I studied illustration at Kingston University. I knew someone at MTV and offered to work for free. I pushed my portfolio on everyone and became an unofficial intern. One year later I was an in-house illustrator. MTV is such a big company that I could sidestep through art and illustration, to design, animation, and finally into filming. I did some work for Virgin and Channel 4, and was signed to Great Guns, an agency that represent directors. They saw some potential in me and I found myself working in advertising.

They give me a script every month or two, and introduce me to clients. Then we pitch a way to film it to make it pretty. The best ad I ever did was for Rosemount Wine. It was shot entirely underwater with one girl in a red dress and one in a white dress, representing the wines. The results were really edgy and ethereal.

Advertising can be a compromise, but it depends on your client. Clients who are dictatorial can take all the art out of it. I recently turned down a cigarette advert – there are certain brands I wouldn’t work with. I have a rule: for every commercial I do, I do a personal project as well. In this way, my advertising work funds my art. It goes from being crazily busy when we’re shooting to being a vacuum while we wait for the next script. I decided to make a short film, but I didn’t know about what.

My father was a psychiatrist. Just before he died he wrote a book called A Century of Insight. It’s about learning to love, religion, humans and how they interact. Reading it took months. It was like falling down a rabbit hole. The final chapter was on the meaning of life. I knew this was it; it felt like destiny.

I had no funding, but lots of contacts. I started chatting to people I work with about it, and the story caught everyone’s imagination. First I picked up a producer, Natalie Bennett. Then a cinematographer, Nick Bennet, who had lighting and camera equipment. Then editor Nathan Perry Green got on board. I knew with this kind of talent, I could actually do something amazing.

The film was shot in the basement of my friend’s bar in Clapham, in my mum’s bedroom, and in Epping Forest. It took me six months to edit, with special effects added. My brother did the audio. I couldn’t fit the meaning of life into 10 minutes, so I cut it down to one little moment, a dream sequence. We decided to call it Worship.

The entire budget for the film was £500. If done commercially it would have cost hundreds of thousands. Next, I entered it into various film festivals using a great programme called Without a Box. This is the most expensive part, as you have to pay to submit. The first one we entered was the Promax Short Film Festival. I thought it was nowhere near commercial enough. But to my immense surprise, we won the Gold Special Jury Prize.

Because of the new culture of watching things online, it is possible to sell your short to a film website in return for distribution to their subscribers, which I’ll look into. But first, I’d like to see how Worship is received in the next few months. We’ll enter about 15-20 of the most relevant film festivals over the next year. If everything goes well, perhaps I’ll make a longer work.

Calum Macdiarmid was talking to Naomi O’Leary.

Watch the Worship trailer, below: