MOVIES : So You Want to Be an AD? : Marla Saltzer has just started down the long career path toward assistant directing.

Saltzer, 28, spent most of last summer as a trainee on “The Great White Hype,” a Reginald Hudlin comedy about the boxing world. She was responsible for briefing the 30 or so cast members on the shooting schedule and making sure they were on time for makeup and wardrobe appointments.

It was hectic work, but Saltzer enjoyed it. She and the other members of the crew “began to grow as a family,” she said.

On the West Coast, most assistant directors enter the profession through the training program organized by the Directors Guild of America (East Coast assistant directors often serve a de facto apprenticeship as production assistants).

Trainees typically arrive on the set by 5:15 a.m. to greet actors and set up the dressing rooms. The pay ranges from $6.40 to $7.89 an hour, depending on experience. Some trainees work 80 to 100 hours a week.

“The trainee is probably the lowest paid member of the crew,” said Tom Joyner, a former guild trainee and current vice president of production at Warner Bros.

But there’s a decent living, if not a pot of gold, at the end of the rainbow.

After working 400 days--or about two years--trainees are eligible to become second assistant directors. Their primary responsibilities include writing call sheets and production reports, which daily summarize the scenes scheduled to be shot and list the necessary cast members. “Seconds” can also have their own assistants, called “second seconds” or sometimes third assistant directors.

The guild minimum for a second assistant director ranges from $1,030 to $1,791 a week, plus a $378 per week “production fee” or overtime bonus.

Not surprisingly, first assistant directors--often simply called “firsts”--earn the biggest paychecks. As compensation for their wide range of duties--including scheduling shooting, leading production meetings and controlling the set--union firsts earn at least $2,672 a week, plus a $494 bonus.