Vishaal Desai is a writer, director, and editor with over fifteen years of experience and a career that has taken him from Mumbai to London to Chicago. He's been a producer on the Asian Academy Award-winning series Bhak, directed the acclaimed documentary Uniting Through Yoga (crowdsourced from 500 strangers around the world with no script — yes, really), and is currently finishing post-production on his short film Clothes on Our Backs while also prepping his first stage production, Condemned to a Life, at The Second City in Chicago and Solo Fest in New York.

We get into what five years of commercials does to your soul, going back to film school at 39, why rehearsals are non-negotiable (but only for blocking), dream journals, being chased by a triceratops skeleton on a glacier, and the one piece of advice he'd give every filmmaker who just graduated. Also: pho in Vietnam, a waltz story, and a very important correction about Baby Yoda.

Follow Vishaal on Instagram at @V1SHFilms and follow Clothes on Our Backs at @clothes_on_our_backs.

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Thank you to our sponsor, Joel Maisonet Photography: maisonetphotography.com