Alok Mishra, Producer: At a certain point either you get frustrated or you feel that this is never
going to happen and something better happen now because we're not getting any younger.
Film Courage: What does risk mean to you?
Alok: I think that risk is having to potentially part with something you don't want to part with.
Let's say it’s, look a better word is gambling, that filmmakers (especially
indie filmmakers) are gamblers. Who knows what's going to work or not? It's a risky proposition
but we're kind of gambling. Are we going to perhaps mortgage an already paid off house?
Are we going to ask our uncle for money? Do I know if I can get that money back? What's
risky for him? Is it risky for me? It's risking that relationship. You have to be as someone who
tries to be risk aversive trying to do everything I can to mitigate risk.
There's only so much you can do. At the end of the day against gambling. You have
to understand that this money may never come back. Whoever's investing in your film must
need to understand that this money may never come back. Hopefully you've made a good enough script,
hopefully you have a background to help market the thing and you're kind of keyed into the business
end of things or you have somebody who's on your team who is who can help this money come back so
it's not as much a risk but it's always there and it's frankly always still a gamble in this
day and age there's different ways you can get paid now and they change from like month to month
unfortunately so you got to keep on keep up on that too as well so it's yeah what is risk risk is
fear risk can be different things but ultimately you have to be content with gambling but gambling
intelligently that makes sense how do you approach risk we try our best to mitigate things
if for example my director did not feel confident about one of the actors we had hired at one point
and so we said listen we'll fly you up to wherever they're shooting their show and you'll get like a
couple days to work with them hopefully that can take off some of the fear you have and I
don't feel that this is a risky proposition you don't feel this is a risky proposition
anymore you can do different things to lay people's fears and hopefully mitigate risk
you can't always some things come out of the woodwork and you did not expect that
to happen well hopefully you're insured right that's another way to mitigate risk
hopefully you've paid for all the permits and everything else you're supposed to and it's
not just gorilla hopefully you've been smart about dealing with the things in
a business-like fashion and and not screwing over people all right there's a golden rule
right doing to others let's say right well feed your crew feed your crew well they're working
for very little you better feed them well and you better treat everyone so well that they
don't try to turn you into some sort of a union production if you're not union for example right
these are very simple common sensical things that can help mitigate risk hopefully
and I thought it was great about just risking a relationship if you're asking for money you're
asking for favors or whatever that's a that's a really good point yeah because the movie may
come and go may do well it may not but you're risking a relationship and you're and you're
sort of standing in that person's eyes sure what were the risks that you took to make 1 BR
well I mortgage and already paid off house that was one thing to me we had we had a
we had a we were first-time filmmakers we were first time like producers and we were first time
our writer writer was a first-time writer director and we weren't only just risking our money we were
rest we were risking our reputations we were risking in some ways maybe like our
livelihoods for years to come to try to pay off this movie and the debt that would occur that you
anytime you make a movie you put yourself out there you risk yourself in a myriad of different
ways like you you risk yourself in a professional sense you risk yourself in a creative sense
the best thing you can do is surround yourself with enough people that can mitigate risk if
you're an experienced producer maybe you have some more experienced producers that are guiding
guiding you and helping guide the ship helping kind of like be your concierge or what have you
that can kindly get the material they understand where you are at they understand where this film
is at now this is what we need to do this is my suggestion to you and you should take their
suggestion right that's something that helps mitigate risk having experience like on the
crew whether it be an experienced DP or first-time director which is really important or experience
actors who really can hit their marks and know everything so you're making your days and so forth
these are all things that can mitigate risk for you for the independent filmmaker foreign
was this something you had done before is is take out a line of credit or something
against your home no no not at all okay in some ways it could be called foolish in a
lot of ways I had never done it but I felt so strongly about the project and I did feel that
we came to a certain part point in the production where we made the movie in December 2017 we
realized we needed reshoots we couldn't get the band back together so to speak until September of
2018 right and we sat and worked with David Marmor [writer/director of 1BR] we were like okay listen
I don't care if we lose this money I just want to make a good movie this is our first movie this has
to be good so if we're doing reshoots let's put some more money out there if we're doing
this that the other we'll wait until it's good we actually made the mistake of actually applying to
festivals like before the movie was done this is a nice piece of advice never submit a film unless
it's 100 fun because you think that the screeners can watch with better eyes than that they can all
color correct it it's not color correction oh it's like I can see that I can see it'll be good
they can't see if it'll be good I promise you they can't and it's literally like we got rejected from
17 different festivals before we got accepted and the funny thing is we got accepted from some of
the festivals that rejected Us in the first place we're like you rejected this film last year like
oh we did oh no we did it yeah you did but it took us the second time because it was finished
right so that's that was something that we worked with David on we trusted each other that's not a
big thing in terms of like things that can do away with risk we trusted each other enough to
take the time to take the time to let it get to a place where it was good enough and then would
be accepted by festivals and then then afterwards I said well I like the like one big festival they
got accepted by a ton of different festivals right we had a festival strategy if you will
look we had a list of like dream festivals we wanted to go to and the second we got accepted
to one of them we then started calling up the other ones hey listen we'd love for you to be
our European premier our New York premier or whatever it was and this was funny because
this saves you some money instead of actually like submitting to these festivals you just
say hey listen we got into this and they see a shiny thing and they're like oh my gosh this is
the new shiny thing oh sure just send it send us the film you don't have to like apply you want
to do anything to send us the film and you get in if it's if they they want it if they think
it's the new shiny thing you get in so you don't depending like submission fees so you applied to
the 17 festivals before the film was finished did you have to pay submission fees you did for
a lot of them yeah yeah a lot of them sometimes somebody who knows somebody and like it's your
waiver but by and large we submitted to them like through FilmFreeway or whatever you do and it was
interesting like the film wasn't finished and we thought we can't miss Sundance this year yeah you
should probably miss Sundance this year you're never going to get in with the unfinished work
but that's the thing a lot of times what happens with people who make films investors want their
money back and so they're really trying to rush to get this thing out and whatever else it's not we
didn't have that rush that was like a lucky thing for us because we were just like look just make it
a good movie that's the main thing would you say sometimes the biggest risk is not taking a risk
sure like I said you can hold yourself back people hold themselves back like
it's a thing where oh it's not the time not this year maybe next year you you
definitely can be very self-defeatist people do it all the time there's always an excuse oh well
my kid needs braces I don't have time for this or whatever it is there's a myriad different reasons
as to why this could happen to you though at a certain point either you get frustrated or you
feel that this is never going to happen and something better happen now because we're not
getting any younger that was a big impetus for my sort of like get off my butt and stop doing
this market research job and let's make this movie was was just that like what what we got
like 80 year old producer like I've never done a movie yet I'm doing my first one at 80. At
a certain point you could but like if you want to do it for a living maybe maybe you start the
switching careers right now right so that that's that that can't happen that can't happen but the
thing of it is you have to talk yourself out of it and you have to sort of really at some point
if you don't do it now when are you going to do it you have to ask yourself that question
yeah not to be too much of a downer but when you see someone your own age pass away
and it's like of natural causes or whatever that's a huge motivation however old you are
that you're like oh wow this thing isn't going to go on forever sure I got to do this now so
and you talked about having some life changes to different things so it sounds like you were
in a good space in that sense where you're ready to try something and and failure wasn't too much
people in film are crazy right we're just crazy like everyone there's a very nomadic lifestyle
to a lot of it like like you really literally have joined the circus and you're going running away to
the next town and like there's that sort of thing about filmmakers where they they almost would do
it for free if it wasn't for bills and like family and whatever else you'd almost do it for free
because you love it that much right and that's the majority of filmmakers who are passionate because
like God knows we're not getting paid for it very well as far as independent filmmakers like you do
it for the love of it you do it because this is the one of the only things you can see yourself
doing and for a lot of people that there's an idea of having a safety net or not having
a safety net when you don't have a safety net like this is all you have you're going to make
this work you're going to make this work like you're going to figure out whatever problems
are at you doesn't matter because we need to make this work because I don't have a safety net we're
going to make this work right that that that helps kind of push you along I push you out of the nest
let's say the nest of comfortability it helps push you out and actually fly I guess in this
analogy if if if either you fly or you fall to the ground let's say right and hopefully you fly
so we're like carnies with cameras yeah kind of we're very nomadic like
you're going from one job to the other job to the other job and and everyone
speaks the same language she works with this like this circus right so.