In a classroom at Mercer County Community College, 25 people last weekend provided the latest evidence that New Jersey’s film and TV production industry is growing.

The students were participating in a “boot camp” for aspiring production assistants in the industry, whose strong growth in the past three years has resulted in an increased demand for people to fill entry-level positions.

The aim of the two-day program was to give participants the skills they need to walk onto a film set, meet the demands of directors and producers, understand the relationships of the different production personnel and learn the language used in a high-pressure environment.

Starting at the bottom

Three instructors outlined the functions of all the players on a film set and explained how a production assistant — the lowest level on the industry’s totem pole – fits in. Wearing army-style green T-shirts with “PA Boot Camp” stenciled on them, the instructors barked commands at the recruits who were required to respond as if they were on a parade ground.

Instructor Leigh Paonessa, wearing camouflage shorts, a baseball cap and aviator sunglasses, told students what they need to do in response to a demand from an assistant director.

“The first AD’s going to come on the radio and they are going to say ‘rehearsal’s up’. You say ‘rehearsal’s up’. You fill the room with your voice,” she shouted. “There’s absolutely no excuse if someone who is standing outside that door can’t hear you.”

The boot camp was the seventh to be held in New Jersey by a group of former film professionals who conduct the events all over the world. In New Jersey, the courses are funded by NBC Universal, making them free to participants, although students elsewhere have to pay.

Demand for the courses is driven by the industry’s rapid growth, which contributed an estimated $501 million to the state’s economy in 2021, said Elizabeth Parchment, director of marketing and chief diversity officer for the state’s Motion Picture and Television Commission, part of the Department of State.

The industry has grown from $67 million before 2018 when Gov. Phil Murphy reinstated a tax break that had expired under former Gov. Chris Christie. The incentive has attracted an increasing number of production companies, and three studios, two in Kearny and one in Jersey City, have opened this year, Parchment said.

The industry created 10,300 jobs with the aid of the tax credit in 2019. The industry was shut down by the pandemic in 2020, and officials are still awaiting job figures for 2021, Parchment said.

Under the revived program, production companies must be planning to spend at least $1 million in New Jersey to qualify for the tax break.

“The tax incentive program really is a game changer for film and television production in New Jersey,” Parchment said in an interview. “There is a growing demand. We’ve always had a pool of talent here in New Jersey but there just weren’t many opportunities.”

Walking the walk

“What we’re trying to get is someone who will actually do the job, not browse,” said Jody Brockway, a former film industry executive who directs the program. “I’m helping New Jersey build their workforce; I’m not helping somebody who’s a Princeton senior who just is looking for something fun to do in the summer before ‘I start my big job at Google.’”

Brockway selected the 25 participants from last weekend’s camp from about 125 applicants. Each was asked to write a paragraph saying why he or she wanted to participate. People who are actors or seem to see the production assistant’s job as just a stepping stone to some other position in the film industry are rejected because they probably won’t make the grade on set, she said.

Previous New Jersey boot camps have been attended by a different crowd, perhaps older people who are looking for a career change, Brockway said.

“If we go into Newark or Paterson or Atlantic City, we don’t get college kids,” she said. “We get local people who want to transition to a new career, or they have always wanted to get into production.”

She warns older applicants that if they get hired as a production assistant, they will be on their feet for at least 14 hours a day, taking orders from people who are 20 years their junior, and being told what to do by many others on the set.

Almost all boot camp participants graduate, and their names are posted online for production companies who need production assistants, Parchment said. Students are graded, and there’s a published “hot list” of the top performers from each camp, she said.

“Although a job after the boot camp is not guaranteed, with the rapid increase in film and television production in the state, the demand for qualified P.A.s is high,” the Department of State said in a news release.

Aside from the tax breaks, New Jersey attracts production companies because of its variety of environments from cities to beaches and mountains, which can all meet the industry’s demands, Parchment said. Paterson, for example, can play a role in a movie about New York because it has old infrastructure.

Paterson Side Story

Movies made in New Jersey since the tax break was reinstated include “Army of the Dead” directed by Zak Snyder and filmed in Atlantic City; “The Equalizer,” a CBS TV series that was made in northern New Jersey, and Steven Spielberg’s remake of “West Side Story,” which was made in Paterson and Newark in 2021.

Such productions help drive demand from boot camp participants like Nairobi Williams, 18, a Mercer  freshman who is majoring in digital film production, and is already looking for opportunities in the industry. She said just a few hours in the boot camp dispelled some illusions she had about the industry but had not discouraged her.

“It has helped me look at the industry in a clearer way instead of romanticizing it, as we usually do. At first it surprised me because the glamorization that the industry gets doesn’t really tell you anything. It just makes me want to go in and see it for myself,” she said.

Ali Rayef, 24, also a digital film major at the college in West Windsor, said he doesn’t want to go to a four-year college for more training after he has graduated from Mercer, and so sees a job as a production assistant as a way into the industry.

“I’d like to get work right away, so this seemed like a great opportunity for me to expedite that process and get a lot of real-life information,” he said.

Asked if he had been put off by the instructors’ hectoring style, their stern warnings about 14-hour days and military-like demands on production assistants, Rayef said the first day of boot camp had been an eye-opener but not a deterrent.

“It’s a lot. I can’t lie,” he said. “It is overwhelming but it’s a lot of really useful information. I’m pretty determined. Everybody’s got to start somewhere; I’m willing to do the work, I’m willing to learn.”