Film 101: What's an Assistant Director?

Assistant Directors are in charge of keeping everything on schedule, so don't ask them to fetch you a coffee

Of everything we've covered so far on Film 101, there's no job title more puzzling than assistant director. They're not the same as a second unit director. (For more on that one, please review last week's lesson.) They're not the assistant to the director, either — and they're definitely not going to fetch you a damned kombucha.

Just to make things more confusing, movies often have multiple assistant directors — four or more of them — each with their own specific responsibilities. But every A.D. has this in common: they're working to keep everything orderly and on schedule. It's a stressful job, and the subject of today's lesson in Film 101.

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Film 101: What's an Assistant Director?