Anish Narendrakumar
Anish Narendrakumar’s passion for filmmaking, and his connection to the Georgia Film Academy (GFA) through Georgia State, helped land him a coveted internship with one of the world’s biggest brands, Coca-Cola. A marketing major earning a minor through GFA, he hopes to use his experiences and knowledge to bring a new genre of action films to the industry.
Interview by Zohra Basmadjian
You were chosen as an intern with Coca-Cola’s Coke Studios. Can you tell me more about it?
The Georgia State Film, Media and Theatre faculty sends out emails for internships and I saw Coca-Cola’s name on one of the emails, so that intrigued me to look further. I ended up applying and they got back to me two weeks later, asking for an interview.
They liked how I presented myself, my knowledge of cameras and my previous work. They called me in for another interview at the headquarters, and a couple days after that, they emailed me saying I got the internship. It was a pretty good feeling.
In the internship, I mainly work with the production staff in pre- and postproduction, and I help streamline the projects. I also help on set with things such as moving lights, setting up the camera and helping talent.
How did you choose Georgia State?
I heard its film program was good and I wanted to make my film network bigger.
After two years, I switched out of the film program and switched my major to marketing and then did my minor through the Georgia Film Academy. I took courses with them for two semesters and it was very hands on and engaging.
What’s the main inspiration behind your films?
Being able to push myself and do better than I did previously. Between all my films, I try to learn from the problems I had in my previous one, then make sure to work to improve in those areas in the next project and make my next film better in some aspect — whether that’s the story writing, camera work, color grading or any editing aspect.
Also watching other films and thinking this is how I could make my films.
What advice do you have for those wanting to go into film?
If you really do love it, keep making films. It doesn’t matter how good or bad you think they are. Just keep doing it and eventually your craft is going to get better.
Post them on social media and eventually people are going start seeing your films. After a time, that can lead to people reaching out, asking you to work on things together. Over time, it’s going to increase your network and, eventually, someone big is going to see it, and they’re going to want to talk and work with you.
What is one project you are most proud of?
In high school I was in SkillsUSA and we competed in nationals. We went up against about 150 people. They put us all in a room and gave us a prompt, a required item and a line of dialog that we had to use in a film. We had 36 hours to make a film — come up with a story, write the script, shoot, edit everything in 36 hours — and if you didn’t submit it exactly in 36 hours, you’d be disqualified.
It was the most stressful and tiring project I’ve ever done, but it’s the one I’m the proudest of. We put our blood, sweat and tears into it, but it was great because we ended up winning nationals.
What way do you hope to impact the world?
I hope to bring a new wave of action to the film industry. I feel like action movies are similar to each other except in a different camera or story, so I want to change that.
