Set & Crew

First Assistant Director

Also called 1st AD, First AD

What is first assistant director in film production?

The First Assistant Director is the person responsible for running the set and delivering the schedule. They break down the script, build the shooting schedule with the line producer, and on the day they call the shots, manage the clock and keep the unit safe and moving.

The role is frequently misread as the director's assistant. It is not — it is a department head with its own team, accountable for time and safety rather than for creative decisions. The director decides what to shoot; the 1st AD decides whether there is enough day left to shoot it.

On most sets the 1st AD is also the safety officer of record, which means they hold the authority to stop work regardless of who wants it to continue.

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Reviewed 2026-08-27

Related terms

Call sheet: A call sheet is the document issued the day before each shooting day telling everyone where to be, when, and what is being shot. It carries individual call times, the scene list, the location and its parking, weather, sunrise and sunset, hospital details, and department-specific notes.
Shooting day: A shooting day is one scheduled day of principal photography, defined by its call time, its planned scenes and its wrap. It is the atomic unit of a production schedule: budgets, crew bookings and location agreements are all counted in days rather than hours.
Chain of command: The chain of command on a film set is the fixed reporting structure that determines who takes direction from whom. Requests travel through department heads rather than directly to individuals, so that no one receives conflicting instructions and every change is visible to the person accountable for it.
Stripboard: A stripboard is the shooting schedule represented as one coloured strip per scene, ordered in the sequence the production will actually shoot. Each strip carries the scene number, length in eighths, cast IDs, location and day/night. Reordering the strips reorders the shoot.