A filmmaking, and interim update
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This won't be news if you are a contact on facebook. I've spent the last few months studying up and honing my skills as a filmmaker. I'll be shooting my first short film Dilemma this weekend.
It's been quite a ride!
When I moved on from Nexenta, I had a couple of options into the future. One continued my journey down the road to technological entrepreneurship. The other, filmmaking, required a jump into brand new territory. What made me decide on the latter? The realisation that there wasn't going to be a better time to give it a shot.
Over the past few years, I have become a fan of cinematic TV. American cable networks, from HBO to FX to AMC, have stepped up the game over the past decade. And back home, the quality of TV and film content can best be classified as appalling. This signals an opportunity. A huge one. With a potential audience of a billion people, there is a market for enterprising individual who can create content with quality on par with global (and specially US cable) standards.
TV as a format has some advantages over feature films. It allows you to tell a story at a pace you choose, developing characters to a depth you want to. 'The Wire' could never have been a movie.
The second big advantage is the reach. The TV set in these billion homes are a shared common window, that looks out onto a stage. And as a story-teller, you can get access to this stage.
I wrote my first script "Dilemma" in June, and shooting it soon. This is an intense drama with a runtime of around 25 minutes. In early September, we conducted auditions, and completed casting by the third week.
Over the course of this educational journey, I've gotten in touch with individuals from disparate fields of artistry. I'd like to give a virtual shout-out to Roy Sinai, who is also part of the Dilemma cast, for his help throughout.
That's the quick update. I'm funding it via the crowd-sourcing site Indiegogo. Head over the Indiegogo page of Dilemma, and help fund the film! The writeup explains the film's plot and themes, and my efforts in open collaboration, in more detail. Read through, please send me your feedback, if any.
Oh, and I'll also be writing over at the Dilemma blog through the course of the film's production and post-production.