Assistant Directors

Here is how this works in practice. The Peruvian assistant director role grew out of a tight Lima production scene — Tondero, Big Bang, Cinesphere, Inca Producciones, Audiovisual Project Perú — feeding ADs into the local feature ladder behind Asu Mare 1 and 2, the today's Peruvian theatrical comedies and dramas, and the global features and documentaries that move through Cusco, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, the Amazon and the Pacific coast.

Here is the short of it. Our 1st ADs and 2nd ADs come from that lineage, many trained through the PUCP and Universidad de Lima film programmes and the Toulouse Lautrec audiovisual track, with credits on Netflix LATAM originals, Disney+ LATAM tourism content, Discovery Channel, National Geographic and BBC nature units.

Here is the breakdown. They prepare day-out-of-days, strip boards and shooting orders against the practical realities of working three ecosystems in one schedule — sea-level Lima production days, 3,400-metre Cusco days that need acclimatisation built into prep, and Amazon basin days that ride river transport and weather windows out of Iquitos and Manu. Because Peru runs no film-specific union, the 1st AD also holds the SUNAFIL labour compliance line, the Ley 29783 occupational-safety register and the SCTR workplace-insurance verification across every shooting day.

Here is what that looks like on the ground. On the floor the AD department is bilingual by default — Spanish and English as standard, with Quechua and Aymara bridge support arranged through community liaisons on Andean village days. Our 1st ADs run set control, director joint work and walkie discipline in both languages, while the 2nd AD desk holds call sheets, talent movement, background running and the INC and SERNANP heritage paperwork that has to clear before the lock-up goes in.

Here is how the picture comes together. Heritage work — Machu Picchu with its strict daily visitor cap and tripod restrictions, Cusco's centro histórico colonial grid, Sacred Valley sites at Pisac and Ollantaytambo, Chan Chan in Trujillo, the Nazca Lines aerial perimeter — gets ADs who already know the INC lead times and the shooting-hour windows, and who match the schedule to the DAFO Ley 26370 grant certification flow that the line producer is tracking in parallel. For multi-unit features we field complete AD departments — 1st, 2nd, 2nd 2nd, key set PAs and crowd marshals — across main, splinter, second and aerial units, with altitude acclimatisation days built into the plan and Lima-first scheduling that protects turnover.