Interactive Media and Cinema

The objective is to explore and create cinema as a collective art form that can be attained by like-minded people in a more participatory way by sharing ideas, visions, freedom, friendships and travels in a more impromptu process-led way, on shoe-string budgets as low as your pocket-money than with one person’s rigid time-bounded script, schedules as well as the eye of funders bossing you around. The session also deals on how to make and take those films to the common audience.

Outline

My first short film was done for Rs.100/- in the year 2005. After 5 years, in 2010, I won a prize money of £1000/- for making a film on the budget of Rs.1000/- that became the campaign film of United Nations Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. Again after 5 years, in 2015, I have finished filming my first feature length film on a budget of Rs.1,00,000/-. What helped me achieve them is nothing more than the support of aesthetically sound, like-minded, go-getters friends as well as basic gadgets, wanderlust and mere intutions. I am here to share my journey of participatory process-led impromtou independent filmmaking on shoe-string budgets, using the making of my first feature film (Tamil film: Alaiyin Thisai) as a case study.

Requirements

Projector, Mobile phone/ pocket cameras, sound recorders

Speaker bio

I now serve as the Creative Director of my production company Cockroach in Cocktail Cinema and also work as a guest lecturer in Film Production at Madras Christian College. I have done 1 feature film, 20 short films, 5 Ad/Corporate films and 5 documentary films. ‘My Paper Boat’ was the prize-winning film at United Nations Copenhagen Climate Change conference in 2010. ‘Pedana Kalamkari’ won the best documentary film award by The Craft Council of India. Short films and documentary films were screened at venues like Copenhagen Climate Conference, Literary and Philosophical Society Newcastle, Teeside University Middleborough, Tyneside Cinemas Newcastle, Northern Film and Media UK, OSLO University Norway, Southern Youth Film Festival South Africa, Russian Cultural Centre Chennai etc. Though I make Advertisements and Corporate films for a living, I am an admirer and an avid practitioner of participatory process-led impromptu films purely out of passion.

Links

• www.cockroachincocktail.com