By: Francis J
When international mentalist Michael Samen walked into the FOX 5 New York studios to appear on Natasha Verma’s talk show, most viewers only saw the polished few minutes that aired. What they didn’t see was the person standing just off-camera with a camera rig. That was Nivedkrishna Thavarayil, the New Jersey-based video producer and founder of Nivedkrishna LLC, who has spent the past several months quietly building the visual identity behind one of New York’s most recognizable street mentalists.
A Fox 5 Milestone, Months in the Making
The appearance, Natasha Verma’s June 2, 2026 episode of “Talking with Natasha” on FOX 5 New York, titled “Did the Mentalist Mess Up?”, brought Samen into one of the country’s largest local media markets. The published episode description notes that Verma tested Samen live on her birthday, and that Samen has performed in “some of the highest-pressure rooms in the world, including the World Economic Forum in Davos.” The segment, hosted by a four-time Emmy-winning anchor, included an on-air mind-reading demonstration and an impromptu birthday surprise for Verma, complete with a live magic reveal.
Thavarayil was credentialed to enter the studio specifically to document the appearance for Samen’s own archive, filming behind-the-scenes footage of the taping, the greenroom preparation, and the live demonstration itself. Several short clips from the appearance are already public, shared as reels on Samen’s Instagram: the mind-reading segment, a follow-up moment from the taping, a third clip from the segment, and an earlier post referencing the appearance. The full behind-the-scenes footage he shot that day, however, remains unreleased, being held for a larger retrospective of Samen’s biggest career milestones.
It was, in many ways, a natural extension of a working relationship that began just months earlier, one built entirely on the strength of a single cold outreach and a coffee meeting in Soho.
From a WhatsApp Message to Full-Time Production Partner
Thavarayil runs Nivedkrishna LLC, a New Jersey-registered production company (formed November 2025) operating under the studio brand Thava Studio, offering video production, social media strategy, and content creation services to small businesses, entertainers, and entrepreneurs. His client work spans the New York metro area, including Brooklyn and Long Island, as well as New Jersey, Philadelphia, Texas, and Los Angeles. Before working with Samen, he had already built a client roster spanning multiple industries: cafes and restaurants including Bricklane Curry House, Paratha Junction, Sips, Hyderabad Peri Peri, Semkeh, Frangos Peri Peri, Nadan Kerala Cafe (New Jersey), Jaipore Royal Indian Cuisine (Brewster, New York), and Kavikara by Silpa (New York); real estate professionals including Levin Realtor and Joseph Cherian; the healthcare practice Your Primary Care (Texas); the coconut water brand Infamous Coconuts (Los Angeles); Sapphire Banquet Hall (Long Island); Sterling Voice Coaching by Lyndia Johnson; the app Fetchy by Nina Duong; and Cora the Borzoi, a New York pet-focused account. Those relationships were built, characteristically, through in-person pitches rather than cold emails.
That same direct approach shaped how the Samen partnership began. In early April, Yoey Garfield, a fellow filmmaker who had studied alongside Thavarayil in film school and who had previously shot and edited for Samen at an event in Maryland, connected the two. Garfield, who now works as a videographer and editor for a marketing company and was based outside New York City, had stayed in touch with Samen since that earlier project. When Samen reached back out looking for someone based in New York to help with ongoing content, Garfield recommended Thavarayil and passed along his contact information. Thavarayil reached out to Samen directly over WhatsApp on April 1, sharing his full production portfolio, and heard back on April 10. Rather than settling things over a call, he requested an in-person meeting, a Monday afternoon coffee sit-down in Soho on April 13.
The meeting worked. Samen brought Thavarayil on for a shoot the very next day, and what started as day-to-day street content quickly expanded into a much broader role that spanned content strategy, Instagram brand direction, YouTube vlog ideation and scripting, and full production and editing of both short-form and long-form content, all built around Samen’s public persona as an international mentalist.
A Filmmaker’s Background Behind the Camera
Nivedkrishna Thavarayil’s ability to convert a single coffee meeting into an ongoing production role, first with cafes and small businesses, later with Samen, traces back to a film background that predates Nivedkrishna LLC by several years. He trained at the New York Film Academy before moving into independent production work, and is listed on IMDb under his own filmmaking credits.
Before founding Nivedkrishna LLC, he spent years building f24foster, a film review and commentary page he started in 2020 focused largely on South Asian cinema, which grew to roughly 10,000 followers and produced several reels that reached millions of views. Between his personal account and f24foster, he built a working understanding of short-form content performance, knowledge he says he has since applied directly to strategy for his cafe, restaurant, and entertainment clients, including Samen. He also maintains a LinkedIn profile and an active Letterboxd account with a sizable following for his film reviews.
Roots in Viral Marketing, CashKaro and WLDD
That strategic instinct was sharpened further during an earlier stretch of Thavarayil’s career, working an internship and apprenticeship at CashKaro, India’s largest cashback and coupons platform, followed by a role on the founding team at WLDD, the Bangalore-based viral and meme-marketing company that Storyboard18 has since valued at roughly ₹100 crore. He joined WLDD as a junior brand strategist and was promoted to creative strategist within two months. Because the team was small in its early stages, the role stretched across the full pipeline (ideation, brand strategy, and hands-on content creation, including shooting and editing), with campaigns built around multiple film and brand promotions designed specifically to go viral.
That period, Thavarayil says, is where he formalized the framework he now applies to nearly every client account, including Samen’s. It is what he calls the “3H strategy”: Hype, Hygiene, and Hub posting, a content-mix approach he uses to balance attention-grabbing content, consistent brand-maintenance content, and platform-specific distribution across every account he manages.
More Than a Camera Operator
In the months since, Thavarayil has become a fixture at nearly every major Samen production, from private events to ticketed shows and corporate bookings across New York City and beyond, with travel covered by Samen’s team. Notable projects include production for a private Amazon corporate event, multiple street mentalism vlogs featuring celebrity encounters, and an in-progress “FIFA Fever” vlog documenting open-air World Cup screenings around the city.
One clear example of that full-production role is a DUMBO, Brooklyn vlog on Samen’s YouTube channel, a project Thavarayil conceived from concept through shoot, edit, and even thumbnail design. A separate vlog featuring a well-known stand-up comedian was also produced during this period, though it has since been taken down from public platforms.
A shoot in North Carolina is next on the calendar, part of a growing multi-city production schedule as Samen’s team plans a move into ticketed New York shows later this year.
A Presence Across Every Platform
Since mid-April, Thavarayil’s production work has become the visual backbone of Samen’s public output across Instagram, TikTok, Threads, Facebook, and YouTube. One representative example is a short-form reel on Samen’s account, shot and edited almost entirely by Thavarayil and mirrored across Samen’s platforms, one of many short-form pieces, long-form YouTube videos, and static portfolio photographs that carry his production work, even when his name doesn’t appear on screen.
His own work is visible on his personal Instagram, @tvedukr_12, and on the account for Thava Studio, the production brand under which Nivedkrishna LLC takes on client work, including the cafe and restaurant portfolio referenced above. He is also linked to a separate software venture, Growvior, rounding out an entrepreneurial footprint that extends beyond video production alone.
What’s Next
Samen, who has also appeared on outlets including NBC 6 South Florida, continues to grow his following across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, with Thavarayil now central to that strategy: brainstorming concepts, managing shoots, and overseeing the edit of nearly every piece of content that carries Samen’s name.
For Thavarayil, whose Nivedkrishna LLC also continues to serve independent restaurant and retail clients across New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, the Samen partnership marks a shift from freelance production work toward something closer to a full-time creative directorship. Asked directly to describe the role, Samen was unambiguous. Thavarayil handles creative content strategy, video production and direction, and editing, in Samen’s words, an “all-in-all” role covering every stage of the content pipeline. It’s a scope of responsibility that now includes national broadcast credentials, celebrity-adjacent content, and a growing role in shaping how a touring mentalist is introduced to new audiences, one city at a time.
