Third Assistant Directors

Here is what that looks like on the ground. The 3rd assistant directors we work with in Colombia have come through the Dynamo Studios, 64-A Films and Rhayuela Films pipelines, with most having trained at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Centro Ático or the Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión San Antonio de los Baños in Cuba before logging long seasons inside the RCN and Caracol Bogotá telenovela AD pool.

That telenovela foundation builds a specific kind of set-PA discipline — high-volume background calls, tight scene turnover, six-day shooting weeks, and the bilingual EN/ES radio etiquette that global shoots need when ACA Asociación Colombiana de Actores principal cast share a frame with foreign leads.

They handle daily background check-in, holding-room oversight, voucher processing at ACA-registered rates, the wardrobe-to-makeup-to-set choreography for crowd-heavy scenes, and the lock-up choreography that productions filming inside the Cartagena Walled City pedestrian zones, Bogotá La Candelaria heritage blocks and Medellín Comuna 13 community-engagement corridors fully depend on. They keep the AD radio channels clean, run scene-prep walk-throughs with the 1st AD, and serve as the calm voice that the rest of the floor hears between takes.

On the ground, our Colombian 3rd ADs route motorcycle couriers through the Cartagena Walled City pedestrian zones where vehicle access is restricted, run traffic control across Bogotá La Candelaria's narrow colonial streets, set up cast escorts between basecamp trailers and set through the Medellín Comuna 13 escalator network, and manage holding-area logistics inside the Dynamo, 64-A and Rhayuela soundstages, the RCN and Caracol telenovela floors and the regional bases that productions build around Cali, Santa Marta, Villa de Leyva and Barichara.

They liaise daily with ACA extras casting agencies, run bilingual EN/ES background briefings for crowd scenes, process voucher paperwork to ACA-registered rates at wrap, and feed the daily production report inputs the 2nd AD needs to close out the CINA tax-rebate records that Proimágenes Colombia needs. They take ownership of the small details that keep an AD department running. We match 3rd ADs based on radio ease, crowd-scale experience and prior Colombian credits across feature, episodic and commercial work.