Is your first time writing your film resume?
Let me guess…
You have browsed at least 5 websites looking for a decent template that fills your expectations.
One with you can get to fulfill your expectations on showcasing the skills, experience and knowledge you have. And it’s that finding a resume you feel good with fortunately, you’ve got to the right place.
While writing your CV, you have to keep in mind that its purpose is to take that job you’re applying for. An effective, captivating and assertive writing standing out your unique strengths, talents, goals, and work ethic will fasten your way ti the elegible 5 list.
On the following lines, you’ll find displayed the top best recommendations to set up your film resume.
Before we continue, a quick shortcut…
What Is Film Production?
Film production, AKA filmmaking, is one of the fastest growing industry in the states. From independent creators to huge film companies like Summit Entertainment, the famous roaring MGM or the starry Paramount Pictures, each one of the projects created require a filming crew.
Whether it’s an independent project or the next Marvel mind-blowing film, the processes of pre-production, production and post-production are key to turn a script into a, almost tangible, idea.
Documentary Film Stage in Blue Illumination
On the filming process many technicians, assistants, designers, engineers, specialists, and directors are involved. There are whole filming crews with people helping, directing, recording, taping, guiding, reading, and designing, among other roles that are involved in movie making.
Here are some essential roles of film crew teams are the following:
|
Production manager Assistant production manager Production coordinator Assistant directors Production designer Art director Set designer Set decorator |
Construction coordinator Propmaster Costume designer Key makeup artist Key hairstylist Director of photography Camera operator Gaffer |
Best boy Key grip Electrician Production sound mixer Boom operator Stunt coordinator Special effects coordinator Production assistants |
Here you’ll find a quick wrap-up explanation by people who does some of these jobs in the film industry land, plus what they like best about their jobs.
What to Include in a Film Resume?
On the film industry, certain things, certain qualifications, degrees and abilities will catch up recruiter’s attention and –for sure- are key to get that job you want to apply for. Your own accountability of the right ones is what will increase their propensity to choose you.
man submit resume to employer to review job application.
The best aspects to include will always vary on the job position you’re looking for, general aspects to include in your film resume are the following:
1. Education
In this space of your resume, you can spread all your degrees, certifications and studies. Both formal and informal education –always the ones relevant for the job- are welcome. Attending to the production school on your studies section will be a power up when it comes to applying for entry-level jobs such as Production Assistant.
Standing out all that knowledge and expertise you have acquired after you have taken such and such courses are much better than just writing a title and nothing else.
2. Professional Experience
Meaning your film credits. There’s no better proof to increase your credibility than to list completed film projects. Of course, if the films you’ve worked in are award winning or well-known, they’ll add a plus to your filming experience.
3. Professional Summary
Located at the top of your page, in this section you can summarize all your professional experience in no more than 2 or 3 bullet points. Start it with verbs focusing on job related abilities such as power and action words to display —in the nicest way— your skills. But mostly who you are and what you have to offer. Down below, you’ll find an example of how to use this verbs. On the other hand, we recommend that you write it at last, not when you’re starting to write your resume.
4. Qualifications
That CPR course you took last year just for personal interests might not be important for this job. Add only the most relevant learning in your resume –seriously, just the most relevant ones! What do I mean by relevant? What are the most relevant qualifications in film industry in 2021?
After all this ups and downs of the pandemic era, filming industry is rewriting their way of working. And, of course, companies are demanding when it comes to hiring.
Nowadays, this industry requires qualities that provide their project team’s adaptability, fast changing planning, problem-solving, creative thinking and other aspects that leads them out of difficulties and dramatic changes.
What Not to Include in a Film Resume?
Your main goal is providing your future employee a very valuable resume. Adding items that are just irrelevant for the job you’re looking for can decrease hugely your propensity to being chosen. You might be asking to yourself: What shouldn’t I add to my resume? Let us list them for you:
- Non-Industry related work experience: Fitness instructor? How is this related to Scriptwriting or Grip positions?
- Your home address: it’s more than enough to add the city you’re living at the moment.
- First person writing: “I am hardworking” doesn’t hit the same that “Hardworking”. Modesty is never an excess and it looks less narcissist, doesn’t it? In addition, you’ll engage the reader more.
- Photo: unless you’re applying for an acting or modeling spot, adding your photo is not advisable. Employers cannot feel drawn to choose a person by the way the look, but instead by their capability to accomplish the job goals.
- Hobbies or Interests: What would be the point on adding “Cooking” as a hobby?
Indeed, every space of your resume needs to have compliant information. Descriptions, bullet points, summaries and lines that show and prove you own the qualification for the job position. Take advantage of each section to add value, tons of value.
How to Describe Your Film Industry Experience
Compelling writing of your relevant experience during all your working time. The previous is the outline for describing your evolution on the filmmaking industry.
You want to know how to summarize it, keep on reading!
Film Production Assistant Resume Summary
Take the word summary very seriously. Right on this section you’ll have few lines to outline and remark you’re a fit for the job position. Just the perfect fit. Let’s set an example so you can tell which aspects to use and the best way to proceed:
Production Assistant Job Description for a Resume
On the previous sections of this article, right on the Qualifications Summary section, an idea was stated “write your Professional Summary at last”.
The most complex sections to fill out is the Professional Summary. How to sum up all those 15 years of experience in just 2, 3 or even 4 bullet points? Or how to summarize my work experence if I don’t have any? Realizing how difficult it can be, here you’ll find some quick tips to describe your film industry summary.
- Start by gathering information about the company. Knowing in depth what their needs are when it comes to work ethic and core values will lead your way and enlighten on the competences you have to pinpoint on your resume.
- Describe only –and exclusively– a specific selection of relevant duties you have achieved all along your working experience.
- Use strong action verbs at the very beginning. Use them when writing remarkable goals you’ve accomplished during your working experience. Verbs such as: Established, Coordinated, Created, Featured, Worked among others are just the right first step to start describing your background. Also, do not write anything in 1st person. This influences a lot on the perception of the reader. A formal but not so wordy language will also help on it.
- Facilitated communication all throughout the team.
- Coordinated set elements as needed by First Directors.
- Managed timing according to scheduled workflow.
- Collaborated with each of the crew members in all aspects of pre and post production.
Key Skills
When looking for a job in the film production industry, having certain specific skills, both soft and hard, are essential to catch the attention of recruiters.
If we refer to soft skills, these are the ability to interact with the outside world, technically the tools we possess to socialize and integrate with everything around us, but also with ourselves. In short, emotional intelligence. Better said by K. Kechagias on his book “Teaching and Assesing Soft Skills”.
We define soft skills as intra- and inter-personal (socio-emotional) skills, essential for personal development, social participation and workplace success.
Some key soft skills on film production industry are:
- Thinking Critically
- Effective Communication
- Organizing, Planning and Prioritizing Work
- Conflict Management
- Collaboration
- Time Management
- Initiative
What are hard skills?
Different from soft skills, hard skills are measureable and teachable, the technical side of any employee. Abilities like:
- AI expertise
- Proficiency on a foreign language
- Script Analysis
- Computer Literacy
- Analytical reasoning
- Film and Sound Editing
- Light engineering
- Video production
- Finances
Choose the Best Format for Your Film Production Resume Template
Here at resume-example.com you’ll find resume templates to display all your information in. Some studies show that recruiters spend about 30 seconds taking a look at your whole resume, but only 5 seconds at the very beginning to decide if continue reading or not.
If your have gasps of information on your resume your best option is our Modern Template. It allows you to gather all relevant information in only 5 sections.
Extensive resume? There’s nothing more difficult than finding the right distribution for all that relevant information when you have a lot to add. This is just one of the reasosns why the Clear resume has is the perfect one for you: you get to find a place for everything!
Do you want to add just the specific information? Add all your data with ease with the Crisp resume.
4 Pro Writing Tips for Your Film Resume Example
Keep it short: summarize everything just in one page.
Wordy Equals Booooring!: blocks of text are a lot less attractive than few specific sentences located in the right way.
Bullet point on credits: this facilitates reading 100 times more.
Tailor each section to the job you’re seeking: adding unnecessary information will get the recruiter to bounce on your resume. His/her eyes won’t want to keep on reading.
FAQ on Writing Your Production Assistant Resume for Film Industry
What’s the Best Format for a Production Assistant Resume?
There are a million formats to select for your resume. Some are astonishing, others practice and some others are the plain traditional kind of resume. But when filming industry resumes is what we are talking about
From all this myriad of options there is a well-known format you can apply to your resume so it becomes easy to read, compliant and gets the attention you want it to have.
You cannot overlook having your resume in all platforms to make it accesible, such as online portfolios, LinkedIn or Google Drive using a one user (reader only) link.
On entries such as work experience and education, you will take as a starting point your most recent one, and you’ll go from there.
For each entry, such as work history or education, give the most recent first and go backward from there.
- Locate a catchy, but honest resume summary. Omit using “I”.
- Start with your latest working experience and studies always.
- Bullet point your film credits in the work experience section
- Add, exclusively, skills that are filming-related, start by the job description ones.
- Use a template where you can gather all needed information with ease, and without losing engagement.
What skills to add on a production assistant resume?
There are at least other 25 people applying for the same jobs as you, or even more. What differentiates you from all of them? This is your motto when creating your article, due to film producers recruit only the top best and is your job to let them know that through your resume.
The perfect combination of soft and hard skill will be the perfect recipe to make them go through your skills section and be amazed after they read the last one listed.
- In order to achieve this, you can research all the skills – in general– a PA has. Keep mind all the info provided in the infographic to differentiate soft form hard skills.
How to list film credits on a resume?
In filming industry, credits speak better than any other thing on your resume. They talk loud and clear, even more if you’ve gotten yourself in large-scale productions.
Not for any reason credits are the most important component of your film resume.
When being a freelancer, credits will be the written proof of all those projects you’ve participated and been part of.
If you’ve been involved in large and serious productions, it will show how apt you’re when challenges pop up. In short, they’ll demonstrate you can handle all kind of task and even further when it comes to doing your job in all directions.
On the other hand, if you want to list some private projects of your own, these will aim to project the passion and commitment you have towards creation and industry-related goals. They grow in importance even more if you’re just starting out on the search of your first production.
Here’s how to list film credits on a resume:
- Large-scale and most serious productions must go at the top.
- When listing them, do it the following way: the title and year, then film type (short, advert, full-feature, documentary, newsreels, etc.), and your position on each of them.
- Display all challenging goals you’ve achieved on serious productions.
- For freelance or private projects, bullet point a few great challenges you could overcome while creating it.
How do you write the experience section of your filmmaker CV?
In this section, the word summary should be taken very seriously. Creating a short description of your relevant skills and most important productions are a good way to start. Never use “I” to talk about your experience, education or goals. You can also describe some responsibilities, duties, fresh ideas, and any other that bring relevance to this introductory part of your resume.
The best distribution to this section is adding your job title, company or employer then create a list with one or two job responsibilities leaded by bullet points. Dates of employment can be added too.
