The Story Behind My Set PA: Why the Industry Needed This

A service built by someone who lived the lifestyle, felt the pressure, and knew there had to be a better way.

Every freelancer in film & TV has a moment — usually around 9pm on a Tuesday — where they’re sitting on the edge of their bed, surrounded by half-open bags, unanswered emails, travel chaos, bills they forgot to pay, and a call sheet they need to memorise before sleeping.

And the thought hits:

“How is anyone meant to manage all of this?”

For Alex, the founder of My Set PA, that wasn’t a one-off moment. It was a pattern.A lifestyle.A cycle she saw over and over again in herself, her colleagues, and the crews she worked with.

This is the story of where My Set PA came from — and why the industry needed it long before it existed.

Starting where a lot of us start: the AD department

Alex entered the industry the same way many crew do — hustling, learning fast, and taking every opportunity going.

From 2006, she worked across:

• The AD department

• Locations

• Production

• long freelance stretches

• high-pressure sets

• unpredictable schedules

She saw every side of production — the camaraderie, the pace, the madness, the humour, the exhaustion. And she realised early on that the actual job wasn’t the hardest part.

It was what the job did to the rest of your life.

The pattern nobody talks about

Crew live two lives:

1. The job they’re paid for

2. The personal admin job they’re not paid for

   
   

During production, one thrives. The other collapses.

Alex watched brilliant, hardworking people:

• miss job opportunities

• lose touch with family

• forget appointments

• let bills slide

• neglect health check-ups

• feel permanently behind

• burn out quietly

• sacrifice personal lives

• patch everything together between shoots

It wasn’t laziness.It wasn’t disorganisation.It was capacity.

Production schedules were never designed to accommodate real life.

A shift into PA work that connected the dots

When Alex later worked as a Personal Assistant and Office Manager outside the industry, something clicked:

The support she was giving executives was the support film crew desperately needed — but didn’t have access to.

Because in film & TV:

• your hours aren’t predictable

• your workdays aren’t structured

• your personal life doesn’t slot neatly around the job

• your admin never stops accumulating

• your downtime is microscopic

• your “weekends” are recovery days

And unlike executives, freelancers don’t have traditional in-house support.

They’re expected to juggle everything alone.

The gap: A PA for the people who actually need one

Alex realised something the industry hadn’t yet acknowledged:

Film & TV freelancers are executives. They just don’t get treated like them.

They have:

• intense workloads

• high-pressure environments

• demanding schedules

• constant travel

• career uncertainty

• multiple stakeholders

• no margin for error

• enormous emotional labour

But no administrative support built for the realities of this lifestyle.

That gap became the foundation for My Set PA.

My Set PA was built with one mission:

To give crew the personal and professional support they’ve needed for decades but were too busy, too stretched, or too used to burnout to ask for.

To be:

• the second brain

• the backup system

• the organiser

• the fixer

• the steady hand during chaos

• the admin department you don’t have

• the personal support that keeps your real life intact

My Set PA isn’t corporate. It isn’t generic. It isn’t a virtual assistant service repurposed for creatives.

It’s built specifically for film & TV — by someone who spent years living the lifestyle.

Why it matters

Support isn’t a luxury.Not in this industry.

It’s the difference between:

• burning out or having longevity

• missing opportunities or staying booked

• running on empty or running efficiently

• feeling constantly behind or feeling genuinely in control

• firefighting or actually living a life alongside your career

And every client Alex works with says the same thing:

“I didn’t realise how much I needed this until I had it.”

Because that’s the thing about working in film & TV: You normalise chaos until someone shows you what calm feels like.

My Set PA exists because crew deserve support too.

You look after the production.You look after the people on set.You look after the deadlines, the chaos, the logistics, the expectations.

It’s about time someone looked after you.

That’s why My Set PA was created —not as a luxury,not as an add-on,but as a long-overdue support system for the people who keep this industry running.

www.mysetpa.com