Built to Be

I was always passionate about story-telling, and in my early life, I really discovered a specific love for translating words, stories and emotions, into images.
I feel that Cinema is the perfect, most complete form of expression for this purpose: moving image, sound, music allows you to build an entire world from scratch, and to truly bring a story and its characters to life. Since the first time I had the chance to direct, I knew that there would be nothing else quite like it for me.

As a directing style, I particularly like emphasizing the emotional state of a character through slow and fluid camera movements, the use of closeups and extreme closeups for instance is something heavily featured in many of my works.

I’m drawn to cutaways of objects and juxtaposing wide shots to extreme closeups to create an atmospheric ambience.
‘Built to Be’ presented many great opportunities for this visual style: it is a strongly emotionally charged story where characters often confront each other over complex and multi-layered feelings or states of mind. As a director, this gives me a chance to explore and visually express the emotions behind each character and to visually hint to something deeper in each scene rather than it being explicitly said.

One thing that drew me to ‘Built to Be’ when I first read the script was the care and attention to detail that Akash (Writer/Producer) had taken with the characters and the dynamics between them, for instance Shray and his unique relationship with his father was both heartfelt and compelling which I felt breathed more life and realism into the story. As well as this I could see that Indian culture was such a significant factor to the story's overall composition despite the film being set-in Present-day London. As a director I've worked on numerous projects over the years, but I don't believe I’ve worked on anything quite as culture-heavy or unique as Built to Be.

I knew when I read the script it was something I had to take on, if not the for the opportunity to show my style as a director but because I knew it was the sort of the project that doesn’t come around often. When I had found out that Akash was a first-time writer/ producer who'd be acting in this half hour film as well, I knew that the production would stand to benefit hugely from my knowledge and experience I'd accumulated from over a decade of working professionally as a 1st Ad, and director. I understood the story, the core themes of the film and the potential challenges that laid ahead, however; I knew no film is without its risks, and no film is without its rewards.