How to Become the Best Production Assistant

July 3, 2020December 10, 2014 by Josh Short

To break into the video industry you almost always have to become a PA, Production Assistant, or an AE, Assistant Editor. I’m assuming since you’re reading this than you’ve either been one, are one or want to become one. This article is on how to become the best assistant editor or production assistant that you can be.

I’ve worked as an assistant in a number of industries, as a PA and an AE and through my experiences I learned that there’s only one way to become the best PA or AE.

Here it is: Become the best PA or AE by always being one step ahead of the person you are assisting.

It’s rather simple. You can stop reading now if you want, my feelings won’t be hurt, or you can continue reading and learn about a couple real life examples from my career. There will also be some tactics along the way that will help you become the best PA or AE.

Preparing for Vacation: A Quick Guide for Jet-Setting Video Editors

July 17, 2019November 5, 2014 by Josh Short

Soon I’ll be taking my first trip out of the United States and I’m making it a big one – I’m headed to Japan! In this post I’m going to go over what I’m doing to prepare for this lengthy vacation. I’d love for you to chime in too with your thoughts on what you do before going out of town. Thanksgiving for us in the US is right around the corner and the other winter holidays are fast approaching so I think the timing of this post is pretty ideal.

There’s nothing worse than being bothered on vacation or someone messing up your projects/media/hard drive/etc. especially when there’s nothing you can do about it. I’m sure I’ll come back to 1500 emails but I’m going to prepare my company and team the best I can for anything that can happen while I’m gone.

Editing for Others vs. Editing for Ourselves

July 20, 2020October 29, 2014 by Josh Short

My assistant editor is learning a valuable lesson in her young career. She’s learning that when she’s video editing for others, it isn’t necessarily about her sense of creative expression. It’s more about what the producer, client, or director wants. This can be extremely difficult for new, passionate video editors.

Video editing, like any other kind of commissioned artwork I’m assuming, has this weird blurred line. Is the end result what the creator (in our case the video editor) wants or is the end result what the commissioner (producer/director/boss/client/etc.) of the piece wants?

What’s working for me in post right now

July 17, 2019August 20, 2014 by Josh Short

Today I decided to take a step back and look at what’s been going right for me in post production lately. I gathered some hardware essentials, software tips, productivity hacks and more for you in this post. After reading it this make sure to tell me what is working for you right now in post production. The first thing that’s working for me is literally by my side all day, everyday.

Fantom Drives

I absolutely love these external hard drives. I’ve used them for the past five years. I got introduced to Fantom Drives when my old production manager started buying their GreenDrives for deep storage of projects and shipping media to remote freelance editors when shop got too busy.

My Fantom Drive G-Force3. I have six of them.