Tyler Durden, Co-founder of Fight Club

Precisely an year ago, in the early monsoon months of 2016, I got my calling. A calling from my future self. He asked me, “Do you want to see yourself as the all singing, all dancing crap of the world, when you reach my age?” My answer was instinctively ‘no’. I pondered over my goal of becoming a filmmaker over the next few days and asked myself what stopped me from doing that. The answer was ‘Myself’. I was the only one standing in my way. I realised, giving up on my dreams was a luxury I couldn’t afford. So I began.

“Your future hasn’t been written yet. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one.” — Dr. Brown, Back to the Future

Having decided my path, I had to start taking my baby steps in that direction. In order to do that, I had to figure out two things —

What do I film? And what do I film it with?

My nephew’s naming ceremony was scheduled a week later and it seemed a perfect opportunity for me to hone my skills. Before investing on a good camera and filmmaking gear, I decided to shoot with the equipment I already have, for sometime, while I perfected the art. I dusted off my old point and shoot camera, Nikon P100 and a flimsy photography tripod, Simpex 333, both of which I had bought with my first stipend in college, almost 6 years ago.

I can’t stress this enough: you don’t need a world class equipment to make a world class film.

The next weekend proved to be fruitful, as I filmed the entire event single-handedly. This boosted my confidence at that time, although looking back at the footage today, I feel it could have been much better.

The success of my first shoot raised my spirits sky high and I instantaneously decided to learn everything about filmmaking. And it turns out, internet is the best school. There’s more than enough data available in the public domain, to perfect any skill. During that time, I worked for a startup, which took almost 9 hours of my time everyday. So I took a resolution that I would immerse myself in the ocean of filmmaking, daily after my office hours and on the weekends till I learnt the skills necessary to pull-off a film on my own.

Google Keep to the rescue!

I started listing down the topics I wanted to learn and the resources available on those subjects, across various departments of filmmaking. I maintained this list on Google Keep, which helped me refer back the links whenever needed. I also used to take down notes from various tutorials there. As you can see below, my research ranged all the way from camera lenses to VFX and color grading to drone shots. I really wanted to be a One Man Band.