Archit Bhatt, One of The Founders of “3 Enginerds – It is a YouTube channel which make short films” Shares Their Motivational Story

3 Enginerds – It is a YouTube channel which make short films And because there were 3 nerds who were doing engineering when they started this project , they named their YouTube channel as “3 Enginerds”.

“Study Work and Earn.” A stereotype life cycle which is followed by most of the people around me. I was good in academics and if you’re good at studies then you eventually end up becoming an engineer or a doctor or a CA and I went with the first option i.e. Engineering.

Archit Bhatt : My Story

It was 2013, my second year of engineering and like everyone I too had dreams of working under a big MNC and earn big bucks. I was following the stereotype life cycle until a day came and I saw a short film on YouTube. It was about friendship. It generated a spark within me to create something like it.

As Adhitya Iyer said in his book “In India, you become an engineer first and then figure out what you want to do with your life “ It happened with me. I found it cool to make short movies and videos. I wanted to make such videos. But I had no knowledge of filmmaking. I didn’t even know that it was called ‘Filmmaking’. I discussed it with my roommate, Garvit. He too had no idea about it but he agreed to hit on it. We both watched many short films and videos on YouTube and tried to figure out how to do it. We made a list of things we needed. The first thing was to learn about camera and second thing was to get a professional Camera which was out of our budget. So I started clicking photos on my smartphone but I wasn’t fully satisfied.

I wanted to buy a DSLR. But its price was too high for me. I simply couldn’t afford it. I talked about it to my parents. And they said,”Once you become an engineer, you can buy whatever you want. And whats the use of camera ? You should concentrate on your grades.” But I didn’t want to wait for an engineering degree to get a camera. I always have had a philosophy i.e. “When you want to do something, do it today, there is no tomorrow, Those who wait for tomorrow, gets nothing .” When no one stands by your side then your friends do. Garvit Trivedi was my room mate back then. I discussed about it with him and Ashish Sharma. They didn’t think for a second and agreed to do it. They never think twice when someone needs them. All I earned in my engineering life is friendship. Friends support you by all their hearts.

“It feels good when you do something for your dreams”

A DSLR was out of our budget .We had no savings so I decided to sell my mobile. We could only afford a semi SLR camera at that time. We bought Nikon L830. My idea was turning into reality. Trust me, it feels good when you do something for your dreams. After buying the camera, all I wanted to do is to learn the basics of photography. I couldn’t join any photography courses but then I had YouTube. YouTube turned out to be my best teacher. After watching a tutorial, I used to try it and in starting days my shots were horrible.

I used to delete them immediately. Some were good so I showed them to my friends. They used to give their honest review and it helped me to do better. My main motive was to make films but it wasn’t my cup of tea at that time. I needed to learn many things before I start it like scripting, editing, shoot etc etc. After 5 months, when I had learnt many things in photography I thought it was the time to enter into film-making. But for making really good films, I needed a really good camera. I wanted to buy Sony Alpha-58 DSLR worth rs. 34000 and then again I had no money.

For students like me, the cost was too high. To get something , you have to do something and sometimes you have to loose something too. I sold my semi SLR to buy a new DSLR but I still needed more money to buy a DSLR. It was sunday evening and I and Ashish were discussing ways to buy a new camera. An idea came to our mind then and we ran to Garvit. The conversation went like this. “Garvit, Did you submit your semester’s fees ?” I asked him. “No, I will submit it tomorrow.” He said. “I need INR 30,000 ASAP. Where is your fee money ?” I asked. “ Take my ATM. I know you’re going to buy camera.” He said and gave me his ATM card. He didn’t even bother about it. “ Thanks bud. Meet you soon.” I began to run. “ But hey, do you have any backup plan for my fees ? I don’t want to waste my semester.” He shouted. “We’ll figure it later. Bye.

Ashish is waiting for me downstairs.” I shouted and started running towards my goal. As I said “All I earned in my engineering life is friendship. Friends support you by all their hearts.” Garvit agreed to spend his semester’s fees to fulfill my dream. His whole semester was on stake. It was a huge risk for us. After we bought the camera, I had no backup plan for his fees so all we could do was to save our whole pocket money. We three used to share one lunch box among us. We had no money in our pockets for 5 months. But we were doing that for our dreams and it felt good. Months passed and we couldn’t save enough money for fees.

We needed something badly to earn money. So we three started a part time job of data entry and sadly we made many errors so none of us got paid. But we had to something. Luckily, one of my friend and dance teacher, Vivek Bhardwaj, was organizing a disc party and he wanted someone to partner with. I decided to collaborate with him to earn some money. We had only 8 days to submit fees otherwise Garvit wouldn’t be able to sit in the university exams. So I decided to invest all those savings of past 5 month into the disc party.

An another risk. I was sure that I would make more money. We organized the disc party just before the last day of submission of fees. The party went pretty good. I thought we made it but stars weren’t in my favor. Someone stole some money from our cash counter and our disc party became a failure. We couldn’t find the thief so all we could do was to sell something that can recover our money from. We had only one day. And all we could sell was our camera.

Frankly, I never felt such helplessness at that time but We had no other way. It felt like all our hard work went in vain. I failed at that time. We posted an ad of our camera just after the party and luckily someone called us within a hour. We went to him and sold the camera. The deal wasn’t good but Garvit’s semester was on stake so we had to sell it anyhow. We sold it in half of the actual rate and submitted the fee on the last day.

We safe-zoned Garvit’s semester successfully. But somewhere I wasn’t feeling good. Giving up was not something my family taught me. My parents always taught me to not to give up, to not to quit. Time passed and again, I started thinking ideas of buying a new camera. All I could do was to wait for some time and save pocket money. I did some part time home sitting jobs and made some money. In February 2015, I sold my mobile phone again and bought Canon 1200D. It was my time to start doing what I always wanted to do.

Making Films. I had already started writing scripts since the idea of film making came to my mind. So I started making short films after I bought the canon camera. I remember I used to scribble ideas behind my notebook and now they were turning into reality. It felt so good. We participated in many film making competition and won some of them. We stood first in 3 film making contests held by Arya College of Engineering Jaipur, Apex Institute of Management Jaipur and MAIET Jaipur.

After making 6 films, we made Astitva. This was the film who gave us the recognition we were looking for. Astitva is a video poem which is based on people hide behind a fake mask. ‘Astiva’ is a small effort to make people realize that they don’t have to hide their identity in order to please the society. One should always pursue their talent and dreams. Astitva is dedicated to such people who live behind a veil created by society, but also want to unveil it. Some celebrities have also appreciated our work.

Astitva | Poem | 3 Enginerds :

Ali Fazal, Actor (Happy Bhag Jayegi) – “Nice I saw Astitva. Great idea behind it. The poetry, its very good. The flow is great and there is so much to promise. Looking forward to see more of your work. Keep making and stay in touch. Sudeep Nagarkar, India’s Most Popular Author in Romance Genre – “ I just saw your video, Astitva. Its really nice.” Neil D’Silva, Author of Best Selling Novel “Maya’s New Husband” – “ It’s a nice one.

You’ll enjoy the deep significance of this video poem. Directed by Archit Bhatt. Sumrit Shahi, Best Selling Novelist, Scriptwriter of “Sadda Haq – My Life, My Choice” on Channel V India – “ I just saw the video. I really like it. Good stuff. We should collaborate on something.” Sutapa Basu, Resident Writer at Readomania – “It was beautiful. The video, the thought and the poem are brilliant.” Ajitabha Boss, Author of India’s Smallest Love Story Book “In Love with Shahrukh Khan” – “Such a wonderful video to start your day. Well done Archit Bhatt. Loved it.”

My mom has always been a strong support for me. Whenever I feel low and stressed, I talk to her and she has a power to light up my mood. My father is my problem solver and always been a silent appreciator. My parents trust on me is the reason I never want to give up.