Shyam Sengupta, a renowned Producer in the entertainment industry, has spent years honing his skills in business acumen, technical prowess, and storytelling finesse. He focuses on inspiring filmmakers to leverage the power of storytelling to create meaningful social change. Sengupta’s career spans over a decade, culminating in the BAFTA-winning masterpiece, “IMMORTALITY”. With an M.F.A. from USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Producing Track, he has acquired executive roles, made appearances at prestigious events, and produced an array of diverse content for numerous mini and major studios. Sengupta’s contributions to the entertainment industry are multifaceted, making him a powerful leader in filmmaking.
Please tell us about your business
Shyam Sengupta is a transformative Producer in the entertainment sphere, who runs and manages various companies of his own as well as for others. With a versatile portfolio that spans various aspects in the entertainment industry, his most recent accomplishment is the BAFTA-winning “IMMORTALITY.” Unveiled at Tribeca 2022 and now on Netflix, this interactive trilogy, directed by triple BAFTA laureate Sam Barlow, epitomizes contemporary storytelling at its finest. Equally representative of Shyam Sengupta’s vision is the BAFTA-nominated “TELLING LIES,” and the Emmy-nominated “BOONDOGGLE,” starring double Emmy winner Ty Burrell. Shyam Sengupta’s impact extends to “THE UNAUTHORIZED BASH BROTHERS EXPERIENCE,” a collaborative TV featurette involving The Lonely Island and Netflix, highlighting his adaptability in dynamic creative landscapes.
Tell us briefly about your background and how you started your company.
My success is driven by a lifelong passion for the arts, and my solid educational background. I hold an M.F.A. from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, a goal I had pursued since my youth. The skills I learned there combined with the following decade+ of on the ground and in studio experience have allowed me to take up various roles from executive functions, multiple Producer roles, prestigious panels, and a foundation in writing and stagecraft. My unwavering dedication to storytelling as a diverse artform continues to drive my history and future.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
Be Ambitious.
Being efficient does not mean giving up on quality; always stretch the limits of what you can do, but do it intelligently. We once made a featurette Valiant with very limited funds, but we still wanted to showcase an entirely new franchisable action/adventure world. So we broke the project apart into its key elements, decided where we really needed to expense resources for maximum creative effect, then took a detailed out of the box approach to building those key moments. The result was a film that convinced people it was ~10x its actual budget, and it toured the world in nearly 100 festivals – and a lot of people kept telling us it could never be done, until it was.
Be Respectful.
Always be good to everyone, even if they aren’t always good to you. Being respectful is the most effective way to lead, and frankly, you never know who will go where; being open minded and respectful to everyone around you, no matter what their role is, is critical to long-term success. Sometimes, in this industry or many, I encounter people who prefer to be abusive, or think they deserve better than others, etc. – and the best way to get what your project needs from these types of people is to play nice, while of course playing it smart. Listen carefully and respond positively to people’s grievances, and always give everyone a chance to express their opinions or ideas; you never know who might come up with the next big thing.
Patience Is Your Most Important Tool.
A successful individual in entertainment once told me their key to success was simply sticking it out in the industry longer than other people around myself. Things take time, it can take years and years to make a film or TV show, sometimes even decades to bring a passion project to life. Just be patient, keep grinding, and never give up. Even some of the biggest filmmakers out here have spent decades on certain projects; being realistic with your goals and understanding this industry is about the long haul is key not only to success, but also to your personal happiness as well.
What are your plans for the future, how do you plan to grow this company?
Diversity is the foundation of growth. By focusing on collaborating with a wide array of individuals and entities in various long-term verticals, my companies plan to expand into various other states and platforms to help drive growth. Entertainment can take many formats and mediums, even more so these days with the advent of SVOD, streaming, and internet-based platforms. By being open-minded and progressive in the understanding of entertainment and its evolution, my projects and companies have always been at the forefront of entertainment creation and growth.
How have the pandemic and Lockdown affected you or your new business?
Our expectation was that the lockdown would damage business, and in the beginning, it did. However, by pivoting to realistic forms of work while keeping a safety-first approach based on science, certain work was able to resume while the general economy recovered. The most important lesson learned is to always stay nimble, help others around your business when facing difficult situations together in intelligent, researched, and proven ways, and think outside of the box in difficult situations.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
Often competitors prefer to repeat a successful model excessively, not understanding when the risk of pushing consumers away overtakes the assumed security of a proven model. This is more prevalent in entertainment as well, as often it’s difficult to entirely gauge how effective original content may ultimately be. Yet there are proven ways to make original content more reliably successful, and proven models also regularly fail. Our work and content always strive to be original and unique, leveraging known assets to reduce risk while still giving viewers something fresh and unique.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
Too Focused On The End Product, Not The Steps To Get There.
It can be exciting to think about the end of the road, and what work will need to happen with the product when you get there. However, while understanding one’s final goals are critical to understanding the pathway to getting there, the journey can be more important than the destination. Give each step proper thought, dedication, and time – you’ll learn more and end up with a better final product as a result as well.
Being Excessively Ambitious
Yes, being ambitious is important, but so is being intelligent in our ambition. It’s reasonable for every project or business to work up from smaller goals to larger ones, and planning the steps to move up along this path is just as important as planning for the final, most ambitious goal.
Moving Too Quickly.
Taking the time to do things correctly (while staying on schedule, of course) is critical to long-term success. It can be tempting to scramble or feel certain steps may not be as important along the way, but cutting corners in most situations doesn’t pay off in the long term. Being efficient is always smart, but don’t dodge something that really does need time and dedication to not have to be redone in the future.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
Marketing in entertainment is intrapersonal and relationship-based, as it can be in many industries. In these types of environments, making the effort to spend time with others is key, and also is being real and honest with those whom you do or would like to collaborate with. Consider the time, expenses, and personal connections as investments, and you’ll find people not only bringing more your way but also have better times working together when you do.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
It can be difficult to explore new types of content and verticals, especially when these decisions may involve de-prioritizing other previous projects or relationships. To overcome, the transitions must be coordinated and executed over time, and involving great people from all sides to grow with can also be key to overcoming. Collaborators you may not expect could be facing similar challenges, and working with others to overcome difficulties is usually easier than facing these difficulties alone.
What was your first business idea and what did you do with it?
My first business idea was launching an entertainment review and insight website, back when the internet was first taking off into mainstream households. As teenagers, we taught ourselves web design, launched multiple sites, researched and wrote our content, and successfully supplemented our high school years with the income – usually to buy more content to consume, really.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
The most successful people in entertainment (and most industries) are always learning, on all fronts. We’re constantly researching, discussing, and evolving with culture, technology, and everything else, and most businesses will need to do the same to stay relevant. If you don’t keep learning and evolving, others will – and getting left behind in today’s rapidly evolving, tech-driven world is an easy trap to fall into.
If you started your business again, what things would you do differently?
A difficult lesson that I learned firsthand when in my younger years — one of the most successful films ever created came across my desk, and I passed on the project, thinking I had too many other projects going on at that moment in time, failing to see the immense potential that it carried. However, I quickly realized how wrong I was as the movie went on to become a massive success. This experience taught me that making researched decisions and taking the long view is crucial, even when the outcome may be difficult to predict, or other losses may be incurred.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
- Slack – Organized communications are critical, and this is the best tool for small to large companies to work together.
- GDrive – It’s a basic one, but after using every cloud storage service available over the years, GDrive continues to be the best due to its integration of well-developed collaboration tools in addition to general cloud storage services.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
As a professional in today’s fast-paced world, staying organized and productive is key, and one of the foundations is clear communication between all members of a team. This is why one of my most relied-upon Productivity tips is to use Slack. It has revolutionized team communication by providing a streamlined platform for discussion, collaboration, sharing, archiving, and more. Often Slack has been considered more business or management-facing, but even artistically-minded teams can benefit from Slack’s organized approach, even if there is an initial learning curve for new users.
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs?
- Book: How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie – Older, basic and some may say outdated, but it’s surprising how often people lack some of the simple interpersonal skills mentioned in this book.
- Podcast: For my industry, The Writer’s Panel podcast is a current favorite. The discussions shared on this show delve beyond just the craft of writing and provide listeners with a rare glimpse into the behind the scenes of how work is developed on the page and its sometimes-convoluted journeys to screens.
- Online Course: MasterClass: The Duffer Brothers Teach Developing an Original TV Series – A great course on TV development based on a fun show taught by a successful team, who built upwards quickly and independently.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
Incorporate my own LLC, then develop efficient business proposals to gain more investment. You can start small, take that $1000, develop what you need to raise a few thousand more from friends/family, then develop and raise more, and keep building, upwards and forwards.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
As someone who manages complex, long-term term and constantly evolving projects across various forms of media, I have found that aggressive schedule management and planning are essential to productivity. In a field where projects can take years to complete and multiple projects must be managed simultaneously, employing a strict schedule allows me to stay organized and focused on the task at hand. By setting realistic goals and taking the time to plan out my work, I’m able to chip away at large projects consistently and with purpose.
What is your favorite quote?
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Although often mis-attributed to Einstein, this quote has resonated with me for years. If something isn’t working, or you keep hitting the same roadblocks, the approach must be changed. This not only applies in one’s personal life but strongly applies in the entertainment industry. If a writing team is stuck, often looking at the characters or structure from a different perspective can make all the difference. If financing isn’t coming together, or distributors aren’t biting, casting offers are getting rejected, or you keep hitting the same problems repeatedly in production or post, doing the same thing over and over again just doesn’t work. Instead, I always remember to take a step back, get a wholistic view of the problem, and try in a different way. And in an industry where it can take years of trying to get something made, doing so in different ways really can make all the difference.
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
Always give others your time and truly listen to what they have to say, even if they aren’t existing relationships or directly related to a current project. In my industry or any industry, good people and ideas are everywhere, and being closed-minded can cost beneficial opportunities or relationships you’d never have expected in the first place. It may seem like a simple concept, but taking the time to truly listen to others can lead to unexpected positive outcomes and collaborations. Even when it feels like there isn’t enough time in the day, I make a conscious effort to give others my undivided attention, and in doing so have been able to consistently expand my network and create many exciting new ventures.
Who should we interview next and why?
Love to hear what someone like Mark Cuban would have to say. He comes off as an intelligent, open-minded entrepreneur who supports causes that truly appeal to me, without regard for labels or the status quo. This is what it truly takes to be successful – build an understanding of various industries and realities, listen to and respect different viewpoints and lifestyles without bias, then using that information to make your own independent decisions in all facets of your life, businesses, and what you choose to support.
What is your definition of success?
Success is being able to spend your life doing something you enjoy, whatever you define that to be. This can also evolve over time – don’t let anyone else tell you what success truly is, define it for yourself.
How do you personally overcome fear?
Maintaining focus and staying calm in difficult situations is crucial for success, especially when others around you may be following your lead in how to handle a difficult situation. That’s why I’ve found that incorporating meditation into my routine has been so beneficial. Whenever I feel distracted or stressed, I take a few moments to meditate and refocus. It’s a simple yet powerful tool that has helped me increase my productivity and maintain a sense of calm throughout the day.
How can readers get in touch with you?
Feel free to contact me through my website, at www.shyamss.com.
