Milton Riess, chair of the Film and Digital Arts Department at Santa Fe Community College, stands last week in front of a green screen. Reiss said the school’s program to train production assistants helps them learn on-set etiquette, film industry protocols and terminology and build their résumés. Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican
Students and faculty in Santa Fe Community College’s film department operate camera and lighting equipment. The college is offering a production assistant training program meant to help fill the growing need for production assistants in Santa Fe, which has hosted five major television productions since spring 2022.
Milton Riess, chair of the Film and Digital Arts Department, checks the breakers in the green screen studio at the Santa Fe Community College last week.
Milton Riess, chair of the Film and Digital Arts Department, checks some of the lighting equipment in a studio at the Santa Fe Community College last week.
Milton Riess, chair of the Film and Digital Arts Department, prepares the some of the equipment for the start of the the spring semester in a studio at the Santa Fe Community College last week.
Milton Riess, chair of the Film and Digital Arts Department at Santa Fe Community College, stands last week in front of a green screen. Reiss said the school’s program to train production assistants helps them learn on-set etiquette, film industry protocols and terminology and build their résumés. Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican
Milton Riess, chair of the Film and Digital Arts Department, checks the breakers in the green screen studio at the Santa Fe Community College last week.
Milton Riess, chair of the Film and Digital Arts Department, prepares the some of the equipment for the start of the the spring semester in a studio at the Santa Fe Community College last week.
Corlina Kiernan’s first job as a production assistant in New Mexico brought her to White Sands National Park in midsummer for a one-day shoot.
She wore welding goggles to protect her eyes from the sun, which beat down from above and reflected off the sand below.
But others in the production’s cast and crew didn’t bring the right gear to protect themselves from sunburns. It was Kiernan’s job, then, to drive about 30 minutes to the closest convenience store and nearly clear out its selection of sunglasses, sunscreen and SPF lip balm.
This is what production assistants do, explained Milton Riess, co-chair of Santa Fe Community College’s film department: They manage the logistical elements of film, television show, commercial and photoshoot sets that fall outside the domain of any specialized department, from wardrobe to locations management, makeup to lighting. They are the “backbone of any production,” Riess said; they check the weather, transport cast members, ensure crew members know when and where they’ll be filming, manage deliveries and handle many, many more small but important tasks essential to making a set run smoothly.
“It is grunt work, which I don’t mind. I like being kept very, very busy,” Kiernan said.
Milton Riess, chair of the Film and Digital Arts Department, checks some of the lighting equipment in a studio at the Santa Fe Community College last week.
And production assistants are in great demand in Santa Fe, which has hosted at least five major television productions since spring 2022, said Santa Fe Film Office Commissioner Jennifer LaBar-Tapia.
To prepare local talent for work as production assistants, Santa Fe Community College is partnering with Santa Fe County; the Stagecoach Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to preparing New Mexicans for careers in the film and television industry; and the local film office to provide a free training program for production assistants, Riess said.
The program is accepting applications now for a series of weekend production assistant training workshops in February.
The program, inspired by a similar training initiative in Albuquerque, began last year, Riess said.
During its first year, program faculty taught 20 students what it takes to be a production assistant, including on-set etiquette, film industry protocols and terminology, résumé building and more, Riess said. Students also earned Occupational Health and Safety Administration certifications to demonstrate their on-set safety skills.
While the training program can’t promise students a job after participation, it does ensure students are qualified and productions are incentivized to work with local talent, Riess said. Once a production assistant who graduated from the program gets hired, Santa Fe County provides a 50 percent reimbursement of the participant’s $15 per hour wages for up to 160 hours.
The training program churned out 20 newly qualified production assistants last year — 85 percent of whom have now worked in the field — and will train 25 more in February, Riess said.
Students and faculty in Santa Fe Community College’s film department operate camera and lighting equipment. The college is offering a production assistant training program meant to help fill the growing need for production assistants in Santa Fe, which has hosted five major television productions since spring 2022.
Courtesy photo
In this way, the college’s training program expanded the local pool of qualified production assistants, which was far too small to meet the needs of all of the productions hoping to film in Santa Fe, said Dr. Elizabeth Kianu Stahmer, executive director of Stagecoach Foundation.
“What we learned was that folks didn’t really understand what it was to be a production assistant,” Stahmer said. “This was a way to help people build their confidence [and] really understand what skill sets they already have that are directly applicable.”
In addition to putting these skills to use, past students of the training program are starting to see the benefits.
For Emily Reed, who completed the program last year, this kind of training helped her meet key players in the local film industry and secure summertime work as a production assistant.
“So much of the film industry is about who you know. That’s what the program really introduced me to,” Reed said.
For Kiernan, another graduate, the program expanded on her background in theater and stage management and offered her a glimpse into other jobs on film sets.
That’s one of the main reasons to become a production assistant, LaBar-Tapia said: Production assistants work with every department on set and learn what each of them do.
“That is one of the best roles to have on crew when you’re not quite sure what you want to do in a film set,” LaBar-Tapia said.
Kiernan, for instance, gravitated toward the grip department, which operates the rigging and equipment necessary to support cameras. Although she wouldn’t mind being a production assistant on other sets, Kiernan said she hopes to work in that department in the future.
For Kira Jones, another of last year’s graduates, the program was a chance to work toward accomplishing a dream she’d held for decades: to join the film industry. Now in her 50s, she’s a newly trained production assistant and hopes to get into acting, writing and producing sometime soon.
“I think the opportunity to learn this incredible amount of information in such a short time — for free — was invaluable,” Jones said. “I’m a huge believer in engaged learning, and that’s really what this was. ... It prepared us to walk right onto a set and know what we were doing there.”
