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A production department

Lighting and grip

Lighting and grip: who is in them and what each of them does

The director of photography has three crews: camera captures the picture, lighting makes and shapes it, and grip provides everything the camera sits on or moves on. In the UK lighting and grip are two separate crews with separate heads, separate trucks and separate trainees.

Get one thing right before you write a single email. In the United States the grips carry the flags, nets and diffusion as well as the camera support. In the UK they do not: here the grips are the camera-support crew only, and everything that shapes or cuts light belongs to the lighting crew, the electricians, universally called the sparks. A lighting crew on a small drama is a gaffer, a best boy, two or three sparks and a trainee; on a studio feature it can be forty people across the shooting and rigging crews.

  1. Gaffer

  2. Best boy

  3. Electrician (spark)

  4. Desk operator

  5. Generator operator

  6. Rigging gaffer and rigging electricians

  7. Lighting traineeEntry-level job

  8. Key grip

  9. Best boy grip

  10. Dolly grip

  11. Crane grip and crane technician

  12. Rigging grip

  13. Grip traineeEntry-level job

Drawn from MFJF's own Foundations course Lighting and Grip Trainee (module 1: Lighting and grip: what they do and who is in them, and A trainee's day: the truck, the floor, the de-rig; module 5: The industry around the role, for the ladder and the year-by-year plan). The words are My First Job In Film's. © My First Job In Film 2026.

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Picked for Lighting and Grip Trainee. Signed in, they follow your stage and the roles your answers point to. See your whole MFJF journey, step by step →

  1. My MFJF JourneyOne page for everything MFJF has built, in the order you need it.
  2. My Reading ListThe books, blogs and bodies you have saved, in one place.
  3. Start the Stage 1 course: Lighting and Grip TraineeTwo hours on what the job is, how people get in and what to do first.
  4. Get on the HotListPut yourself in front of productions looking for crew.
  5. Join MFJF DayPlayersDay work on productions for crew with the credits and the skills.
  6. The career planner: Lighting and Grip TraineeWhat to do, learn and be able to do, from no experience to paid work.
  7. The career guide: Lighting and Grip TraineeThe job, the day, the way in and the pay, in one guide.
  8. See how it all fits on the career maps17 maps of how films get made: the people, the process and the departments.
  9. Who works whereEvery department on a shoot and every kind of film company: who is in each and what they do.
  10. Industry EssentialsThe books, industry bodies, websites and blogs worth knowing, department by department.
  11. Read the MFJF Survival GuidesStraight answers to what everyone starting out asks: how long it takes, what you get paid, and what to do every day.
  12. MFJF Academy workshopsLive sessions with people who do the job, and the monthly career clinic.
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