As part of its talk show Box Office Careers, Bennett University invited Anubhuti Kashyap, the director of the upcoming film Doctor G, which stars Ayushmann Khurrana and Rakul Preet Singh, to talk about opportunities that await young professionals hoping to enter the entertainment industry. During the talk show, which aims at promoting BA /PGD programmes in films, TV and web series, Anubhuti spoke about her journey, the difference in making films and web series (Afsos), and her experience of working on Junglee Pictures’ Doctor G.

Anubhuti, who has worked as an Assistant Director in Gangs Of Wasseypur earlier, shared her story with the students. “Mine has not been a simple, clear-cut journey. I come from a small town and in those days, the belief was still strong that people from good families don’t join this industry, so I always had this pressure on me to not go join in the footsteps of my brothers (Anurag and Abhinav Kashyap), who are in the film industry. I pursued a management career for seven-eight years. When I was doing really well in my career, I thought this is the time for me to think about whether I want to change my profession. So I took a short sabbatical from work. I started spending time with my brother (Anurag) since I happened to be in Mumbai at that time. He has always encouraged me as he always thought that I had a great writer in me. I had done a little bit of writing so he pushed me into writing and researching for a film. I bought a good computer and started begging amateur filmmakers to give me footage that I could edit and taught myself some editing. I realised that this job demanded too much. It is an interesting process but you have to be very patient. I met Raj Kumar Gupta in one of the social gatherings when he was just about to film Aamir. He told me that he had a position of assistant director and asked me if I would like to join as an intern AD. I agreed and that was really the first film when I observed all aspects of filmmaking and felt like that I fit in seamlessly. I did not feel out of place. From then on, my journey started.”

Talking about her next, she shared that it was an amazing experience to work on Doctor G. “There was a long wait involved in it, but it really paid off. Before this, I had only seen directors go through this experience from a distance, it was a great learning experience and I had fun along the way,” she said.

Anubhuti, who has had the experience of working on both films and web series, spoke about the difference between working for both mediums. “It’s quite different, the entire approach to it is very different. Right from scripting, you are looking at an episode as a film. For each episode, the first 10 minutes is the most important because that’s when you engage the viewers. These kinds of pressures you don’t have in Indian films. You have box office pressures which means you have to draw stars to it, you have to put in masala to draw the audience whereas, on the web, the content is the king.”