Second Assistant Directors

Here is how this works in practice. We place second assistant directors who run the production side of the AD department in Romania, managing cast logistics, preparing call sheets, setting up background performers and acting as the link between the set and the production office. Our second ADs handle cast call times, transport and trailers, run the movement of extras, manage forms and sign-in procedures, and keep the first AD supplied with the info needed to run an efficient floor.

Here is the short of it. We connect shoots with second ADs skilled on global features, series and commercials serviced from Bucharest and the studios at Buftea and Castel Film, and they know the records that supports a clean CNC cash-rebates claim of up to 45 per cent on eligible spend. Because Romania's crew base is deep, skilled and competitively priced, a full AD team can be staffed locally, and our second ADs work fluently in English, manage large background numbers for crowd days, and set up cast and extras with the accuracy a tricky schedule demands.

Here is the breakdown. Romania is well suited to the second AD's role because the country gives both scale and efficiency, and our second ADs use both. Three decades of servicing global shoots, from 'Cold Mountain' to Netflix's 'Wednesday', have built a crew culture familiar with global call-sheet conventions and large-unit working practices. The country's deep talent and background pool, fed by UNATC and Bucharest's theatre and university scene, makes it straightforward to cast and set up the crowds that period and genre shoots need.

Here is what that looks like on the ground. As an EU member inside the Schengen Area, Romania allows cast and crew from across the EU to work without visas, simplifying the logistics a second AD manages each day, while Henri Coanda International Airport keeps Bucharest well connected. The compact geography means cast can be moved efficiently between the studios near Bucharest, Transylvania's medieval towns and the Carpathian locations that global shoots favour, even on tight schedules.