Rachael Gilpin knew she wanted to work in the film industry, but never imagined she’d end up being a part of the top movie at the box office.

Gilpin landed a production assistant role for the movie “Gone Girl,” which stars Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, and has grossed more than $78 million since its release on Oct. 3.

Gilpin graduated from Gibault Catholic High School in 2010 and has been on a whirlwind of adventures since then.

“I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into,” she said.

She studied film at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, and when she graduated, she and her classmates were given an email address to send résumés to.

“All we knew was that some movie was going to come to town,” she said. “I didn’t know what kind of movie it was going to be, but I applied for a production assistant job anyway.”

She did some research on what being a production assistant entailed and educated herself on what her roles would be if she got the job.

“I wrote the best résumé I could, and a day later, I got a call for an interview,” she said. “I did the interview, and as soon as I got home, they called and offered me the job.”

Within 24 hours, she was hitting the ground running on a David Fincher film.

“He’s an amazing director, and ‘Fight Club’ has always been one of my favorite movies,” Gilpin said. “It was just such an incredible opportunity.”

She learned how the production office works and what her duties would be on set.

“It was nothing like anything I’ve ever done before,” she said. “It was the best experience.”

In her work for the production office, she was what she described as a “runner of media,” where she was to go to the set, pick up the cards media was stored on and deliver it to the editor twice a day.

“That was the best experience because I got to be on set a lot waiting for everyone to wrap,” she said. “I got to watch a lot of it, and it gave me the opportunity to help out on set, too.”

Her favorite part of working with “Gone Girl” was getting to know the people involved with the movie.

“I just honestly loved being with all of them,” she said. “We’d work 12 hours a day and even go hang out after we were done.”

Gilpin said she keeps in touch with a lot of her coworkers from the movie, even though they finished filming in February.

“I was most interested in the camera department, so I had the opportunity to learn from some of the best,” she said. “Everyone was so generous with their time.”

This included one of the last nights on set, when Gilpin approached Jeff Cronenweth, the cinematographer for the film.

“I said ‘Jeff, I want your job,’” she said with a laugh.

Cronenweth gave Gilpin advice about her hope to move out to Los Angeles and continue with her career.

“For someone with that amount of talent to make an effort to teach me, it meant a lot,” she said. “I told him I was going to come to L.A., and I asked if I could chat with him more when I did.”

He agreed, and Gilpin moved out to the west coast as soon as everything finished wrapping.

“I went home, bought a car, packed it up and started driving,” she said.

Since she has been out in Los Angeles, she’s been working on commercials and even a music video for a prominent female artist.

“I do whatever I can out here,” she said. “It’s a freelance world – you do what you can to eat and pay the rent.”