Runner, gofer, general factotum, wage slave, trainee, 4th Assistant Director - however you want to dress it up, runner has remained the standard term for point-of-entry jobs in the film and television business.
Runner, gofer, general factotum, wage slave, trainee, 4th Assistant Director - however you want to dress it up, runner has remained the standard term for point-of-entry jobs in the film and television business.
In exchange for the lowest wage permissible, runners are expected to do the jobs everyone else doesn't want to. In a production company this could well be filing and photocopying; in a hire company, delivering film kit; in a post-production house, labelling tapes and cleaning cables. Oh, and making lots of cups of tea.
The Production Runner
Jennifer Stevens contacted Working Title Films, makers of Bridget Jones and Wimbledon, in her last year of university. Instead of employing full time runners, WT operate a work experience rota where students interested in the film industry can do two weeks work experience for Britain's most successful production company. "I mailed them my CV at the end of the summer and then followed up with a call. They were fully booked for six months but arranged for me to go in for two weeks the following January. The work was very basic; a lot of photocopying, getting lunches, picking books up from Waterstone's and so on - you are there to be on hand for any small job that needs doing. In return, I got my first impression of how a production company works; how the development, legal and production departments work together. Back then I had only ever seen the films the company had made, like Four Weddings and Love Actually. I had no idea of how long it takes for these films to come together. At the end of my two weeks I got to meet Debra Hayward, the Head of Film, and she asked me what I wanted to do and advised me where to go next. These ten minutes were invaluable. I started working in another part of the business, but I know Working Title have promoted some of their runners into assistants, one is now the assistant to the Chairman. I also learned that almost everyone in the industry has been a runner at some stage in their careers".
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