Ram Gopal Varma Blog about Assistant to an Assistant

Ram Gopal Varma Blogs
Assistant to an Assistant

ram gopal Varma

8 March 2010

I was so confidently clear about the opening shot of my first film “SHIVA” that the camera set on the crane should be showing the college in the suggestion of a college name-board, come down slowly and pan to the close-up of a car wheel coming into the foreground and stopping in front of the camera. Tired of my repeated narration of this shot of mine during the pre-production of SHIVA, my assistant Siva Nageshwar Rao advised me not to get fixed up about shots as it might not be always practically possible to do things on location the way one imagines while writing the script. He pointed out that it’s possible that the height of the crane might not match up to the height of the name-board of the college. Or if the board is too high we have to tilt the camera up and we will only see the sky in suggestion and not the college, and if it’s too low and you have to tilt down, either you will see the ground instead of the college or the travel downwards to the wheel in the foreground might not be enough.

That however simplistically it might sound, was technically the first lesson I learnt in terms of the complex practicalities of the shooting of a film on location. The difference between how much would you be compromising versus how stuck you are about what you imagined has a very thin line. In the case of the college name-board after Nageshwar Rao’s input I spoke to the art director Tarani to adjust the board height to the exact desired height.

Siva Nageshwar Rao was technically my assistant but I started off my career as being his assistant in the making of “Rao Gari Illu”, the director of which was Tarani. Nageshwar Rao never trusted me enough to give me a responsible job because I was the producer’s recommendation candidate. But in the course of filming he kind of warmed up to me as he might have felt that I am a little more than just the producer’s recommended candidate. So when I got the break for “SHIVA” I requested Nageshwar Rao to assist me.

So my assistants were Siva Nageshwar Rao, Krishna Vamsi, Teja and Uttej. Teja, I met him as a camera assistant of Maheedhar the cameraman of “Rao Gari Illu”. Both Krishna Vamsi and Uttej were kind of recommended by Nageshwar Rao.

From the time I was trying to get a break till I reached “Rao Gari Illu” I was able to impress the producers Venkat and Surendra so much that they were giving me, an assistant, more importance than the director himself which obviously was not taken too kindly by the rest of the assistants of that film let alone the director. They used to think that I am just conning the producers with my English and high funda talk which was partly true but what was also true is that my high funda talk had enough material in it to convince the producers to give me a break.

It was very rare during those days that you could be an assistant who can talk English and that used to intimidate them. What also used to intimidate them was my knowledge of English films and also filmmaking techniques which I picked up by voraciously reading “American Cinematographer” magazines which used to lie around in Annapurna Studio’s store room and read by nobody but me.

Coming back to Siva Nageshwar Rao, after all the confidence and my supposed knowledge with which I convinced the producers and Nagarjuna by the time we reached the production stage, on the first day of the shoot I didn’t know how to call for the shot. I just became blank with so many people on the set and so many things happening and Siva Nageshwar Rao from behind was whispering in my ear to call for “start, camera” and to say “sound” and then “action”. So my first day shoot went on by mostly being prompted by Siva Nageshwar Rao.

The cameraman Gopal Reddy after finishing lighting shouted “Order, Sir”, which I took as he wants order on the set and I also repeated after him by shouting “Order, Sir”. Across the set Siva Nageshwar Rao gave a dirty look at me, took me aside and said, “He is asking you to order him to take that shot and that’s why he is saying ‘Order, Sir’ and since you are the ‘Sir’ here, how can you yourself again shout ‘Order, Sir’”. Sheepishly nodding I followed Siva Nageshwar Rao’s instructions.

And this is what I call as being an assistant to an assistant to an assistant.

P.S: Later on I produced “Money” with Siva Nageshwar Rao as director.

Note: Thanks to Ram Gopal Varma for giving us special permission to republish his blogs in idlebrain.com (visit rgvzoomin.com to visit Ram Gopal Varma's blog)

Tell us how you liked this article