We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Athreya Ram a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Athreya thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
As an Indian immigrant living in America, I faced alienation and prejudice based on stereotypes of my culture and my skin color. Although that brought me into depression, filmmaking was my outlet to heal. I created stories displaying the consequences of hate and ignorance, and how that changes every person involved. However, retrospecting in a happier and recovered place in my life, I realized that my previous works helped the misrepresented feel understood and heard by illuminating humanity’s social issues—something that I wished I had earlier in my life. Inspired by the wrongful death of Sunil Tripathi and the Boston Marathon Bombing, “Torn Plaid” is no exception to my recurring theme.
Torn Plaid is a film that will always remain close to my heart. I remember as a young kid, I was watching the news and saw Indian parents grieving over the loss of their child who was shot dead at a bar in the US during a hate crime. I always had a vision for Torn Plaid and now I’m looking forward to building a complete storyworld out of this film’s universe. Also, I like to have diverse and unique characters in my stories that are imperfect. I want to highlight a social issue or a problem that the world faces everyday and create characters out of it that can heal or create chaos. To quote “The Dark Knight”; You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
Athreya, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
“When the light’s go out, the silver screen shines bright, the audience is silent in awe. Then the magic begins…”
These words have always lingered in my mind from the day I decided to become a filmmaker. The first amazing feeling I had walking out of a theater is when I watched my first 3D film as a very little kid. Ever since, I’ve only had one thought in my head: “To make my audience feel the same way I just did, with the magic of moving images”. Here in India, especially in my home city, film release days are celebrated like festivals. Heroes and actors are considered to be demigods. Top actors like “Superstar Rajnikanth” are literally worshipped with a huge banner of them, with people praying and pouring gallons of milk on the banner to worship them. Dialogues mouthed in films become a part of people’s everyday speech, some films even become an integral part of their lives. Politics and cinema are like the sea and beach in this country. This is the kind of environment I grew up in, and like every other ordinary boy, I relished the magic that happened on the silver screen. I too had my fanboy moments, but the idea to become a filmmaker came much later in the eleventh grade when I had Drama studies as a course in school. I had an amazing mentor who gave me a lot of confidence and taught me to explore my abilities in theatre. This was my first stepping stone in the pursuit of my filmmaking journey.
Right after leaving school, I decided to pursue my passion of filmmaking by sneaking out of my house with my dad’s camera to shoot something, then come home and edit it on his laptop all without him knowing. Then I moved on to how to stage and write a scene. I learnt all the aspects of screen balancing and the basic nuances of writing a script. The foundation was laid here; it was here that my hidden passions towards filmmaking were lit up. I started to enjoy what I did. ‘Camera’, ‘dialogue’, ‘screenplay’, these words started to bring in a new found affection and passion in me. I went on to contacting other famous school students my age (14) from different schools in my city through social media. I built a small network of like-minded people, and we didn’t care about money. We were off chasing our passions. I have worked in 5 short films out of which, I directed four and acted in one. Each film taught me something new every time, but each film had it’s own unique social message. With each film I made new mistakes, and with each mistake I learnt a new lesson.
Once my parents found out I’m upto something sneaky, they decided to enroll me in a one year acting course. It was here that I discovered what acting actually is! I learnt who an actor is, what he does, what is the relationship between a director and an actor and how an actor should perceive the director’s vision and deliver it. As a director, I realised it is important for me to know how to think in an actor’s shoes. At this point, I realised cinema is not just an art, but it is science, above that, science is never ending. You keep learning something new everyday. In order to apply that science well, I had to learn from the best. It was then that I came across The Los Angeles Film School. Looking at their credentials, I realised that was the place I should be in to take my career and passion to great heights.
After winning an award for my 3rd short film “Love, Pyaar, Amour” at a local film festival in my hometown, I was surprised to see my dad coming to see me there. That night, after the ceremony, I let him know my passion to move to Hollywood and pursue my journey in order to take it to the next level. It just seemed like the best place to gain knowledge for me at that time. After going through a lot of troubles, he finally agreed to send me.
As a director, I’ve received various types of emotions from the audience who watched my films so far. Till this day, I only want everyone who watches my movies to go through that feeling of magic on the silver screen which I felt when I was a young boy. My forte is Sensible Dramas, Solid Thrillers and the kind of Comedies that can make one laugh so much, yet, give a good feeling. I love working on Low Budet Indie films as we are able to explore in-depth about unique concepts. But the top goal in my life is to combine great film industries from all over the world, to make international movies that unites us all regardless of our heritage, culture or religion, and diversify the industry in Hollywood, which is changing day-by-day.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Till day, it’s getting those “Ahhhs” and “Hmmms” in theater. It makes the audience FEEL something watching my piece of art in the big screen and it makes them naturally give a reaction. I want to make movies where people walk out of the theater and talk about it, or haven’t left the storyworld in their heads, yet.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Being more open minded to explore cultures without being too critical of the background and not to stereotype. Breaking the barrier of watching a movie with subtitles to explore more artistic and meaningful films. Understanding art is a profession and it takes a lot of effort to make one.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://filmfreeway.com/AthreyaRamStudio
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/i_am_athreya/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theathreyaofficial/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/athreyaram/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamAthreya
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/theathreyastudio