Meet Satvik Bhatt

We recently connected with Satvik Bhatt and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Satvik, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

My parents. They’re individually and collectively the most hard working people I have had the privilege to closely shadow and observe and it has taught me wonders.

My father (a JUNO award nominee Indian Classical Musician) is a one man army who can sail rough seas while a smile on his face and my mother (Professor in English Literature) is always the hardest worker in the room but with no intention to showcase it.

Seeing both of them throughout my childhood has shaped my ideals of work ethic in stone and the respect and discipline with which both of them work is just purely inspiring.

Although I pursued an entirely different field, I believe these generic traits of discipline and attitude towards work transcend through any and every field of work.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I’m Satvik Bhatt, a freelance filmmaker from Jaipur, Rajasthan – currently based in Prague, Czech Republic.

I ventured into the world of cameras in high school, when I got inspired by my friends doing bird photography as a hobby. I asked my parents to buy me a camera like a typical cranky high school kid and they didn’t leave a minute’s gap in giving me one, like all helpless parents to cranky kids. Throughout that year we managed to capture over 40 species of birds in and around Jaipur, Rajasthan – and ventured into a handful of tiger and leopard safaris in between. But this time was enough for me to realise that my hands are made for the Shutter Button and a Trackpad, not pen and paper. Although I scored really well in 12th grade, it didn’t take me much time to shift my gaze towards a Bachelor’s in Mass Media course from Jai Hind College, Mumbai. Those were the formative years of my career as I slowly began freelancing for small projects, mostly free of cost. I got selected as an intern for a Home Automation Startup Company, but I was swiftly fired because I refused to be exploited by them in terms of bandwidth and scope of work.

As we would say in the film industry, “jump cut to last year…” wherein I individually crossed a 100 projects, which I believe is a major milestone for me.

I started freelancing in 2017, wherein I was working for anything camera/media related. My initial clients were a Marble Company for which I was graphic designing, an NGO for which I was video editing and a production house where I interned for a shoot. While I tried to be a jack of all trades, I eventually realised that I’ll have to Master one single skill for the long run, and I happily let that skill be filmmaking.

My work spans across music videos, brand films, podcasts, online training courses, documentaries and travel films.

6 years down the line, I decided to further enhance my skills and I joined Prague Film School for a Diploma in Cinematography, which I graduated from in May 2024. To my benefit, I received wonderful work opportunities in Prague because of which I decided to extend my stay there indefinitely and now I am physically and remotely freelancing for clients across two continents.

I would like to think that’s it’s going well.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Self Learning – Although a two edged sword, self learning is the most empowering ability one can train themselves to do as it requires nothing but patience and discipline. Most of my knowledge is through self learning and it’s what makes our generation stand out from the previous ones. We are born with the power of technological facilities and access to literally the whole world on the internet which some people are still trying to figure out. So I believe it should be used to our fullest advantage.

Friendships – Again, an unconventional approach but this is something that is beyond work – it is life. Over the past decade when I look back at the amount of work I have received because of friends, not just based on nostalgic value but as a return gesture to me hiring them – is spectacular. One would not believe how the world gives you back for just being a nice friend. And mind you, these are not childhood friends that I’m talking about. These are colleagues, acquaintances and companions I’ve come across through work and life, but the bond never breaks. So I believe it is really important to grab that post-work beer with your colleagues.

Originality – The will to create something original is something very scarcely found in today’s time. I was once working on a music video where literally everything, from pre-production to post production, was ripped off of the chartbusters of that genre. The shooting, the rapper’s antics, the editing style – literally everything had a reference link to a piece of work that’s already been trending on YouTube for years if not months. The project ended up with me backing out as the editor as it was not practically possible to replicate Hollywood style effects on a mid-range laptop on shoestring budget. But the incident really made me think how copying is so common these days. So many Instagram profiles are just carbon copies of someone else’s original work who is just not prominent in your continent. Hence I believe the will to create something original is a foundational trait and really necessary to have.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Yes absolutely. I am looking forward to connecting with creatives from around the world and make meaningful films, capture nature and society and most importantly – travel.

My website is www.satvikbhatt.com and all my work, personal and professional, can be viewed there. My email is enquiries@satvikbhatt.com.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.satvikbhatt.com
• Instagram: @satvikbhatt
• Linkedin: @satvikbhatt
• Youtube: @satvikbhatt