Man behind the perfect cut

Shan Mohammed embodies a segment of youth that has made it big in the flourishing Hindi film industry. Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Naa, an Aamir Khan production that launches the actor’s nephew Imran Khan was his first exposure to a mega-bucks project. Pratik Ghosh reports.

Shan Mohammed embodies a segment of youth that has made it big in the flourishing Hindi film industry.

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Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Naa

, an Aamir Khan production that launches the actor’s nephew Imran Khan was his first exposure to a mega-bucks project.

“I met [Abbas] Tyrewallah through Raghav Dar, a friend who is now assisting Sanjay Leela Bhansali,” says Shan. And once he had readthe script Shan fell in love with it.

Shan didn’t exactly stumble into films. This commerce graduate had gone to Chennai for his articleship when he bumped into renowned cinematographer PC Sreeram. It was Sreeram who asked him to assist someone in Mumbai.

Soon after his arrival in Mumbai Shan was working with Pankaj Advani on a series of 10-minute films titled Bheja Fry for Channel V. In 2000 he joined Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) editing course. In his second year he edited Sarthak Dasgupta’s The Great Indian Butterfly. In his third year, he did Frozen by director Shivaji Chandra Bhushan.

Shan today commands a six-figure monthly salary. Tyrewallah has only good things to say: “He will never lose his cool even when people around him are tearing their hair out. He is also very self-motivated and disciplined, and that makes a director's job easy.”