(written from a Production point of view)
Rusty Mahmood (born 5 November 1966; age 57) is an assistant director who worked as second second assistant director on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager.
Mahmood worked as DGA trainee on the television series Partners (1995), The Pretender, Spy Game, Party of Five, Baywatch, ER, and Coach, One Fine Day (1996), the theme park video Ellen's Energy Adventure (1996), Leave It to Beaver (1997, starring Christopher McDonald), the thriller The Game (1997, with 1st AD Yudi Bennett), Hush (1998, with 2nd AD Debra Kent), Pleasantville (1998, with Yudi Bennett and Nancy P. Townsend), and American History X (1998, co-starring Jennifer Lien and Avery Brooks).
Among his credits as second second assistant director are City of Angels (1998), Mr. Murder (1998, starring Julie Warner and Bill Smitrovich), October Sky (1999), Anywhere But Here (1999), the comedy The Bachelor (1999), Horse Sense (1999), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), High Crimes (2002, starring Ashley Judd) in which he also had a featured acting part, Moonlight Mile (2002), and Intolerable Cruelty (2003).
Further credits as second assistant director include Once and Again (2000, starring William O. Campbell, Susanna Thompson, and Jeffrey Nordling) and Carnivà le (2003), the drama Testosterone (2003), Garfield: The Movie (2004), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), and 10 Items or Less (2006).
Mahmood was the second unit first assistant director on Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties (2006), Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007), and Hop (2011). Between 2007 and 2013 he worked as second assistant and later first assistant director on the comedy series The Office.
Among his more recent credits as first assistant director are the television series Hello Ladies (2013), The Goldbergs (2013-2014), The Muppets (2015-2016), 100 Things to Do Before High School (2015-2016), Lady Dynamite (2016), Dear White People (2017), Stuck in the Middle (2017), Ghosted (2017-2018, starring Adam Scott), Casual (2016-2018), Pen15 (2019), Malibu Rescue (2019), and Dave (2020).