Pursuing a dream - Part 1

I always wanted to make movies. Somehow I managed to convince my very reluctant parents of my desire to become a film-director. In the culture I came from, it was like saying I wanted to be a pot smoking, beach bum. A drifter with no purpose in life. With infinite patience coupled with a healthy dose of persuasion, I prevailed. My folks relented. Eventually, I landed at a university in Italy studying the art of film, Italian style. I spent 5 of the happiest years of my life, in a little medieval town just outside the Eternal City.

Life eventually took in me in a completely different direction. Today I work in as corporate an environment as it gets. Far away from anything remotely close to film-making. Rather then hobble along, trying to preserve a meager existence holding on to the improbable hope of making it big, I chose to embrace a pragmatic solution. A stable career that would eventually give me the tools to revisit film making again. It was a strategic retreat so I could fight my battle another day with reinforcements and a stronger footing. As soon as I established my day job, which took me a couple of years, I shifted focus again.....

It had been almost 10 years since I left film school and technology had a taken a giant leap forward. When I was a student, it was near impossible for an individual to edit his/her movies without engaging the services of a post production house or an editor. Today, at a relatively small cost, an individual can do it alone. 10 years ago, the cost of cameras, editing software, hard drives, computers, lighting were prohibitively expensive but today, supported by the incredible advance in technology, costs have shifted down dramatically.

And then there was the internet. Use of the world wide web exploded over the last decade. In the old days, budding filmmakers needed to find distribution channels for their movies, a daunting task to say the least. Distributors only went for big ticket projects with proven potential at the box office. The little ones struggled mightily. Many great movies and documentaries never saw the light of day because of how the system worked. These days filmmakers upload movies onto any number of websites, taking content directly to the consumer. The internet revolutionized and completely changed the landscape of film making.

In early 2007, I bought a 24 inch I-Mac and Final Cut Express, Mac's amazing consumer level editing software. Having been to film school, I knew all the basics from production to post production. I visited Craigslist.com, where I found a working Final Cut editor, willing to give me a few private lessons. Final Cut had a somewhat steep learning curve and rather then stumble along by myself trying to master complex software, I figured private lessons would provide the quickest, most efficient way to study. Sure enough, within 3 weeks, I had the basics down and was ready to start editing.

In retrospect, my decision to reenter the field albeit on a part time basis, could not have come at a better time. Initially I wasn't sure if the money spent setting myself up was such a good investment. This wasn't going to be an income generating venture and all projects I had planned were documentaries about social welfare projects with zero commercial potential. But it was an investment in my dreams, an opportunity to get back to what I really loved doing.

We've heard it many times before and it's true. We should never give up on our dreams and aspirations however trivial or Utopian they may seem. If it's what we love doing, we owe it ourselves to make it happen....