TJ Editor's Portfolio

I am Thilakshan (TJ) and I am a passionate and fast-paced editor who works intuitively with editing, predominated by creativity and ingenuity rather than technicality. The one thing you may notice as you see samples of my showreel is that I have a strong self-directed streak and I cater my work to suit any given audience. It is one of the first things I keep in mind when working on any project - the target audience and I keep a pulse on what they like to see. Because of this, I tend to steer away from set styles and rather cultivate a dynamic array of styles that suit different purposes. I love working in a team as two minds are always better than one. Here is a copy of my CV.

Concept and Edit

When asked to concieve a strategy to engage the ethnic youth - encouraging them to regain their love for culture, the solution became to revitalise the 24 hour broadcast by showing the teen age group that funkiness and cultural roots can be an integrated whole. That there is soulfulness and integrity in embracing all aspects of their identity. This marketing strategy brought fantastic response - because it ensured a healthy balance of tradition and modernism. And seeing as the TV Station's intention was to produce a family channel, designed to pull both the youth and the adults together, careful attention was placed on emphasising this. There were segments allotted to certain age groups and tastes - yet the goal was always to integrate the family. The Youthzone promo was designed as a sample of this look and feel.

Concept and Edit

Actors Showreels for the most part are a loosely strung together collection of events, lacking entertainment value and marketability. Which is why when I was approached by Jeff Gannon for his showreel I specifically wanted to make a showreel that would spotlight him with dynamic editing and smart use of sound. It collaborates his best moments with a creative touch so that the audience is moved to witness versatility, power, passion, comedic timing. These elements can not only be enhanced by the editing, but directed so as to highlight every vital facet.

Concept and Edit

When Sigaram TV Launched the Riddle Show I was leading the project to create the look and promotional material for the show. A little experimentation lead to a nice idea about masking the host of the show in silhouette underlying a funky groove. The advertising worked well and the Show went on to captivate a full-house audience by its premiere.

Shot, Edited, Directed & Music

Sanity Catch is a short film that revolves dimensionally around free-will - in its tangibly raw, real, hectically tragic yet simultaneously liberating essence. A positive message is often more powerful when it touches base with the damningly dirty, primal nature of man, when it trancends a dreamscape to engage the observer with situations that hold for them a moral rigidity. It is where the question of free-will - often considered a pseudoscience - truly arrises, coupled with a dash of spirit. The objective of the film is not to provoke thought. The objective is to still the mind and touch the soul. Where nothing needs be spoken. Where a deep seed of insight within the subconscious of the observer is sprinkled with perspective.

For the eons of the illusion of film, the pieces of slides skimming into reality, for the revisiting of forgotten myths, the unconscious, and mostly, ingenuity, film is treasured by the world as a vortex of inspiration in one's solemn life. Indeed, if not for the wish to inspire, the skill of storytelling wouldn't exist. The art form. For the forming of paradigm shifts in the world's thinking, to expand their horizons in even a subconscious form. Film is regarded as escape, as a vain attempt to forget our misery, and true as that may be, life is never black and white. Much as there is beauty in everything, there is beauty in storytelling, and we revisit the masters at work with the majestic cinema. Masters of provoking thought and vision, a reason to believe. Which is why sometimes the greatest films strangely and curiously embody reality, in all their romanticism of events, the compassion is what strikes us all. They are firemen fighting the great fire of ignorance. And we? We are the romantics at the oasis, those who do not touch the water, do not effect the sight, but watch it in admiration. In this moment, much can happen. In this readiness to understand, to appreciate, to be enthralled, a revolution is always possible. There is always hope at the start of every film that it unifies you in some form.