Yaz Al-Shaater: film-maker
Back in 1997, as young children, while my brother and I were staying with a relative, we had our first experience of playing with a video camera. It was a dated device even then, but the possibilities blew our minds. And so a life-long love of movie-making took hold. Througout school, we continued to make skits and spoofs using friends' early digital cameras whenever we could, but we started to move in different directions.
Fast forward a few years, and we'd both just graduated, and already started to carve out careers in theatre (in my case) and design/photography (for him). But we couldn't shake the idea that we should be making movies. So, we pooled a little money from our retail jobs, and bought a cheap camera. We made a short film, and secured a small corporate job from it. That paid for some better equipment, which led to a better short film, a music video, and subsequently a higher-paid corporate job for a charity.
Before you could say "tell me what happened next", we're running a busy production company, making commercials and such, and still somehow allowed us to keep writing and shooting narrative shorts alongside it.
Now, we make our living doing what we love, as directors, writers, and producers.
For recent work, take a look a our website or my directing agent/CV.
See also: my work as a theatre director.