The Journey

When I founded Look Aside in 2022, I didn't have anything in mind really.

I had just left another company I co-founded, which in itself was a fun journey, but didn't really lead anywhere unfortunately, and I was feeling a little creatively uninspired. I wanted to design a space where I could share only my own creative work - little audio-visual shorts or found footage films, things I did only only for fun really - which led me to starting this company; at the time, I called it a 'film label' - I wanted to stay away from traditional branding as I wasn't really ready or interested in producing full-time, and I thought that was imaginative titling (I now understand was definitely not the case).

The company is called Look Aside because we always tend to either focus on the future or reminisce the past, but sometimes everything we need is right here, right now. A smell the roses sort of thing.

Things were going well at first, the shorts and series we were making were all pretty well-received, but it wasn't until beginning production on our first feature, Dali, that I started considering Look Aside might be something to really focus on.

At that time, I was beginning to understand the film industry a lot better and as a result, I was getting much better at navigating it. At the core of all this - my desire to make movies as an artist, but also my desire to impact the film industry as a business - is love for film. And I was seeing a lot of things in film that I wasn't really loving. We need a shift in direction in this business, both in terms of the films we make, but also the way we make them. We need to focus more of kindness, honesty, and transparency, and be just a little bit nicer to each other.

There's also a big necessity, such that is consumer-driven, business-driven, and money-driven, if you want to go there, for original non-IP-based work. But we're not seeing as much of that work as we need to, so I decided that will be Look Aside's development focus. Only original content - that's the one rule. My personal like for vulnerable and honest stories also guides us into a more auteur-driven direction. 

I think the film market is like stocks - sure, you can predict a few things and there's a few trends here and there, but ultimately, no one knows if a film will get funded, sold, or seen. Some people say they do, but they don't really. Because of that, our main focus is always to only to make the best film possible; the one thing I know to be true is if that a film is really great, it will succeed one way or another.

The company really started to take off in 2024 when Jazelle Cheong officially joined as a producer. Jazelle's support and hard work allowed us to expand drastically - we've been able to collaborate with so many more people, invest more in bigger and better projects, and focus on full-time feature filmmaking. Now, we're working on music video and commercial production, too. 

I always knew I didn't want Look Aside to feel like a corporation or a business, but rather like something with a soul and character. So we try and do all sorts of things for the community too - we run events, publish video essays, manage a newsletter, share free resources, and we're are always around (time-pending!) to help and for any advice. I know first hand how insanely difficult it is to claw your way into this industry and whilst I'm not in a position (yet) to directly help people push through the block, I will try and do my best.

It hasn't been easy to learn, create, manage, and develop all this, but the whole journey been nothing short of magical. We are continuing our hard, hard efforts on making great films, working with great people, and producing great content that turns a few heads. Thank you for being a part of the journey.

Mickey Angelov, Founder