Living a Dream

I am making my first film. No, not just a home video, not with a cell phone camera or a just another handy cam, not a spoof, not a video of my fav song, an actual, real, living, breathing, dreaming, ass kicking, world rocking, mind blowing narrative short film! (phew!)

I will write another post explaining exactly how I am doing it. But I have finally made the switch. For years now I have heard filmmakers saying "don't plan to write a script, write a script, don't plan to make a movie, make a movie". Apparently that is the best way to learn. So what stopped me? A mental block, yes with me, probably a result of listening too much to people around.

How can I make a film? How would I do it? Its not really a great industry to be in. Its years of struggle. Most people never make it. Its just a silly craze, it'll phase out. But now you're an engineer etc etc

I don't have answers to any of these, and I honestly don't care. I guess every person has to go through this process of deciding what he/she really wants to do in life. It takes conviction, passion to go for a less travelled path. People have advice, a lot of them may tell you not to do something and often with good intent. But they do so from their own travels and experiences. They cannot possibly imagine what it takes to make it or if you have it in you. So how do you know if you have it or not. Well that's the million dollar question, ain't it? That's something a voice answers, from deep inside and that voice makes more sense than any person telling what you can't do. So after making sense of all this, the only thing left was to get over my inertia. 18 years of education has slowly but surely sucked every bit of instinct out of me. I like most others am incapable of taking any risks. We are trained that way, in an assembly line, living everyday to make a "good" living with an imaginary family. But I don't wanna get noticed in the crowd I just wanna leave the crowd completely. The people who follow their goals some how manage to do this successfully. A lot of such people just don't have a choice, they don't know how to do anything else, its their only option. But what about someone who is doing something else and strangely is successful there. It takes something more for such a person to look else where.

Then recently I lost a dear one, actually my dearest. After I got over the shock, the pain hit me, like a train. I have lived with it everyday since then. Even when I am happy I can feel it deep in my gut. But along with the sadness the pain did something else, it amazingly dragged me out of my 18 year coma. It has forced me to get a perspective of life. I feel that it forced me to see what really matters. I take my mind more seriously. It has has slapped me in the face. Its not just theory anymore, its not just in the movies anymore, it has happened to me, I saw a loved one die in front of me. So anything can happen to me, so then none of those things are just imaginary, they all happen to real people like me, even the dreams coming true part. And now, I want to try, no matter what happens, the will is finally getting stronger than the fears. I believe I have gotten there, I can take risks again, I got my instinct back.

So I am making my first film, because I don't want to wait anymore. I don't wanna go through life wondering why I didn't. All the time i put into watching movies, analyzing them, critiquing them, obsessing over them came to just one conclusion, "it would be fun to make one myself". Not for becoming rich, not for winning awards, not for the fame, just for the process. And I was right, its not just fun, its like a dream