Making movies

Life beyond the school gates is never easy and we find there are many things we did not learn in class.

Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit discovered, almost two years after graduation, that dreams and reality are different. We cannot just live the dream, but have to find ways to balance it.

Since Mathayom age, Nawapol always wanted to be a professional short-film maker. Though Chinese was his study of choice at Chulalongkorn University, he loved to carry around a camera and preferred to make films rather than write Chinese "Pin-Yin".

In 2003, Nawapol, in his second year, started shooting his first short film, "My Shrunk House" - the story of a girl who came home one day to find her house had sunk into the ground.

It was no big success, but a good start. The film won a special mention at the 5th Movie Mania Awards, organised by the university's communications arts school.

That was enough for him to put aside what he had learned in school in order to follow his dream. 

He believed he could make a living at it.

"I really thought, at that time, that short films could take me anywhere and introduce me to international short-film markets," says the 23-year-old.

He did not apply for any jobs. Instead, he visited both Thai and overseas short-film events to explore ideas and his imagination while spending his savings to create his own movies for competition.

A year after he walked out of university and with several films in the can, Nawapol was where he started. No glory, no sponsors and no money.

Nothing went the way he expected and many questions rattled around in his mind.

"Am I sure I don't want to do other things and wait for another chance? What if nothing happens in my second year of trying," he recalls.

Short film is supposed to be independent art, but the expectation of prizes started to dominate his work more and more. He started to guess what kind of film the judges liked.

"I felt bad when I had these thoughts. It [short film] should be pure art - different from mass-market film," he says.

"Like making a stylish bag. If the bag is actually good someone will want one. Why do you have make a bag to serve others?"

Nawapol felt down and thought of quitting, but he did not want to completely abandon the thing he had dedicated all his efforts to.

After revising what he had done for a year, Nawapol found a job and treated film-making as a hobby.

"It's always in my mind that what I want to do is short film. But when I had lived with nothing but that for a year, I found I could no longer."

He is now a columnist for A Day and Hamburger magazines, a freelancer for Bioscope magazine and a screenwriter for film company GTH.

The rest of his time is dedicated to creating short films.

His day jobs are good support for his career as a film-maker.

"Working helps me get away from myself, open my mind and learn from others. I talk with others more and understand it takes time to arrive at your destination," Nawapol says.

His sixth short film - "See" - won second prize at the 4th Fat Film festival and his ninth, "Bangkok Tanks" - a conversation on MSN Messenger during the 2006 coup - was selected to screen at the Home Affairs Programme, Berlin International Film Festival 2007 in Germany.

That gave him a chance to fly to Berlin and experience things he never saw in Thailand's short-film industry.

Nawapol says all seats are booked for the programme. Viewers queue up to buy tickets to short films.

"I think a strong short-film education and culture makes it acceptable and popular, no less than mainstream films. In Europe, there are television channels screening short films and organisations give support to short-film makers," he says.

Today, with more experience, Nawapol has learned not to set expectations that are too high. He still expects comments from audiences, though.

"I just think that I should be myself as much as I can, and so should my short films," says Nawapol.