Pretty flowers, colourful confetti, lots of lights, cameras and smiles... This is what Nilma Dileepan, a 27- year -old entrepreneur based in Bengaluru, calls work.
After four years of globe-trotting while working with a popular film production company, the Thrissur native finally quit her successful job to start not one but two successful business ventures of her own — ‘With Love, Nilma’ and ‘Yellow Umbrella Productions.’
“I didn't see myself growing and being challenged in my job and there was no creativity involved,” she explains. “We followed the regular patterns given by the agencies with specific props and themes. It wasn’t interesting. So I quit my job. At this time, many of my friends were getting married and having kids and I did the decor for many of their parties. The guests loved what I did and said it was different and refreshing unlike the regular blue and white theme that is usually done everywhere. Once more work came my way, I decided to start an event management company. That’s how ‘With Love, Nilma’ was started in August 2014,” she explains.
But many of her old clients kept nudging her to get back into film production and she gradually started taking on such work in her free time. “I began doing shoots for some of my old clients, but soon there was a steady flow of work coming my way. So I decided to do both event management and film production simultaneously and started my second venture, ‘Yellow Umbrella Productions’, in December 2014.
We do advertisements, promotional films, short films and photo shoots and have already worked with the likes of Chris Gayle, AB De Villiers, Virat Kohli, Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Tamil actor Surya and the Kerala Blasters football team. I do have a dream to work on a feature film production, but we don’t have enough time or resources to invest in such a big venture right now. But in a couple of years, we hope to get there,” she adds.
How does she manage the two ventures simultaneously? “Right now, I’m going mad! Because there is a lot happening. I’m trying to juggle between meeting clients, meeting agencies and meeting photographers. . . So, I have hired two more... and of course, by not sleeping,” she quips and adds, “I’m constantly working, but thankfully I enjoy what I’m doing and I’m not complaining. Because I like doing this, as I have transformed my hobby into my work, it keeps me going. Even in my spare time, which is very rare, I wouldn’t mind doing this. I just jumped into these ventures once I got the idea for it without much reservation.
But to be honest, people have been supplying me with good work regularly and I wouldn’t have been able to do this otherwise. Of course, my parents and my best friends have been helping me a lot in finding models, they gave me their houses to shoot when I initially didn’t have enough money to rent a place for a shoot, a lot of directors and photographers have done favours to me by barely charging anything for their work. Because of that I was able to start somewhere and reach where I am.”
Referring to her roots, she says, “My mother is from Coorg and my father is from Kerala. He hails from Vadakancherry and I visit my grandmother who lives there once or twice a year. I do know to speak Malayalam but I no longer remember how to write Malayalam. As far as work is concerned, I have only done one wedding in Kerala till now.”
