Hi,

I’m Prakhar a documentary filmmaker from India, and welcome to Field Notes by Deep Docs.

If you’re wondering how you ended up here, chances are our paths have crossed somewhere along the way.

Maybe we’ve worked together. Maybe we talked about working together. Maybe you once reached out to me about filmmaking, or I reached out to you with a story I desperately wanted to make. Maybe you’re a fellow filmmaker, producer, student, client, collaborator or simply a friend.

However you got here, I’m glad you did.

For more than a decade, filmmaking has taken me to places I probably would never have found a reason to visit otherwise.

Factories and farms. Hospitals and homes. Remote villages and crowded cities. Race tracks, businesses, workshops, offices, communities, and occasionally places where getting there was half the story.

I’ve met entrepreneurs, factory workers, doctors, farmers, scientists, athletes, craftspeople and ordinary people living extraordinary lives.

Some of those encounters became documentaries.

But I’ve slowly realised that the finished films only tell part of the story.

There is so much that happens outside the frame.

The conversations before an interview. The people you meet along the way. The locations that surprise you. The things that go wrong. The things that somehow go right.

A shot you waited hours for.

A conversation you weren’t expecting.

A filmmaking decision nobody watching the final film will ever notice.

And sometimes, a small moment that stays with you long after you’ve forgotten everything else about the shoot.

Over the years, I’ve collected hundreds of these moments, photographs, stories, mistakes, lessons, memories and little observations from the road.

I’ve always wanted somewhere to put them.

Field Notes is that place.

Every week, I’ll open up one documentary or assignment from the archive and take you behind it.

Not just what we made, but how we made it.

The people behind the story. What happened before the cameras rolled. What went wrong. What surprised me. How certain scenes were filmed. And what I learned from being there.

Sometimes it’ll be about filmmaking.

Sometimes it’ll be about people.

Sometimes it’ll simply be about a strange place or experience I can’t stop thinking about.

And hopefully, every once in a while, there’ll be something here that makes you look at the world a little differently.

I also spend far too much time watching films, reading articles and disappearing down internet rabbit holes.

So every Field Note will end with five things I discovered that week that I think are worth sharing.

No algorithm. No sponsored recommendations. Just five things I genuinely enjoyed and thought you might too.

I’m starting with one Field Note every week.

Nothing too complicated.

One story from the road. A few photographs from behind the scenes. Something I learned. And five good things from the internet.

We’ll see where it goes.

One small note before I leave: if you didn’t specifically subscribe, you’re probably receiving this because we’ve crossed paths professionally or personally at some point. If Field Notes isn’t for you, there’s an unsubscribe button below and you’re always welcome to use it.

But if you decide to stick around, I’m really happy you’re here.

I have quite a few stories I’ve been meaning to tell.

See you in the field,

Prakhar Deep Jain
Documentary Filmmaker & Founder
Deep Docs · A unit of Deep Ventures