Hi guys, my name is Karan Choudhary and I was born and raised in a small town Faridabad
in India.
Before becoming an actor I was a salesman in a clothing store and I used to sell shoes
and clothes in Connaught Place, New Delhi.
And right after that I became a gym trainer and I was a trainer for about three to four
years and after that I moved to Bombay to pursue my career as a model and actor.
And in 2013 I applied at The Neighborhood Playhouse to study acting in New York City.
So I moved here in 2013.
Since then I’m actively pursuing acting and recently I started making my own projects.
Last year I made a documentary (DEDICATION) and this year I made a short film called NEW
YORK’D.
I wrote it, produced it, directed and acted in it.
NEW YORK’D has been accepted in many film festivals and we have won about five awards
in various categories.
“…I have a date today and because of you, I’m going to miss it.”
Karan as Sean in NEW YORK’D
[Scene to NEW YORK’D movie]
[Text appears and delivery man shows Karan the phone]
“Hey, look…my boss” Kyle Mcllhone as The Delivery Guy
“Alright, I’ve also got to go.”
Replies Sean
“Just pay me and deal with your own personal problems later, huh?”
“My personal problems?
You’re the one who is causing these personal problems.”
“What?
Are you blaming me for getting yourself locked out of your apartment?”
“You are the delivery guy.
You’ve got one job to do.
If you had done your job like you are supposed to.”
“If you’d cook your own food like you’re supposed to…”
“You make a living because of people like me.”
“And you get to enjoy hot food in bed because of people like me.”
“Yeah…where is it?
Where is my hot food?”
“I just want to get my money and get out of here.”
“Hey Sean…”
Voice from the sidewalk breaks up the conversation.
Karan Choudhary: The number one problem that I am facing (and I’m sure a lot of people
who come from different countries are still facing) is having to deal with their immigration
status.
People who come from different countries and to pursue their career as an actor in this
country (United States) you have to have the Artist Visa.
It’s really hard to get an Artist Visa and even if you have the Artist Visa a lot of
the production (film and TV both) would still not give you the job because they consider
people who have green cards or people who are citizens of this country.
So all that work that you put into getting the O-1 Artist Visa, it’s almost useless.
The only way to get the jobs and pursue a successful acting career is to get a green
card.
And how I am facing that problem and trying to solve it is by making my own projects.
The faster you can apply for the green card, the better for you.
And a way to do it is make as many projects as you can, take them to the film festival,
let’s see if they win some awards.
Get press.
And then once you have enough projects about yourself, then you can apply for the green
card and the chances are you will be much more successful.
Another problem that I’m facing is financing for projects.
I had an idea.
I wrote a script and now I’m going into production.
But when it comes to budgeting I was surprised that turning a script into a film is way hard
than I thought so what I did budgeting wise that my latest film NEW YORK’D was originally
written according to night night sequences.
So we turned the night sequences into day sequences so that saved me money on the lighting.
There was a lot of shots of which I planned in Time Square which which is really, really
hard to get along with the equipment and crew and especially shooting and retakes.
So what I did was I took all those sequences and put it in a Greenwich Village streets,
which are much easier to shoot, much nicer to look at on camera.
The other problem was the crew.
So a lot of jobs were distributed to my actors, myself (I was doing probably three or four
jobs on the day of shooting) so I cut a lot of crew and that saved me a lot of money and
that’s how I was able to shoot NEW YORK’D under a very limited budget and in just one
day.
There’s another problem I face and I’m sure a lot of first-time filmmakers are still
facing, that they have finished their first film, how do they take it to their audience
(especially to the film festivals)?
If you go on Film Freeway’s site, there’s about six to seven thousand festivals listed.
Each festival would cost you from $30 to $60.
If you decide to submit your film in 20 festivals, that’s going to cost you a lot of money.
So what I did, I wrote a personal email to every film festival that I wanted to submit
and even more.
I sent a personal email to more than a thousand film festivals saying “I’m an immigrant.
This is my first film.
And all I want is some sort of a discount or waiver.”
And you would be surprised what a success it was.
I was successful in 90% of the time.
I submitted by second film NEW YORK’D in 60 film festivals and 50 of those film festivals
gave me full waiver.
All you’ve got to do is ask because the answer is always “no” until you ask.
Thank you so much for watching this video.
I would love to know what kind of problems you are facing, especially if you happen to
be from a different country or any other visa problem or if you’re an actor and trying
to make your own projects and the problems you are facing.
Thank you so much guys.
Bye!