Conversation with the youngest short film director in Australia
Story of an extraordinary passion, dedication, teamwork & entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the art of starting a business, basically a start-up project or company offering creative product, process or service. We can say that it is an activity full of creativity. An entrepreneur perceives everything as a chance and displays bias in taking decision to exploit the chance.
Today we are interviewing a gang of young boys. They are the type of crew who identifies and pursues opportunities without allowing risks to become barriers. Becoming your own boss is something that has been romanticised for ages. This bunch of young boys have the ability to turn their passions or hobbies into a career. Entrepreneurship is by no means easy but if you have the dedication, drive and heart, you can succeed in creating your own passion into a thriving business.
H2O Blue Life Magazine brings you an informal interview with this youngest writer, director and producer of a short film titled “Night and wrong”. Let’s explore this youngest entrepreneur “Aditya Krishna Moorthy” to see how he started and how his passion is evolving and growing each passing day.
Q- Briefly describe about your background and yourself self?
My name is Aditya Krishna Moorthy, I am 15 and have been living in Australia for almost all of my life. I am a year 10 student and of course, really enjoy the production of movies, making them, and I’ve been watching a movie every day since the 18th of September, 2020.
Q- Your core strengths & values you believe in?
I live my life with three key values. Integrity: Doing the right thing whenever I can, Initiative: Proving I have what it takes and care for what I am doing, and Determination: Without drive you won’t get anywhere.
Q- What makes you different from others?
I think it is my devotion to what I do. When I find something I enjoy or care about, I spend every waking second thinking about or working on it. For example, when I start writing a script for a movie, everywhere I walk, I think about it. When I go to sleep, I picture the movie playing out in my head. When I am simply talking to someone, I can imagine what it would look like if it was a scene from a movie. I think without this devotion to my craft, I would not have been able to still watch and make movies now.
Q- Where do you get your inspiration from?
I feel my films are a combination of my everyday life as well as movies I have seen, melded together to form the short. For example, if I am walking down a staircase in my home, I get inspiration from just that and imagine the character of any given film I’m writing walking down a similar staircase, but say the setting changes from a typical suburban home to a grimy neo-noir alleyway. Life is the birth of movies, and film is a reflection of life.
Q- How many hours a day do you work on average?
Well since I am a student, most of my weekdays are occupied with school, but even then, I steal time intervals in class, before school and at home to work on scripts, editing, contacting etc. On weekends, I have a lot more freedom with this, and I’d say around 6 hours a day on weekends are spent movie making.
Q- Can you describe/outline your typical day?
On a weekday, I wake up at about 6:00 and get out of bed by 6:30. I get ready for school and am out of the house by 7:30. From 8 to 3:10 I attend school. After arriving home I start doing my homework from about 4 to 7:30 while simultaneously watching the movie for the day, and then I break for dinner. Afterward I continue my homework till about 8 or 9 and then spend any remaining time working on films till about 10:30. On weekends, I usually do my remaining homework, edit films, script the next one, watch the movie for the day, go to work at my job and finish up any tasks I saved for the weekend (Rewatch a movie, go to the bank, etc.).
Q- How has being a movie maker / entrepreneur affected your family life; do they support?
My parents truly support what I do. They show this as often as possible, from sending me links to various camera gadgets to sending out my short films to friends and family. I mean they literally bought me my first ever proper camera this year as a surprise. My parents truly care about my passion and I am very grateful for that.
Q – What motivates you when making movies?
At the current stage, what motivates me is knowing I can do better, almost attempting to one up my previous film I had made and diversifying, displaying and conquering more and more different aspects of filmmaking until eventually I am as close to perfect one can be at making films, even if this is when I am 80. Knowing I can at one stage be great and knowing I am not there yet is a curse because it’s a never ending road to something almost unattainable, but also is a gift because it gives me motivation.
Q- How do you generate new ideas for your projects?
I have had a long-running notepad on my phone for I think 2 years now filled with various different movie ideas from 5 minute shorts to long spectacle feature films over 4 hours long to even TV shows. Whenever a random idea pops into my head, or I think of something as simple as a character dynamic, I log it into the notepad and save it for later.
Q- What are your ideals? (A film star, a leader, a teacher, a politician or business person)
My ultimate goal in life is to become a film director/writer or a lawyer. I love the filmmaking process, and imagining myself in the future doing anything but is disheartening. To be able to think of an idea, write it down, develop, cast, shoot and then edit that idea into a film is my equivalent of raising a kid. Although that does make me question how good of a father I would actually be.
Q- What piece of advice would you give to your friends who want to become entrepreneurs?
Even though I wouldn’t consider myself a really successful entrepreneur, I would say simply having the determination to go out and do what you want and execute it is key.
Q- What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur and a leader?
- Determination – Be able to know your goal.
- Communication – Talking with the people who help you and work with you.
- Focus – Sticking to your goal.
Q- Tell us a bit about your upcoming movie called “night and wrong”?
Night and wrong is a drama/thriller film I have been working on for a while. It is essentially about an ethical insomniac who tries to prevent his immoral gangster friend from killing a civilian at 3:00 AM while attempting to survive the deadly gang infested underbelly of their neighborhood. The movie is made to look like one shot, and I think that aids to the very tense nature of it. I’m really excited for everyone to check it out.
Q- Are you working on any new projects for the future?
I have planned the next 7 films I am going to be working on. With so many ideas, I need to get them out, which is why I am releasing a film every term. I have big plans in mind for the future.
Q- Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
In 10 years I will be 26 and by then I hope to have at the very least released 2 feature films that were successful and have a start in the film business as a director and a writer. It might be ambitious, but that’s who I am.
Q- Can you share names of your team and their role in the short film?
My team consist of my friends and I picked their role, keeping in view their traits. Names are as under:
- Rayaan Sejwal
- Henry McCracken Matthews
- Vedh Vipin
- Jonathan James
- Aditya Krishna Moorthy
- Shamika Eriyawala
- Andy Duong
- Jaden Roy Devaney
- Avinda Wickramaratne
- Paul Milonakos
- Ethan Chrisicos
- Joshua Cherukara Matthew
- Jehan Fernando
- Luke P
- Bradley Lopez
