Behind the scenes of the popular CBS procedural NCIS: New Orleans, you’ll always find 30-year-old Sydney Mitchel working to keep her boss on track. As the assistant to showrunner Chris Silber, Mitchel has been her boss's gatekeeper and confidant since 2017.

“It’s the most stable assistant job I’ve ever had,” Mitchel says.

From about 9:00 – 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, Mitchel handles Silber’s schedule, coordinates meetings, and helps to book travel. But she also does a lot more than her daily remedial duties.

“I get to listen in on network note calls,” Mitchel explains. “I am allowed to sit in the writers’ room during my downtime to listen in and see how it works.” 

Mitchel is learning every part of the process at NCIS: New Orleans, which shoots around 24 episodes, 40 weeks out of the year. At any given time, the show’s staff could be writing, shooting or completing post production on an episode.

“In one day, we could be brainstorming episode 23, we could be working to rewrite episode 22, we could be shooting episode 21 and we could be editing episode 20,” Mitchel says. “It could span from five to eight episodes in one day. That’s why he [Silber] needs an assistant!”

The access Mitchel receives and the opportunity to learn is why she would recommend any aspiring writer to start out in Hollywood as a showrunner’s assistant. “I get reading access on every draft of every script. I get to watch every cut on every episode. I get looped in on wardrobe choices and location. I get a look behind the scenes that even some of the writers don’t see.”

Granted, it’s not an easy job to get, but Mitchel believes that through networking and marketing yourself, it is possible. Her own journey to showrunner’s assistant began in 2010, when she moved to Los Angeles from her hometown of Sacramento. Mitchel attended college at NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts.

“I graduated and sadly none of my contacts there translated to L.A., so I picked up and moved to L.A. — I was working from the ground up, making all new contacts. I started out as a receptionist at a trailer cutting house, cutting movie trailers.”

From there, Mitchel became an assistant at a management company. One of the managers helped her land her first writer’s production assistant job in 2014.

“For the next few years, I bounced around in different PA jobs on shows,” Mitchel recalls. “I worked in the production office, the writer’s office.”

While working the production assistant jobs, Mitchel maintained steady networking by attending mixers and events. “Finally, through someone I met at a mixer, I got a showrunner’s assistant job on Cinemax’s Outcast.” Mitchel worked on Outcast for two years before getting hired onto NCIS: New Orleans. 

“I love being a showrunner’s assistant because I get to build a closer relationship with the showrunner, I get to listen in on calls,” Mitchel says. “It’s fun seeing the entire creative process.”

Mitchel even got to write for NCIS: New Orleans, a rarity in the business. “This season, I co-wrote an episode which was so amazing,” Mitchel says. “I went through the whole process. I wrote with the Script Coordinator. We pitched ideas, we got to write a first draft, be on all the note calls, fly down to set in New Orleans.”

“It was so surreal going from being a showrunner’s assistant to be a writer on set in New Orleans with a chair that had my name on it.”

Mitchel took full advantage of the opportunity with the hope that she’d impress her showrunner enough that he might staff her next season. She also learned a valuable lesson from the experience.

“The fact that he [Silber] gave me a shot at writing is just amazing,” Mitchel says. “It makes me want to one day be in that position where I can mentor someone.”

For Mitchel, that means being a showrunner on a crime show like NCIS: New Orleans, and with her experience as a showrunner’s assistant, she is well on her way.

“I’ve had great mentors to show me good showrunner habits,” Mitchel says gratefully. “Thankfully, the showrunners I’ve worked with, I only do stuff associated with the show. I’m not a personal assistant. I feel very lucky to that I landed on NCIS: New Orleans.”