Art of film making for social change

Films or videos are one of the trending modes of communication and show the highest engagements in the social media platforms. In Facebook itself, videos have a reach of 86%.

Films in the social sector have a profound potential for social change. Development workers can play a greater role in bridging the gap between the deprived and affluent class by presenting the situation through different communication modes like films. More often, this assignment is outsourced as it requires special skills.

Filmmaking involves pre-production, production and post-production work, which many a time is unknown to common people. Project coordinators from 13 dioceses of WARM, JEEVAN-PLE, SABAL and HAPPY Desh programmes from West Zone got the opportunity to learn the art of filmmaking to present their work in a better manner.

Caritas India with the support of Atul Gajre and Mayur Dhondsekar from HRIDAY Entertainment, Mumbai organized two and a half days’ workshop from 10 to 12 October 2018 at Pallotine Animation Centre, Nagpur to train the project coordinators in filmmaking.

Resource person explained the process of crafting the idea/subject and the storyline, how to begin the production process, preparing the pre-production, writing screenplay/narration/dialogues, recce, production management, direction, cinematography, lights (Indoor/Outdoor), recording sound, Post-Production Preparation, taking shots, tone/genre of film, foley sound along with background score,  voice narration and climax of the film.

Participants paired in groups and experienced the art of shooting at Tambekani, Devli and Aamgav villages on making of Jeevamrut, mixed cropping, cemetery, soak pit and alcoholism. The process of video editing and converting video into a film/ video documentary by adding and editing photos, video, and music, sound effects, subtitles and animation helped them to understand the post-production process.

The videos prepared by groups and individuals were presented for comments by the resource persons and the group. All the video presentations were positively criticized, appreciated and judged. Robinhood Production under the leadership of Mr. Robin George and his team bagged the best video award from Caritas India. The workshop was stirred by the active coordination of Melvin Pangya, Robin George, Mukund Deshmukh, Varsha, Ramesh and K. A. Sebastian from Caritas Team.