Daily Inspiration: Meet Avai D’Amico

Today we’d like to introduce you to Avai D’Amico.

Hi Avai, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Years ago, I rented an indie movie on a streaming service. I was inspired by how minimal the production value was, yet it still told a compelling story and got distribution on a major streaming platform. That motivated me to make more ambitious full-length movies, instead of only the short films I’d been doing up until that time.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Making the shift from short films to feature films was an adventure, for sure. On the one hand, a full movie requires everything a short film requires, but the page count is higher, so there are more scenes to film, and getting the movie edited takes longer. On the other hand, there are a lot of special requirements for the distribution side of things, which will go much more smoothly if we know those requirements and plan for them before we even pick up our lights, cameras, and microphones. We had to bring our first movie back into post-production to edit it all over again, because we hadn’t organized the timeline in a way that made it easy to separate the dialogue, sound effects, and music into discrete audio stems. There were also some frame issues we needed to resolve. Finally, we had to get closed captioning done so we’d be fully compliant with streamers’ requirements. The extra effort is worth it, though, because making a full length movie feels so much more fulfilling when it’s completed and released, compared to a short film.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Cinematography is my area of specialization, and is mostly what I’m known for among other filmmakers. Waiting around for someone to hire me as a cinematographer isn’t always an option, though, so to keep myself working I also got into producing. By getting more projects off the ground, which I can then be the cinematographer for, I’m able to continue practicing and further developing my craft.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Pre-production is what will make or break your movie. Plan as much as you can. Make a backup plan for what you’ll do when, inevitably, things don’t go according to your original plan. Get the right people in the right positions. Everyone on the crew has to be able to rely on each other during production, but if you can also bring people on board who are excited about promoting the film after it’s out, that will make such a huge difference once the movie comes out, particularly in the micro budget space where we don’t have the deep pockets like big studios have, to compete for ad space.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.avai.media
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/avaidamico/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@avaidamico
• Other: https://tubitv.com/movies/100031348/a-question-of-guilt