Ryan Coogler’s Assistant on SINNERS, WAKANDA FOREVER, Set Life, and Learning from Mistakes

What’s a crafty run? Why wear a chest vest? What would you do if you lost your boss’ ID? Ammar Mohamed – assistant to Ryan Coogler, SINNERS associate producer, and filmmaker – joins IN PROXIMITY host Paola Mardo to share what it’s really like supporting one of Hollywood’s busiest directors today. From locking in on set to hard lessons learned on the job, Ammar takes us behind the scenes of SINNERS and BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER, while sharing his career journey and offering his perspective and thoughtful advice for other assistants.

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(00:00) One of the things about Ryan
(02:00) Voice Memo from Hannah Beachler
(09:30) Working on BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER
(11:00) Becoming Ryan Coogler’s assistant
(12:27) Everyday was like climbing Mt. Everest
(15:12) Scary moment on the job... a.k.a. ID story part 1
(19:30) The bag… and ID story part 2
(21:25) Advice for assistants
(24:17) Learning from Ryan and Hannah
(25:56) Working on SINNERS
(30:40) Understanding the moment, locking in, and being in step or a step ahead
(32:46) Locked in SINNERS scenes
(34:25) Craziest thing he saw on set
(36:03) Prox Recs

IN PROXIMITY IS A PRODUCTION OF PROXIMITY MEDIA
Host, Director, Producer: Paola Mardo
Executive Producers: Ryan Coogler, Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian
Theme Song and Additional Music: Ludwig Göransson
Co-Director and Director of Photography: Patrick Epino
Sound Designer and Mix Engineer: Ken Nana
Editors: Patrick Epino, Brittani Brown, Ken Nana, Ben Caloza
Production Assistant: Isabella Miller
Sound Production Assistant: Isabella Miller
Post-Production Coordinator: Celine Mendiola
Social Media Coordinator: Alexandria Santana
Production Intern: Jun Sawada, Ben Caloza