And guess who his or her top assistant is? Yes, the "best boy." Sexist but accurate, since they're almost always men.
"Grips" are the crew members who carry and set up equipment around the set or location. On most productions, the head grip will be called the "key grip," and on very big productions, where two crews will be shooting at the same time, there will be more than one key grip. The camera crew has its own grip, the "dolly grip," the person who sets the camera up and then pushes the camera on its dolly or tracks; there are grips who specialize in operating the camera crane when that is called for. Other grips will work with the carpenters to get and place the materials needed to assemble the sets. When the gaffer calls for particular lighting equipment, it's the grips who bring it and set it in place for the electricians to light and focus. Sometimes key grips are called "best boys," too, which can make for confusion. A "wrangler" handles the animals, as you might expect, but there's no size limit. The film business has room for "mouse," " marmot," and "cockroach" wranglers, as well. (If you've seen a credit for a "baby wrangler" it's the in-joke way of crediting the registered nurse who, by law, has to be with an infant performer on the set.) The "greensman" or woman is responsible for preparing and maintaining the live or fake flowers, foliage, trees, cornfields, or wastelands you might see in the film.
Don't mistake odd titles for lack of skill. These are lifelong professionals who do extremely difficult jobs quickly and with very few mistakes; millions of dollars -- and sometimes the safety of actors and other crew members -- ride on how well they work. They apprentice for years before they get to take responsibility for a sizable production.
The director, too, has assistants, starting with, obviously, the assistant director. But while the @A.D. reports to the director, he or she is actually not really a directorial apprentice. Assistant directors don't get to do much -- if any -- directing; they're more on a track toward becoming a production manager or a producer. They break down the script, scene by scene, according to location or set or actors' calls (that is, what actors will be needed for shooting the scene). Then they put together a shooting schedule to get the most done in the least possible time with the most efficient use of people, money, and equipment. A good A.D. can save a production hundreds of thousands of dollars just by analyzing the script before it's shot and finding the best way to schedule the production itself. It's an incredibly demanding job, and because it relies so much on good communication between director and assistant, most directors will try to book their favorite assistants as much as possible.
Then there's the second assistant director, essentially the A.D.'s assistant; he or she's responsible for crew and cast calls; for keeping track of how many hours the crew has been on call so as to minimize overtime; sometimes for helping to cast extras when they're needed in a scene and then cueing them to move, stand, sit, or run as required; and for working with cops and security to keep the shooting location free from disturbances. And if you've noticed, on big productions there are, yes, second second assistant directors, whose job, as you might guess, is to assist the second assistant director.
When it comes to post-production, the titles seem to breed faster than rabbits. Most are self-explanatory, but you should know that a Foley artist is the person who creates and matches special sounds to the images on the screen. For example, in "@Monty @Python and the Holy @Grail," we see King @Arthur riding his invisible horse around England. He is followed by his faithful retainer, who canters along behind him on foot, clapping two coconut shells together to make the clip-clop sound of a horse's hooves. The Foley artist is the person in the post-production sound-recording studio who actually clopped the shells in front of a microphone to record that sound onto the film's sound track.
