on a minute – saves trying to grab it whilst counting out

4. Save time by logging the hour and minute before you start recording. That’s probably not going to change before you start

5. If you are working with an analogue stopwatch and need to read your watch quickly without calculations look at it as a cake, split the cake into sections - half a watch = 30 secs, quarter of the watch = 15 secs and each number (slice of cake) = 5 secs

6. Use your countdown watch instead of calculations, this saves trying to do mental maths under stress

7. Always carry a spare battery for your digital watch as you cannot predict when it will need changing

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These tips are from Gillian Bradley, who works in production support training specialising in all aspects of the production assistant / production co-ordinator role. She has previously worked inside and outside the BBC, in studio and on location as a production assistant / manager specialising in live sport and news coverage.

To develop your PA skills, check out:
PA Gallery Skills, PA Foundation, PA advanced.