Kabir Akhtar

Akhtar has also been a featured speaker at industry events held by the Directors Guild of America, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, SAG-AFTRA, Avid, and The Sundance Film Festival. At a comedy workshop presented by the latter, he advised attendees that although filmmakers “can find the comedy on set", they "can break it in editing. Comedy is fragile." In 2018, he was a panelist at SXSW.

On May 2, 2016, Akhtar announced that the site would no longer be updated but would remain available indefinitely as a resource for fans. The site was actively maintained for nearly twenty years.

His hoax gained wide attention, and was reported throughout the day on radio stations nationwide; many stations reported it as if it were true. Tool's record label was flooded with calls from people who believed the prank was real. The following day, MTV began running hourly on-air updates debunking the claim. Akhtar later posted an apology, claiming that The Tool Page "will not indulge itself in such outlandish pranks in the future"—a claim that would be belied by later April Fools' pranks.

Akhtar transitioned to episodic directing in 2008, directing three episodes of the British comedy series Mumbai Calling. The series, which was shot entirely in India, aired in 2009 on ITV1 in England and HBO internationally.

On April 1, 2007, Akhtar posted a note to The Tool Page, advising that the band's upcoming spring tour would be cancelled due to drummer Danny Carey's injured arm. Though the post was a hoax, Carey's arm had been injured earlier that year, a fact that led some news outlets (including Spin Magazine) to run the story as if it were true.

Akhtar also directed a series of shorts for Comedy Central starring Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale, which aired in 2006. Later that year, Akhtar was a guest on comedy podcast The Mediocre Show, where he was interviewed about his work and his association with Tool (see below). He also edited the opening film and several short films for the 78th Annual Academy Awards, which were well-reviewed. In 2007, NBC listed Akhtar as one of the entertainment industry's "People to Watch", for his work as an emerging director. A few months later, Radar Magazine praised Akhtar's work on the first season of Tracey Ullman's Showtime series State of the Union as "slick editing, [with] skillful use of stock footage."

In 2005, while directing for Comedy Central's The Showbiz Show with David Spade, he directed a short film at the Skywalker Ranch. The short, which starred Brian Posehn alongside Star Wars characters Darth Vader and Chewbacca, was reviewed favorably by StarWars.com as being "like nothing you've ever seen."

Akhtar posted an annual prank every April Fools' Day after that, some of which were noted by various media outlets. None of the subsequent posts, though, were reported to the extent that the above-mentioned "bus crash" was, until 2005.

On April 1, 2005, Keenan emailed Akhtar to ask for his collaboration with a prank to be announced on Tool's official website. Tool announced that "Maynard has found Jesus" and that he would be abandoning the recording of the next Tool album possibly permanently. Hours later, Akhtar posted a letter to his site from Keenan, stating that the announcement was true. MTV News picked up the story, reporting that because both Tool's and Akhtar's websites had the same news, they were unsure whether it was real or not. Kurt Loder of MTV contacted Keenan to ask for a confirmation and received a Nonchalant confirmation. Brian Welch (formerly of the band Korn), who made the same news some months earlier, was delighted. However, on April 6 Akhtar explained that it had just been a prank; Tool's site followed suit on April 7.

Akhtar posted an April Fools' Day prank to The Tool Page every year from 1997 to 2009, and again in 2011. Although he gained a reputation for writing a fake post annually, some of his posts were picked up by the media and believed as true.

April 1, 1997, saw the first of several April Fools' Day pranks related to the band, created by Akhtar. That day, he wrote that "at least three of the band are listed in critical condition" after a tour bus accident on a highway.

Akhtar was also an early adopter of online video technology, offering streaming music videos on the site as early as 1996, nine years before the advent of YouTube.

Akhtar is also the creator of The Tool Page [1], the oldest website about the band Tool. He ran the website (also known as "toolshed") from 1994 to 2016; it predated many popular sites, including mainstays Google, YouTube, and Yahoo!. Akhtar was an early innovator on the web, and gained some notoriety for being the source of several April Fools' Day pranks.

In 1994, Akhtar started work on an unofficial website about the band Tool. Part of this effort was the writing of the Tool FAQ, a document which has often been cited as a source of information about the band. However, because there was little information available about the band in the days before widespread Internet usage, there were many incomplete sections in the original edition of the FAQ. In early 1995, Akhtar began corresponding online with the band's singer, Maynard James Keenan. Keenan sent him the then-unpublished lyrics to the band's entire catalog, and filled in the gaps in the FAQ. Shortly thereafter, Akhtar's website was christened "The Tool Page," and began tracking Tool news updates.

Kabir Akhtar (born January 11, 1975) is an American television director and editor, who won an Emmy Award in 2016. His credits include work for Arrested Development, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, New Girl, Behind the Music, and the Academy Awards.

Akhtar later directed part of the opening film for the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards starring Jane Lynch and Leonard Nimoy, and directed a segment of the 84th Academy Awards, starring host Billy Crystal and Melissa McCarthy in a well-received segment. He also edited the opening films for both broadcasts, and was nominated for an Emmy for editing the Oscars opening.