Meet Efe Tuncay | Film Director & Scriptwriter

We had the good fortune of connecting with Efe Tuncay and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Efe, what is the most important factor behind your success?
Success is an abstract concept. So, everyone has a different definition for it. Some people measure it by fame, some people measure it by money, and most of them by the number of laurels you collect from film festivals.

There is no doubt that each of these brings joy to your life in some way but, for me, the highest achievement an artist can attain is having total creative freedom while making a living. Most of the time, artists must fulfill the desires of some target audience or client. As a result, they modify their work according to the taste of society and turn into a ship without an engine that follows the stream, the “mainstream”.

Only a small number of artists who have proven themselves are known for their unique style and are being appreciated for it. They are free to follow the stream or go in any direction. Society’s desires don’t shape their tastes, they shape the taste of society. When I become one of them, I will define myself as successful. The rest of my accomplishments are just little achievements along the way.

So this brings us to this question: “how I can develop my unique style and keep working on it?” For me the answer is having a multidisciplinary background, being able to look from different perspectives, and keep learning by experimenting.

The general tendency of our age is to specialize in one field and be a “professional” instead of having knowledge in many fields. Most of the time, a system doesn’t need one person who can handle many things, it needs each person to solve specific problems. But, if we look back in art history, we see the opposite. Artists were experts in many disciplines, and all of these disciplines led them to develop a unique mindset on arts in a cumulative way.

I can simply say that the reason behind my progress was my willingness to take risks and my interest in different disciplines. The rest is all about hard work and good luck. Life is too short to take the safe route and too valuable to run blindfolded.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
The first form of art I learned was painting. This has had a significant impact on my perspective on other artistic disciplines such as graphic design, photography, and cinema. I learned basic concepts from painting including composition, light, and color harmony. Although I spend more time doing digital art now, I still do oil painting, charcoal, and similar types of work.

Graphic design education encouraged me to take a step further to the digital side of the field. The research that I did and the books that I read about brand strategies led me to fully comprehend the design education that I received. It provided me the creative freedom, ranging from designing the posters for my movies to being able to manipulate the photos that I captured.

While photography is a stepping stone for many people before moving on to cinema, I see it as a separate form of art. Although I produce fictional works in cinema, in photography I like to capture natural and momentary shots from life that can not be created artificially.

During my years in college, I discovered my passion for cinema and shot my very first short film. Since then, I have created numerous projects as a writer, director, video editor, colorist, and sound designer. Cinema has a special place in art history because it is a combination of previous disciplines. As a result, it has the strongest impact on people. That’s why after all these years my heart keeps beating 24 frames per second.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Sinan Tuncer – A teacher of mine from Ankara Fine Arts High School

Kamil Mingü – My cinema teacher from Hacettepe University

Website: www.efetuncay.com/en

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/efetuncay.art/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/efetuncay

Other: IMDB: imdb.me/efetuncay
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/efetuncayvimeo