The first time I shot a commercial it was completely overwhelming. Not the pre-production. Or being put up in a hotel. Or the dinners.
But the shoot itself hit me in the face.
Production crews, real production crews, are well oiled machines. And they all know who's who and who's supposed to do what.
But you can spend the entire day trying to figure that out. And that's not good because you're supposed to be focused on what's going on in the monitor. Not "who's that guy over there adjusting the light?" Or "why is this man bringing me a smoothie?" Or "Is that college student in the Pink Floyd shirt a slave? They're sure treating him that way."
Thankfully you don't have to have my experience. Vimeo has produced a handy video about the very subject. And a blog post to go along with it. You could do worse things with the three and a half minutes it'll take to watch.