The production secretary is the first person most visitors meet and the voice on the office's main line. On a studio lot, they're the one who puts a day player's name on the gate list at 6 AM. On a large feature, they're keeping five versions of the contact list straight while the coordinator and APOC handle travel and revisions. It's a desk job with a lot of small, time-sensitive tasks, and it's one of the standard steps toward coordinating.
What fills the day
The work falls into a few groups, and the specific mix depends on the size of the show and how the coordinator divides the office.
The front desk comes first. The production secretary answers the main line, routes calls, and takes messages that someone will actually act on. A useful message has the caller, their department or company, a callback number, the subject, and whether it's urgent. "Stage 7 called about the load-in" isn't enough. "Dana at Stage 7, 818-555-0142, load-in moved from Tuesday to Wednesday 7 AM, needs confirmation by 3 PM today" is.
On a lot or in a secure building, the production secretary sends the drive-on or gate list each day for cast, day players, vendors, and visitors. A missed name means an actor waiting at the gate while the AD calls the office, so the list gets checked against the call sheet every evening.
Production secretaries often maintain the crew list, the cast contact list (with access restricted), vendor contacts, and the office's internal phone sheet. They also file signed deal memos, releases, and permits in the production files the accountant and coordinator will need at wrap.
When script revisions, schedules, or memos go out, the production secretary helps prep printed sets, envelopes for cast, and set packets, and updates the distribution log.
A sample day
On a series office opening at 7:00 AM:
| Time | Task |
|---|---|
| 7:00 AM | Unlock office, check voicemail, send updated gate list for today's day players |
| 8:00 AM | Update the crew list with two new hires from yesterday's start paperwork |
| 9:30 AM | Greet a casting session's actors, direct them to the casting room |
| 11:00 AM | Prep envelopes for new blue pages going to cast |
| 1:00 PM | Order office lunch, cover phones while the APOC is in a production meeting |
| 3:00 PM | File signed location agreements and releases, flag two missing signatures to the coordinator |
| 6:30 PM | Draft tomorrow's gate list from the call sheet, send to the coordinator for review |
Handling contact information
Production secretaries see phone numbers, home addresses, and sometimes passport and dietary information for the whole company. Shows handle this differently, but a few habits are standard. Cast contact info goes only to the people the coordinator approves. The full crew list doesn't get posted on a wall or dropped in an open folder. And when a crew member asks to have their number left off the distributed list, the secretary makes that change in every version of the list.
The crew contact list template shows the columns most offices use. Keeping one master list, with versions exported from it, prevents the common problem of three slightly different lists floating around the office.
Who they work with
Production secretaries report to the production coordinator and assistant production coordinator, and on busy days they direct office PAs. They're in contact with nearly every department by phone, and with accounting and the ADs on paperwork.
Union coverage and pay
IATSE Local 161 lists secretaries among the classifications it represents. The 2025-28 Local 161 wage schedule published through the AMPTP lists minimums for script supervisors, production office coordinators, and assistant production office coordinators but not a separate secretary minimum, so pay on a covered show depends on the agreement terms for that project. In Los Angeles, Local 871's list of represented crafts doesn't include production secretaries. On non-union shows the job pays a negotiated day or weekly rate, usually at the lower end of the production office scale and above office PA.
Because many smaller shows don't budget a separate secretary, the job shows up most on studio features, network and streaming series, and long-running productions with busy offices.
Getting the job and moving up
Most production secretaries were office PAs. Coordinators promote the PA who writes clear messages, keeps lists accurate, and doesn't need to be told twice how the office files things. From there, the next step is APOC.
The skills that move a production secretary up are the same ones the coordinator uses every day: attention to document versions, fast and accurate typing, a clean distribution log, and knowing what a call sheet says before the ADs have to explain it.