Best Boy Electric

What they do

The best boy electric is the department's manager. They hire and schedule the lighting technicians, split the crew between the shooting unit and any rigging or pre-light happening elsewhere, and keep the day legal on turnaround and meal penalties. They own the truck: what is on it, how it is loaded, what has been damaged, what is missing and what has to be sub-hired by lunch. Equipment orders, returns, expendables and the running record of what the department has actually spent go through them. On the floor they work a step behind the gaffer, translating a call into an assignment for a specific technician with specific gear, and keeping the next setup moving while the current one shoots. They coordinate power with the location, the generator operator and often the grip department, and they are usually the person who has already worked out where tomorrow's cable run goes. Their relationship with the best boy grip is the joint that makes a set run, because almost every lighting position needs a stand, a frame or a rig that belongs to the grips. In IATSE the title is Assistant Chief Lighting Technician.

What they decide

The calls that belong to this role and no other.

• Crew calls: who works, in which unit, and for how long
• What is on the truck, what gets sub-hired and what goes back
• The department's spend on expendables and additional kit
• How the pre-rig or pre-light crew is deployed while the main unit shoots
• Which technician takes which assignment on a given setup

Principles of the craft

• The department is a supply chain: the gaffer's decisions are only as fast as the crew, kit and cable that can be put behind them within a few minutes.
• Anticipate a setup ahead: the best boy's real output is that the thing the gaffer asks for is already at the edge of frame when they ask.
• A truck is a tool, not storage: an inventory in a known order and labelled cases turn a fifteen-minute search into a thirty-second collection.
• Paperwork protects people: hours, turnaround and equipment records are what stop a hard week becoming an unsafe one and an argument at wrap.
• The grip and electric relationship is load-bearing: nearly every light needs someone else's stand, frame or rig, so that coordination is the job rather than a courtesy.

Common mistakes

• Ordering to the plot rather than to the day, so the truck is full of the wrong units
• Letting the pre-rig crew idle because their assignments were not planned before the unit turned over
• Failing to log damage and sub-hires, which lands on the production as a wrap surprise
• Solving problems on the floor personally instead of assigning them, leaving the department unmanaged
• The competent version: a spotless department run so tightly that nobody has slack when the schedule changes at lunch

How to learn it

Exercises and routes in, not a reading list.

• Inventory a small lighting package by hand, then design a load order for it and run a shoot day from that truck. Note every time you had to move one case to reach another.
• Shadow a lighting plot and write the equipment order yourself, then compare it against what the department actually used that day.
• Take a two-page scene and write out the crew assignments setup by setup: who rigs, who runs cable, who is pre-lighting the next room. Then check it against what the schedule allowed.
• Track expendables consumption across a short shoot and build a per-day estimate from real numbers rather than from a template.