BC Pires

My name is Ryan C Khan and I'm one of three di­rec­tors whose films, com­bined, opened last year's Trinidad and To­ba­go Film Fes­ti­val. The "C" in Ryan C Khan is for, "Christo­pher". But, maybe be­hind my back, oth­er peo­ple use it to stand for some­thing else. I was born Ro­man Catholic. Even though "Khan" is usu­al­ly a Mus­lim last name. My grand­fa­ther was Comp­ton Delph. He was an im­por­tant fig­ure in Trinida­di­an me­dia. I al­ways look at his pic­ture and thing, "Hmm. You'll let me know if I'm do­ing some­thing wrong, right?" Be­fore I found the film thing, I did the band thing: I played in an un­der­ground Goth-Emo rock band in Trinidad. And I joined the lo­cal rock band, Tripped & Falling, when I met them in Eng­land. I played be­tween gui­tar and bass.

I used to pass this sign on my way home: "Big Fish in a Blue Bot­tle". They didn't even have, "Video Pro­duc­tion" on their sign. It wasn't that they weren't wel­com­ing on my in­tern­ship; I can tell that now I'm on this side. It's just that, when you're in­to video pro­duc­tion, it's re­al­ly hard to take on and train a new per­son. It was a re­al bap­tism of fire. That's how you get in. It's al­most like be­ing born: you have to re­al­ly push your­self in like how you push your­self out to be born. I grew up in South and passed for Pre­sen­ta­tion. But then my par­ents split, when I was, like 12 or 13, so I came to Town and trans­ferred to Fa­ti­ma.

You know there's your moth­er and fa­ther and that's what it's like to like a girl; then you see your par­ents split. I think it made me the film­mak­er I am, be­cause be­ing a film­mak­er is about ques­tion­ing. The urge to cre­ate is brought on by watch­ing some­thing crum­ble. You've seen what it was like be­fore, and you want to make it some­thing like that again. My par­ents' split­ting up made me at­tract­ed to emo­tion­al Goth­ic rock stuff. Metal­li­ca, Ko­rn, that kind of thing. Mu­sic saves lives but what could I have looked for in Trinidad mu­sic? Drink, have a good time, jump up high­er. Just ig­nore it. But I need­ed to deal with it. Rock mu­sic isn't afraid of point­ing fin­gers at oth­ers say­ing, "It's your fault!"

I have one el­der broth­er and one younger sis­ter. Mid­dle Child Syn­drome. If they took me on at home, I might not be dri­ven to cre­ate any­thing. If I pick up a book, I'll read it from be­gin­ning to end; but I don't read much. I read a lot of graph­ic nov­els, though; they're like sto­ry-board­ing. If I had to name a film I'd watch over and over and love every time, it would be the Ma­trix. Some films from long ago stay with me. Like Back to the Fu­ture. Old Boy was a very good film, a strong in­flu­ence on me. The old film school films like Casablan­ca, Sun­set Blvd, Cit­i­zen Kane. I nev­er went to film school. I've just learned as I've gone in every job I've had.

I was nev­er good at aca­d­e­mics in school. I'd spend all day in class day­dream­ing of oth­er worlds. Pure es­capism. Es­pe­cial­ly when my par­ents were sep­a­rat­ing. All through my life I dreamed of cre­at­ing al­ter­na­tive uni­vers­es. I just couldn't put the name of "film di­rect­ing" on it. I cut my teeth on com­mer­cials. I did Tripped & Falling's first video, "In Tears & Bad End­ing". In a bed­room, ro­tat­ing. Un­til you want to throw up. My first film, which I'd nev­er show any­body, was The Pro­cras­ti­na­tor, an an­i­ma­tion on com­put­er. It was about five min­utes long and took about six months to do. My first re­al piece of nar­ra­tive film­mak­ing di­rect­ing was Min­utes to Mid­night. There's a one-minute an­i­ma­tion in­tro and then live ac­tion. When peo­ple agree to do films, they of­ten don't know what you have to do to cre­ate the vi­sion.

I think that's where the de­fi­cien­cies of Min­utes to Mid­night would show. But I think the idea was strong. My next film, The Mid­night Af­fair, was a lot big­ger bud­get. I did a sto­ry­board about the vi­sion. Get­ting fund­ing is about get­ting your vi­sion across as clear­ly as pos­si­ble. "Mid­night" was in the ti­tle of both my first and sec­ond films. It was meant to cre­ate a buzz but I'm find­ing peo­ple are mix­ing up my films. I had a lot of lib­er­ties with Min­utes to Mid­night be­cause it was a grant. With The Md­night Af­fair, it was in­vest­ment, and a lot more mon­ey in­volved, and they want­ed to know what I was do­ing every step of the way. The ex­ec­u­tive pro­duc­er comes along and says, "Let me see rush­es! This is crap! Shoot again!"

Be­ing a film­mak­er in Trinidad is not like be­ing a film­mak­er in the US. On­ly a fool would put a V-8 en­gine in a Mi­ni and think it would work. Most film­mak­ers start­ing off make films with their friends. Peo­ple you trust and un­der­stand. It was a big deal and an ho­n­our to have my film be part of the open­ing film for a fes­ti­val. But the best part was work­ing with the peo­ple and ac­tu­al­ly com­plet­ing the film. The bad part is the pol­i­tics and the hav­ing to re-shoot. A Tri­ni is a breath of fresh air to the world. Trinidad and To­ba­go is like fam­i­ly. You love it even if you just can't deal with it some­times. And you know it's go­ing to be there for you when you need it.

Read a longer ver­sion of this fea­ture at www.BCRaw.com.