It was in 2015’s Summer, when I was in 8th grade, that i happened to watch Kanchana 2, a horror movie directed by Raghava lawrence. I remember it clearly, as if it happened yesterday. I was seated in a really small, smelly theatre in my grandmother’s village, with a couple of my buddies, jumping in my seat every time the movie decided to scare us for no reason. And that was probably the first film that scared me after I’d grown up, not because I hadn’t seen horror before, but because I was finally old enough to understand what fear felt like. That fleeting feeling a movie can take you through amused me deeply. It was in that moment that I made my first short film, using an old iPad I owned, along with my friends. Funnily enough, it was a spoof of the horror film we had just watched. That was the beginning of my filmmaking journey.
it’s been exactly 10 years since i got into this, and when i look back at my journey, what i remember are those days when i was around 15 – 16, constantly trying to learn filmmaking, understand how films were made. Back then, my only resources were two things: YouTube and the internet. I watched countless videos on filmmaking and read as many blog posts as I could find. i’m 23 now, and i find so many people wanting to get into filmmaking. So I thought maybe I could be the person I needed when I started, someone to tell you that filmmaking is a gruelling, time-consuming process, and that what it demands most is patience and perseverance. That you will suck in the beginning. But if you keep showing up and put in the work, you will get there eventually. It’s okay if your little YouTube short film gets only a hundred views. It’s okay if the neighborhood bully laughs at what you’re making. Don’t let these moments derail you or make you give up. Giving up is the easiest thing we can do, but finding the courage to keep going is what actually matters.
If there’s one takeaway from this, I hope it’s this: find the courage to not give up.
And mind you, I’m no master, but with whatever I learnt from some amazing filmmakers during my time at the American Film Institute, coupled with my own experiences with making films, I thought it would be cool to write about it.
So, here’s to the first post, and hopefully, many more to come.