Kayse1stad

Kayse1stad I'm a 1st Assistant Director (AD) on movies and TV shows and I'm excited to take you behind the scenes as we bring a TV show to life! 🎥

08/26/2026

How we film night scenes during the day! 🎥☀️❤️

One of the best tricks on a film set? Making day look like night.

It’s called day for night—when a scene takes place at night story-wise, but we actually film it during the day.

If the Director and Director of Photography are okay not seeing the outside world through the windows, the grips, usually the rigging grips, will build these tents around the set anywhere we might catch the light outside on camera.

Sometimes it’s as simple as covering a window. Other times, it’s a more elaborate build should an actor need to walk thru the door during the scene, for example.

The set dec(oration) team will also help the cause with window dressing that can help hide the tent. The greens department can get involved… It’s a group effort for sure.

There is absolutely a time and a place for scenes that take place at night to actually be filmed in the dark of night.

But, generally speaking, night work kind of sucks.

So having this day-for-night option is pretty great.

It helps me have flexibility when putting our shooting schedule together.

It helps us honor child labor laws as you can only work with a kiddo so late on set.

And it helps crew stamina, safety and morale as most humans would rather be asleep at 4am than at work.

Huge shoutout to all who help find a way to cheat time without compromising the quality of the show. The cast and your fellow crew members appreciate it more than you’ll ever know.

Go team!

08/10/2026

The meetings behind the movie! ❤️🎥📝 Meetings are an imperative part of the prep process on any movie or tv show. In addition to larger meetings like the concept meet and production meeting, the director and writer / showrunner will have meetings with every department to help answer their questions and share details of the creative vision.

Yet another reminder of how many people it takes to bring a show to life! Go team!

07/14/2026

Time for the page turn! 🎥📝🧐

Also called a concept meeting.

All departments involved in making the movie or tv show will gather early in prep to go scene by scene and talk out the script. If you think of 10 people reading a book, they would picture 10 different movies if that makes sense. The plot would be the same but the details we imagine when reading often differ from what someone else would imagine.

So this meeting is step one in the team mind melding a bit and making sure we're all making the same show!

It's also a great time for departments who need information well in advance to start making a dent in their questions. For example, if we see a football field at halftime, what's on that field? Is there a dance team or a marching band the costume department needs to find uniforms for? If a character has surgery in the episode, will we see the incision area which means the makeup department might need to order or make a prosthetic? If a character speaks Polish in a scene when they call their family back home, do they need dialect lessons?

I run this meeting and really enjoy this one to be honest. It's fun to start seeing it all come together and learning how I can be of help to the team in terms of things we need to keep an eye on in prep to make sure we're ready once we start shooting.

Alright! One big meeting down! More coming soon about what goes into prepping a show from my lens as the 1st AD.

07/13/2026

Day one of prep!

The first order of business for any 1st Assistant Director is to break down the scripts and make the schedule for the shoot. So here’s some insight into that process as well as a reminder that first day jitters are totally normal no matter how many movies and tv shows you’ve worked on.

More coming soon from my lens as the 1st AD!

06/29/2026

We’ve wrapped the Netflix movie “The 99ers” and I’m about to start the next job. Two dream projects back to back. I’m so grateful and excited.

Here we go, Team!

03/27/2026

Lights. Camera. SOCCER! 🎬⚽❤️

Have you ever wondered how epic sports scenes in movies are put together?

I’ve started my next gig – a soccer movie about the 1999 US Women’s National Team.

AKA dream job activated.

We’re already scouting our potential locations and having creative meetings about how best to capture this fantastic story.

What sets this project apart from the average prep experience, though, is all the work going into the soccer side of the movie simultaneously. And that’s where our soccer coordinators come into play.

Aimee, Jessi and their incredible team oversee all soccer related moments in the movie.

They train our fantastic actors so their movements on the field look awesome and authentic.

They cast everyone beyond our actors who will be playing soccer in the movie, like the opposing teams for example.

And they also help translate Nicky our director’s creative vision into choreographed plays on the field.

Nicky and John our cinematographer are of course watching footage and shotlisting at the office, but it’s the visits to the practice field, seeing the choreographed plays in person, that really helps us lay the strongest foundation possible to capture the soccer work in the most believable, cinematic, and goosebump inducing way.

I know I speak for everyone on this production including our stellar office PAs putting these awesome signs up all over, we couldn’t be more excited and honored to get to tell this story and can’t wait for the viewing public and the real 99ers to feel the care, the determination and the joy going into the making of this one.

Shout out to Nicky Kassell our director, 3 Dot Productions and Netflix for making this movie happen!

And of course to the legendary 1999 who started it all.

Here we go, Team. Here we go!

02/22/2026

How I got my start! 🎥🐣📝❤️

The most popular question in the comments by far is wanting to know how I got my start in the film / tv industry. So here you go!

I hope this insight is helpful to those starting out — seeing the value of hard work and of making / nurturing your own connections as most of us don’t enter this field with preexisting ones.

More coming soon about other stages of my career, both the fun stuff and the challenges.

Wishing everyone the best as you find / build your own path.

Go team!

02/04/2026

The lighting team above set! 🎥🌘🔦😍

Did you know that high above our set is a basket holding a light and a very brave teammate?

Anytime you’re watching a scene that takes place at night, odds are very high one of these articulating boom lifts or condors is in play. These lifts hold lights that emulate what the moon or a street lamp would do and compliment all the work being done by the rest of the lighting team on the ground.

The rigging team preps these lifts keeping weight distribution in mind for safety as well as manipulation needs meaning how the electric department teammate in the basket, the lamp operator, will be able to safely access the light to make adjustments when the gaffer requests them.

The lamp op will do their safety checks upon arrival, gather up all the stuff they’ll want to take up with them like something to sit on, some water, an extra walkie battery and a drop line to be able to get stuff sent up to them. Then they’ll drive the lift into position and go up to whatever height the gaffer has requested to light the shot which is usually 45-60 feet up but can be as high as 120 feet. That’s roughly 12 stories high!

They’ll typically spend 2-3 hours in the lift, sometimes up to 6 hours, before coming down for a break and to double check all the safety mechanisms and hydraulics.

I’m told by friends in the electric department that it can get a little toasty and buggy up there depending on the kind of light being used. And while you can’t see it with the naked eye, the lifts definitely sway in the wind much like a skyscraper does which makes sense since they have similar hydraulic systems.

A perk of being up there I’m told is getting to watch the organized chaos below, the team working together on set, from a pretty unique vantage point.

Respect to those who rig these lifts and to the brave souls who go up in them as their contribution no question helps us capture some beautiful night shots and make the best lookishow possible.

HUGE shout out to for sharing the amazing pics / videos seen in this episode and for answering the 146ish questions I had about these rigs.

Go Team!

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