Film is a great learning place for Assistant Directors

Nameless faceless people whose name appear as a minuscule mention in the titles of a movie, are armed with Walkie Talkies, running around taking cues from the Director, prompting dialogues to the hero or heroine, and even calling some creative shots. No doubt director is the captain of the ship when it comes to making a film but there is no denying that with out assistant directors, his job would be more cumbersome. These assistant directors, as a result-many of whom come with serious aspiration to become director-get to learn in the open school called Film Making. After a few years of being meagrely paid or in some cases even not paid, many among them director's seat.

There was a time when there was no school for learning direction, or even if there were few could not be able to provide a costly big Bollywood budget to teach them bits and pieces of science and art of direction. List of those who started as assistant and become successful director is quite long. Few to mention - Rohit Shetty who assisted Veeru Devgan and Kuku Kohli, Mohit Suri assistated Vikram Bhatt, Shabbir Khan worked under Mahesh  Bhatt and David Dhavan, Abhishek Chaubey assisted Vishal Bhardwaj, Vikrmaditya Motwane was with Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Nikhil Advani assisted Karan Johar, Raj Kumar Gupta was with Anurag Kayshap.

'Even if you come from some fancy Film Institute, assisting to some established director helps you to understand the craft. Most importantly, it teaches you how to handle actors and a crew of hundred people.' Shares David Dhavan whose protege Shabbir Khan is now a saleable name in direction.

 ' when I started I got the actors clothes fixed, swept the sets, rehearsed lines with the cast and sometimes did all that at once. So on my own film, when I lead an unit of of 200 odd people, I know every single aspect of what goes into making a movie.' Tells Shabbir who has recently directed Heropanti.

'Assistant directors also learn a lot through interacting and networking with actors.' Says Milan Lutharia who had been an assistant to Bhatt. ' I met with several top stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Amir Khan, Ajay Devgan while working as assistant director with ease, which would not be otherwise possible'. That networking culminated in Milan casting Ajay Devgan in his directional debut 'Kachche Dhage.'

Similar is story of Rohit Shetty. He was assisting on the sets of Suhag in the year 1994 and Karishma Kapoor was its heroine. During that time Kareena used to visit her sister and was quite impressed with Rohit' dedication, became friends also, so when Rohit started his debut it was easier for him to sign Kareena, she worked in many films with Rohit later. Rohit worked with Ajay Devgan right from his debut as actor 'Phool Aur Kante'(1991) so it was much easier for him to sign Ajay for Singham.

It is also observed that when a person assist to a particular director he tend to get greatly influenced by his mentor's directional styles. Gulzar assisted Bimal Roy that influence can be seen on subtle level in all his movies. So one can find Anurag's invisible stamp on Raj Kumar Gupta's Ghanchakkar (2013) or Vishal's influence on Chaubey's films. However many established directors say that one should always avoid becoming a Xerox copy of your mentor. This reflects in Mohit Suri's work, while he assisted Vikram Bhatt for many years but there is a marked difference in style, while Vikram is more dramatic and hard hitting, Mohit is all the time emotionally driven.

Whatever one says but films especially commercial one provide on the job training to directional aspirants, they learn working at ground level, network with stars, see script taking shape from sketch board to silver screen, net working with stars and most of the time they are paid for it !