An increasing number of young filmmakers are getting into the industry not through the front gate, but through the side door off the beaten path. Filmmaker Praveen Vattikolla, for one, armed with a student visa, $300 and a dream of making it in the land of opportunities, did just that.
However, the India-native’s path to filmmaking took him through South Carolina to pick up a degree in engineering along the way to his start as a UCLA student and a burgeoning auteur.
Raised in Visakhapatnam, India, Vattikolla, also known as Pravin Vatt professionally, received his undergraduate degree at the Jawarlahal Nehru University in his hometown. As many international students are wont to do, Vattikolla decided to pursue his graduate degree in engineering in the United States. “I came from India to widen my experience,” Vattikolla said. “(I came for) the better education system, the better opportunities. It’s called the land of opportunity, you can bring about something in your own tiny way.”
Vattikolla, with the ink still fresh on his student visa, began attending the other USC ““ the University of South Carolina. Vattikolla worked toward his degree while simultaneously bolstering his original stipend of $300 by working part-time jobs, including one gig as a Web designer and assistant at a South Carolina science fair. It was around this time that Vattikolla started assisting a friend on a film he was making and ““ as many non-film majors before him ““ he was hooked.
However, this didn’t come as much of a surprise to Vattikolla. “I’ve always been fascinated by filmmaking, even in India,” Vattikolla said. “I would buy a camera on my own. I would go out with my friends, and we would stage some small plays and make some videos. To show that to people and have them appreciate it, it was great.”
Considering that India and its world-famous Bollywood film industry churns out more films per calendar year than Hollywood, it’s no wonder that Vattikolla grew up dreaming of filmmaking.
“Films are around all the time. It’s a primary source of entertainment there,” Vattikolla said. “There’s kind of a ban on bars and clubs and stuff, so we would go out and watch movies a lot. Anywhere from five to eight movies a week … I would watch the same movie several times just to catch the different camera angles and details.”
Vattikolla then temporarily left the world of engineering behind for a summer at UCLA, where he continued assisting on film productions in addition to taking film classes. “I didn’t want to be stuck in a track in India. I wanted to learn more,” he said. “It’s the same reason to go to UCLA, rather than staying in a small town. It’s to gain more opportunities.”
Vattikolla immersed himself in filmmaking, enjoying the intimate nature of the classes and the fact that summer is prime production time for student filmmakers, which helped him gain more experience.
Even though Vattikolla’s heart remained at UCLA, his name remained on his engineering diploma from the University of South Carolina. Since the film bug bit hard, Vattikolla entered into the unique position of becoming an engineer in order to pay the bills and fund his filmmaking productions. “Some people wait tables, I was an engineer,” Vattikolla said. “It was my day job.”
Vattikolla continued to crunch numbers by day and film actors by night, producing several short films, one of which, “Toppie” won the audience award at the Kansas City Comedy Short Film Festival
He wrote and filmed his current project, “Different Shades of Human Life,” an anthology film of six separate stories.
“I originally conceived of “˜Different Shades of Human Life,’ and made the shorts. It’s an anthology film, like “˜Crash,’ “˜Magnolia’ or “˜Four Rooms.’ They’re separate stories edited together,” he said. “They’re a different form, just like short stories. The stories are short but they’re not small.”
The six stories themselves contained within the film include such divisive and wrenching topics as terrorism, Alzheimer’s disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. The short format combined with the subject matter did present some difficulties for the filmmaker. “The characters have to come out in 10-15 minutes. It’s a challenge,” Vattikolla said. “It gives you an appreciation for how lives intersect.”
Since filming for “Different Shades” wrapped up in August, Vattikolla has been focusing on trying to distribute his film by applying to different festivals and working to secure distribution on Netflix and Amazon. Thanks to an extended work visa, Vattikolla continues to write new material in his current home of the United States.
“It’s very difficult to come to a different country and try to make a movie,” he said. “But there are certain things you can do in India that you can’t do in the United States, and there are things that you can do in the United States that you can’t do in India.”
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Swinging by from a Google search of ‘engineer filmmakers’ – stories like these are godsends to find for those of us who dream beyond the engineering track.