December 3, 2016

Amir Shehata

Every project has to start somewhere. Turning Point started when I was asked to develop a show for the Christian Youth Channel (cycnow.com).  This is a new channel which depends mostly on community contribution for their material.

At the time, back in 2009, I was not involved in the film-making community.  I had made a few shorts, mainly with my church’s youth.  Behind the camera I was a one man show. Not very efficient, when you’re holding the Camera, the microphone and trying to direct actors.  But boy does that motivate you to learn.

The way I see it, you have two options, either you give up and say that it’s too much work for what it’s worth, or you keep on going.  I kept on going, despite much lack of support.

I have to go on tangent now on the idea of support. Support to different people can mean different things, but at its core, I reckon, it’s the act of believing in someone. If I believe that someone can do something, this will reflect in the way I deal with them. I’ll be interested in hearing about their progress; understanding the details; offering to help (not what I want to do, but rather what they need me to do). Unfortunately, support is hard to come by, especially if you’re embarking on the road less traveled. For me, in my community, making movies is the road less traveled. No one did it. So when they see someone doing it, they either don’t care or they just don’t believe it can be done. That’s why it’s extremely important not to rely on people’s support, moral or otherwise.

Anyhow, being asked to develop a scripted show was exciting.  I’ve always wanted to develop a show.  Thus far, I’ve only done some standalone short films.  It’s quite enjoyable developing a show where you get to grow with the characters and be immersed in the story.  To me TV shows are way better than movies.  Movies you spend 2 hours with the characters and the story, but in a TV show you could potentially invest 8 years following a show.

So I started brainstorming and writing down ideas.  Initially I came up with an idea inspired by Quantum Leap.  But instead of traveling back in time, the hero of my show would get a message or a vision about future events that he would try to avoid.  This platform would allow me to create multiple standalone episodes with potentially different characters, which is what I was aiming for.

So from 2009 to the end of 2013, I worked on the scripts.  Now you gotta understand, I work full time, and my job is demanding at times, so finding time to work on this, is not as easy as it sounds.  My plan was to nail down all the episodes before I started shooting.  A strategy which proved unsuccessful as I would learn later on.