I resigned my job in June 2015. It took me 5 years since to make my debut feature film. Hence I thought it might be a good time to look at what the past 5 years looked like and what the future 5 years would be like.
If you haven’t read what the past 5 years looked like, please do that before reading what the future 5 years would be like.
The Future 5 Years
It was after making Munnariv that I realised making a film was only 10% of the journey. It is even more difficult to get people to look at something you’ve created. So since finishing Munnariv, I have been learning business, marketing, selling, and so on.
Now that I know to make things, the plan for the next 5 or 10 year is to learn to sell things and build awareness. Also it is time to get back on my own feet. I have lived off of my parents long enough.
Learning Business for The Future 5 Years
To learn anything one needs to be able practically implement what he has learned, make mistakes and quickly do another implementation incorporating those new learnings. The more number of such interactions one can do in the shortest time possible, the faster one can learn.
Ideally I would have loved to learn to sell a feature film. But to pull a good feature film would need crew, time and money. Munnariv took 20-40 people, 6 lakhs, and over a year.
To do as many iterations as possible, I would need to be making, selling and building awareness of
- short films or web series (with low production value)
- merchandise or products by others
- a piece of software
The idea of low production value short films or web series is something that just struck me. It sounds interesting and I will have to think on that.
We had started a tee shirt store but that isn’t getting anywhere. I learned how important it is for one to believe in one’s own products through that failure. I also learned the importance of pricing, branding, marketing, and the need for capital when one starts a physical products business.
Hence came the idea for building a piece of software. It needs far less people than a film. It also doesn’t need as much capital to begin as does a film or a tee shirt store. Also being an engineer I have a lot of friends who are already experts. Hence we are planning to create a mobile app for solving people’s problems with AC. More updates will follow.
Do, Fall, Learn, Rise, Repeat
I learn the best by trial and error. The app be a success or a failure, I know I will learn a lot.
There is one thing though that I want you to pay attention to. Even if I failed in any of my endeavours, I always made sure that I can learn from the failure. That is I was still alive, have resources and time to try again. If you see this was so even with the 6 month soul searching travels.
With Munnariv even if the worst happens, that is no one sees the film, we are proud of what we were able to do with what little we had. We might even find a producer to make our next feature film showing Munnariv. And if the best case happens, we’ll have made enough money on our own to make our next film. Wonderful!
We give up certain things, pleasures, put up with criticism, sarcasm and so on for chasing our dreams. So yes it is a struggle, a struggle worth wading through.
