Transition from
AD to Director
Part One
“A lot of the directors I admire had their films produced by the people who they worked as assistants for but what happens to the 95 percent of other assistants who are not so lucky?”
AM I GOOD ENOUGH?
I think changing gears from an Assistant Director to a Director is the biggest, most difficult transition in this industry. Stepping away from the shadows of a director is the opportunity to step into the light, but there are moments of darkness and uncertainty in between. This period can last a year to a few years and very often relationships with the very same people you’ve been working for as an assistant director can go through a tremendous upheaval.
When you start pitching your movie, you will realize that every studio houses a team called the ‘creative’ department. This ‘creative’ department is filled up with Script readers, studio executives whose job it is to go through your script and determine whether or not you have a chance to make your film with this studio or not.
I’ve met a lot of really nice, cinema loving people in my several trips around the studio world and some of them have become my friends who have passionately championed my scripts within their systems and to them I am forever grateful. There are so many passionate film enthusiasts sprinkled across the studio and to them I owe my perseverance. I knew my stories resonated deeply with a few people and it was only a matter of time before I would be at the finishing line. Until you’re a big director, you’re not. And till then your scripts will be rejected, you will be doubted and you will just have to keep trying and trying again.
It always helps to remember no one has any idea what will work. No one has any idea how to judge a script, how to judge a film. For a remarkably risky business, what I discovered is there are very few who are willing to take a risk. That’s why the over dependence on contacts and relationships. This is the reason why nepotism flourishes. I mean his father, brother; mother was successful so she has a more likely chance of success. As if success and talent are transmitted in DNA!
So you function largely on hope; eventually someone will discover you, trust you and learn to love your work. But as time rolls by this gets very very hard. I think a lot of people are here hanging on a thread… hat bad, look at the stupid films being made on TV these days. When you’re down, it’s funny how people try to pile on you with their versions of what’s wrong in the world. While I was in this period, I got a lot of advice. Get by on cleverness, never say anything that can be misrepresented, learn to survive by restraining your reactions, mind your own business, don’t start arguments, walk away from fights, and pretend you know nothing. In the end though, it really boiled down to three things that worked for me.
THREE POINTS TO REMEMBER DURING THIS PHASE:
1. HAVE PATIENCE: Don’t compare yourself with the people ten years ahead of you. The Director that you admire and want to be like has gone through the same journey that you have. Everyone has toiled away for years and years in silence, invisible before they have stepped into the light.
2. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF: The industry is brutal in the way it treats people who are not ‘successful’ in shallow, industry centric terms. You have to find a way to take all the rejections and brush them aside. There are a million insidious ways that you are shown ‘your place’ in the system.
3. STAND UP EVERY TIME: This is a very tricky, sensitive, vulnerable time as many people come into your life and try to exploit you because you have not yet ‘proved’ your worth. Stand firm in who you are. You have to remember that you are bigger than any box people try to fit you into.
