Writer, Director and Cameraman
Self-employed

Dishad H

00:00:04 Hi there. My name’s Dishad. I’m a director and a cameraman and a writer of comedy films. I tend to find that I usually do the comedy just for my own personal, private work and then that most of my jobs come in for documentary, mainstream documentaries.

00:00:24 When I was a kid, I started out thinking that I’d go into something science or technical, mainly because my mum wanted me to become a scientist or a doctor and so basically, those were the things I was thinking about when I was younger and what I geared myself towards when I went to university. In fact I did a science degree at university and that was mainly to keep the folks back home happy.

00:00:50 Because no-one in my family has an artistic background or works in the media, I had no idea how you’d get into the media or how you’d get a job in the media. I didn’t actually know anyone or talk to anyone regarding this, so it was completely something that was like a pipe dream. I spent most of my time at university in the student film and television society. I did my degree obviously and I did it quite well, thank you, mum, but luckily, all the things I did on the side sort of got me, or drew me towards my eventual media career.

00:01:22 So I met someone at university who’d just been to film school and he was telling us about the joys of film school, and it was something that I hadn’t actually considered because it’s just, again, film school I wouldn’t have known what that was about, what you could get out of it, and he had explained that it was a good way of getting into the career and you should apply.

00:01:48 So luckily, because of entering competitions at student level, I was able to get into film school after university through my work that I had done as a student. My first job was great because the company I was working for allowed young people to do a lot of… take on a lot of responsibility. I got actually a lot of chance to work on shows by being a camera person, and that’s quite rare but it was lucky that it was a great environment. It was a big step down, I think. I think as soon as…I was about to leave film school, it’d sort of given me loads of real, you know, encouragement and hoped to become, you know, a Hollywood superstar. But as soon as you left film school, you’d find out that you’re sort of back on the lower rung again.

00:02:33 So that was, yeah, it was an interesting sort of, yeah, falling on your feet. But yeah, sort of knowing that you’re starting all over again.

00:02:45 So this is Holly Bolly. It’s a ten minute, short comedy that I funded myself. And it’s basically…it took me one and a half years to make with all my own money and I took it round the festival…the film festival circuit and it did really well. I think it won eleven awards altogether and basically got me another directing job soon after with Channel Four. It’s just something that, yeah, it’s a labour of love that got me my next directing gig.

00:03:12 Before this, I was mostly just doing sort of camera work, assistant producing work for other people just as a job and doing things that were really interesting but it wasn’t something that I’d created or crafted myself. This gave me the confidence to go ahead and do my own projects.

00:03:31 The best way of looking at it is, ‘it’s the journey, not the destination’. So as long as I’m working, I’ll be happy. It’s not about the glamour and the glitz and the red carpets. It’s nice if you get, you know, get there with the film festivals, but the main thing is just enjoying working. I love working even if it’s making a low budget documentary. I love doing any work, so I’m just happy working, I think.