Minoti Vaishnav

Early life

Minoti grew up in Mumbai, India and attended Jamnabai Narsee School. She graduated from Jai Hind College, Mumbai before moving to the United States at age 19. She studied at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, CA, then transferred to California State University Northridge in 2010 and graduated with a Cinema & Television Arts degree and a minor in Creative Writing.

Music career

Minoti began writing songs at 11 years old and recorded her first professional demo at age 13. She learned how to play the guitar by ear, and at 16, she bought a keyboard and started taking professional vocal training as well as theory and ear training classes. With much help from her father, she started recording demos at home. Her first unofficial CD included the songs "Keep Track", "Promises" and "This is How I Feel" which were minor hits on Indie Artist website stereofame.com in 2008.

In 2010, Minoti released her first album, "The Fictional Truth" and dropped her last name as an artist. The album is a raw indie-pop album with mostly live, acoustic songs. The album was released on August 1, 2010. Minoti wrote and composed every single song on the album, with writing help from her cousins Farah Sheth and Vivek Vaishnav on the songs "Coffee" and "Tin Man". Seven out of eight of the songs were recorded in a home studio and were released with virtually no sound tweaking or editing. The only studio-produced track on the album, Psychologist, was an instant hit on Stereofame.com. The song is still played on radio stations throughout the world, most widely on EDA Music Radio.

Minoti crowdfunded her second album on Kickstarter. The album, "Secret Garden", is also raw indie-pop album, but includes a 90's alternative vibe. The album was released on March 4, 2013. Songs from the album – particularly "So Will You", "Nothing Inside" and "Secret Garden" have been played on radio stations all over the world – from the U.K to Singapore. The music video for the first single, "So Will You", received over 100,000 video views in its first few weeks of release. Indie critical reception was favorable. Music blog RippleMusic called "Secret Garden" "as catchy as the ebola virus" and stated that "Minoti's voice is understated and the music moves with a clever coolness". The album entered the Top 10 on Gashouse Radio in the #9 spot, and was featured on KALX Berkeley's "Next Big Thing".

On September 8, 2015, Minoti released "Mix It Up". The album features remixes of old favorites, two collaborations with Erik McCall as well as new original material.

Minoti and her music have been featured on podcasts and radio shows like Late Night With Laura, The EDA Music Podcast, Sweet Peas in a Podcast, The Vertikal Life Radio Show, Sunday Girl, and Next Big Thing.

Film and writing career

Minoti has a degree in Cinema & Television Arts with a Screenwriting concentration and a minor in Creative Writing from California State University, Northridge. Additionally, she has an Advanced Screenwriting certificate from the University of Southern California through Black Coffee Films. She worked for the International Documentary Association right out of college and assisted with the script for the 29th Annual IDA Documentary Awards. In 2012, she landed her first producing and writing gig on the short R.I.P (2012). She then worked in music licensing and composing on the Prestige Gold Award winning documentary Let Them Eat Cake (2014), and wrote and produced the 11-minute pitch pilot for the show 3 Orbs of Light (2011).

In 2013, Minoti started Prophecy Girl Films. The company is described as "a hybrid between a marketing company and a production company". Company services include script development, marketing, social media, public relations and on site production for film, television, books, and music.

In 2013, Minoti signed on to co-produce the digital documentary series Being Independent. Shot in Germany, the UK and the US, the series focuses on independent artists all over the world and the struggles they face as they try to make it. The series is co-produced by Erik McCall and Kitty Kalkbrenner. The series initially started out as a feature documentary, with limited funding. An IndieGoGo campaign to add funding to the project failed. In spite of this setback, a digital series was produced in 2015 and aired in Germany.

Besides working in script and story development for Prophecy Girl Films, Minoti has also written several teleplays and screenplays on spec. Her work has won several awards and she has placed as a finalist in several contests.

Other work

In June 2016, Minoti was elected President of the Alliance for Women in Media Southern California for the 2016-2017 term. She served on the Board of Directors for the Alliance for Women in Media Southern California as their Events Director for the 2015-2016 term. Through the Alliance for Women in Media Southern California as well as through Prophecy Girl Films, Minoti has programmed and produced high-profile events with 21st Century Fox and Paramount Pictures, and with additional sponsors including SAG-AFTRA and CBS. She has also run Q&A events and screenings with several Academy Award nominated documentary filmmakers, and continues to host, program and produce entertainment panels and events in partnership with various media organizations.

Minoti is a member of The Recording Academy and the Alliance for Women in Media.

Minoti has also written articles for documentary.org, IndieScene Magazine, and Verve Magazine. She is a member of the Phi Beta Delta International Honor Society.