I’m a filmmaker, productivity geek, photographer, writer, board gamer and role-playing gamer.
I’ve always been interested in movies and telling stories. In school, I was a member of the school film club. This exposed me to films from around the world that I wouldn’t otherwise have had the chance to see. These films exposed me to the idea that film could tell more than masala stories. That didn’t stop me enjoying the masala films my family and I saw during school vacations.
A few years later, I was volunteering with East Lansing Film Festival. Some friends and I participated in the festival’s 48/5 challenge. We wrote, shot, edited, and screened a 5 minute film that we made in 48 hours.
Spoiler Alert: Not that great.
It was a great fun to make though.
Life goes on, and all I knew about the film industry was what I learned from watching Entourage. That’s how it remained as I joined a small startup. This led to my MBA thesis on creating startup ecosystems.
I moved back to India.
Along the way, my hobbies – photography, board gaming, and RPGs – kept my storytelling itch quiet. For a while, anyway. The projects I worked on were interesting, but I kept trying to tell stories. Marketing almost fit the bill, but it wasn’t quite fulfilling that need. I considered joining the video game industry, but life presented me with an unexpected journey.
After retiring, my father began to pursue his creative hobbies. He put a team together to bring one of his father’s short stories to life. My then-fiancée pointed out that I wouldn’t get many opportunities to enter the industry like this. A month later, I was the Assistant Executive Producer of the independent Hindi film, Josef – Born in Grace.
Since then, I’ve been learning about production, post production, marketing, community building, the festival circuit, and everything else that is part and parcel of getting a movie made and then seen by other people. A professor of mine mentioned that it might be a good idea to document this journey, and I agreed.
It’s just taken me a while to get going on this.