I'm Officially a Graduate!

Well, the time has come. After spending my whole life studying, realizing what makes me tick as a person, my passion. It feels so weird and quite sad to be leaving the student life, more importantly, Sheffield Hallam. I would joke about hating university when times were tough, but I take it all back. Sheffield Hallam University has made me who I am today, from start to finish.

When joining Sheffield Hallam, I was an extremely introverted person. I was very insecure about my height and appearance. Fitting in was something I worried very about a lot. I remember in the first year, I didn’t even go out on freshers week, I’d lock myself away in my dorm and avoid going into the kitchen if I heard people.

Moving on three years, I’m on stage delivering the vote of thanks speech in front of hundreds, possibly thousands of people at my graduation. I never ever expected myself to be in that position. However, throughout my time at university, I knew I had to keep pushing. One of my biggest moments was forcing myself to ask the talented filmmaker and good friend; Brett Chapman (known as brettinthecity) to meet up. I adore his work and love the fact that he has a unique style that just screams wholesome. Having worked alongside Brett, helped me realise that I can get work in film. From that day I kept going, being as proactive as I can.

I think it would be really dumb not to mention my two best friends. I met Jess/VHS girl in the first year and we just clicked. Fast forward three years and we’re in Brewdog. I was so set on working by myself and I remember Jess wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. Then she told me an idea she had. At that moment I just dropped my idea and said: “I’m working on this”. It’s actually mad how much effort we put into this one film. It was such an ambitious project, sourcing Filipino actresses, finding a variety of locations, fundraising over £800 and shooting alongside a pandemic. We are actually built different.

And Ai. We met at a Hallam freelancer job which I find very fitting. Now we’re working together under our established company; Yellow Pocket for big clients such as Hallam. I like how we are able to really just be ourselves and our clients can accept us for us.

I find it crazy, graduating I’ve managed to DOP a handful of short films, work with clients like Amazon, assist on large film sets, run my own company with Ai, make a fantastic handful of talented friends, shoot on stage with singer song-writer; EDEN, my absolute idol and progress as a human.

Thank you everyone,

I love you x.

Darshan.

Promoting a Good Cause with Film, Filming with Sheffield City Contact Tracers.

I am happy to announce that I am now part of the filmmaking team at SCCT (Sheffield City Contact Tracers). On the team, I will be working as their director of photography for their second episode, check out their first one if you haven’t already. Coming on as the DOP, I wanted to get under the skin and know all about the project to inform my decisions when behind the camera.

The project, albeit a simple one, was a sensitive one. In this episode, we plan to get under the topic of mental health and how it has affected people during the pandemic. Above are a few stills of the first day of shooting. We shot with Mental Mate, which is a charity that not only provides boxing lessons to help with mental health, but people to talk to. Everyone at Mental Mate has/is going through something and are all about talking about it! I cannot wait to share what we have done in the fullest, video form!