We recently connected with Vishal Munsif and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Vishal thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Our tagline at TDR Media is “Creating Content That Moves You” and we have registered this globally. This is also our mission. We built this media house so that we can create content that is not only entertaining but also thought provoking. We pick concepts globally that we believe tell a human story.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

TDR Media was formed in 2013 with a sole mission to bring East and West together. A mix of Bollywood and Hollywood. Keeping with this trend, we have our offices in Los Angeles and Mumbai, India. In India we provide sonic identity for big brands such as Coca Cola, Honda, Toyota, and many other brands. In the American market we mostly focus on filmmaking – Documentaries, movies and television shows. But we also have done ad work for clients such as AT&T.

As a producer, I am focused on content that can make a difference. My documentaries focus on social issues.. I am not here to preach, but merely present an argument through a medium I know best – Documentaries. It is not about money or fame; for me, filmmaking is about providing “content that moves you.” Move you by making you laugh, cry, think, and enraged to make a change. As a global society, we are facing terrible issues – environmental, political, religious. If I am successful to encourage at least one person to make a change, then I have done my job.

I have one documentary currently on Amazon Prime Video with another one in – a true crime documentary – in post production. Apart of these, we have a few features in development and a comedy-animation at the scripting level.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Life takes many turns, and for me, these turns came hard and fast. I grew up in a humble household in Mumbai. My accountant father and social worker/ television model mother instilled the importance of family values from the very beginning. But our family of four was broken when I migrated to the US. At 19, I found myself standing alone outside Chicago airport, thinking seriously about flying back to India. First 6 months in America were tough. Confused and lonely, I wasn’t sure what I was doing with my life. All my friends were back in India. The year was 1999, and social media wasn’t even a term then.

I worked two jobs to collect enough money to pay for one semester of college. In all the chaos surrounding my life, my passion for filmmaking was getting stronger. But due to economic turbulence, I chose business as my major in college, putting my passion on the back burner. I took up a full-time job along with full-time school to support myself . Years later I moved to Miami for my doctorate in Accountancy. But my passion for filmmaking never left me, not even for a day. After graduating, I moved to Los Angeles. It was finally time to pursue my passion. Working freelance without a formal degree in filmmaking was hard. To make things official, I joined Loyola Marymount University’s Film and Television Production program. I shared space with other students half my age, but that only encouraged me to work harder. With a full-time job, a brand-new baby and full-time school, my journey in filmmaking has been a ride. This has only made me stronger and committed to my passion.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Filmmaking is an amalgamation of art and commerce. Just being artistic isn”t enough. Unfortunately film schools don’t have courses in business. Due to my degrees in business and filmmaking, I was able to apply them towards my firm. Media is a tough business. The time between investment and returns are longer than any other trade. The expenses start to accrue as soon as development starts. The process of development may take 3-6 months or longer. Once the concept is done, next is pre-production followed by production, post-production and finally distribution. This entire process could take anywhere from 2-to-4 years. And the payroll cycle keeps running. Unless there are ancillary income from smaller projects like marketing and advertising, funding has to come in form of self-funding and loans from banks and investors.

When money is hard to come and projects take longer than expected, motivation starts to fall. As a leader, my job is to make sure the morale is high. As a small firm, we are closely knit. And we understand that we need to keep pushing – all the time. Everyday is a new day and the more we have goal congruence, the smoother the process and greater the results. At the start of each week we have a small meeting and only talk about what our goals are for the week and at the end of the week we have another meeting to see how much of our goals we were able to achieve. There are no judgements. Small things help keep our morale high.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tdrla.com