Before his feature film debut with Udaan in 2009, Vikramaditya Motwane had five years of informal experience in the field. From making wedding videos for friends, to shooting a cousin’s trip to an F1 race, the filmmaker says it was the process of learning and the ability to make a film that has kept him going. Excerpts from a session that the director had with aspiring filmmakers at The Himalayan Film Festival in Leh recently.

“Most of the directors I know are instinctive, but that instinct also comes from years of honing your skills,” says Motwane, adding, “I don’t think filmmakers are born with talent. It’s ability. There is a marginal difference between the two. My ability to direct comes from me being an assistant director or learning things from when I was 18. So, when I was 32 and made my first film, I had 14 years of experience of understanding. You write, shoot and edit to know what you want. Then it comes to instincts. Paidaishi brilliant koi nahi hota hai.”

“Steven Spielberg was given his first film camera when he was 8-10 years old. Martin Scorsese was an asthmatic child and only had movies (to watch at home). Take Anurag (Kashyap) for example, who is so lost in his books and movies. He came to the film industry to be a writer in the first place. After he wrote Satya, where he was an assistant director, and assisted Vidhu Vinod Chopra on Mission Kashmir, he made his first film. There is always a backstory with wealth of knowledge giving filmmakers the ability to do what they did. It’s either that or you work your way up and figure it out along the way.”

Motwane adds, “I also learned from Sanjay Leela Bhansali that a director never ever stops thinking about his movie. In that entire process of making a movie, you wake up every morning thinking about how you can make it better. If something is bothering you, how do you change it. If there is a moment that you don’t like, how do you execute it? It’s an obsession that becomes unhealthy after a point. So, you also need to know when to switch off.”

“When I got married in 2005, I asked for a video camera as a gift from my in-laws. At first, they looked at me (as if to say), ‘Who asks for a video camera?’ Yet, that turned out to be the best gift ever because during the four to five years between when I thought I was ready to make a film and when I actually made my film in 2009, all I did was shoot. I used to film friends’ weddings, and if a cousin was going to F1 racing, I would follow them with my camera. I shot the weddings, added music, edited it, and even designed DVD covers for those videos. It’s like the full process of making a movie,” he says.