3-Day Workshop on Documentary Film Making in KIIT School of Mass Communication
A three-day workshop on “Documentary Film Making” was conducted in the School of Mass Communication, KIIT Deemed to be University by Prof. Anjali Monteiro and Prof. K. P. Jayasankar during August 10, 2019 and August 12, 2019. Prof. Monteiro and Prof. Jayasankar are eminent documentary film makers and academicians and authors of the book – A Fly in the Curry: Independent Documentary Film in India (Sage, 2015). Prof. Monteiro is the Dean of the School of Media and Cultural Studies and Prof. Jayasankar is the Chairperson of the Centre for Critical Media Praxis at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.
The workshop was inaugurated on August 9, 2019 by Prof. Himansu Sekhar Khatua, CEO, School of Mass Communication, School of Film and Media Sciences and School of Fashion Technology. In the inaugural session, two documentaries were screened and there was an interactive session on its making and objectives with the directors. So Heddan So Hoddan (Like here, Like there), an award winning documentary by Prof. Monteiro and Prof. Jayasankar, and Mughal Tamashaby Prof. Khatua was screened.
Both the screened films were about the vanishing folk culture of two different localities of our country; one is of the nomadic pastoral communities of Kutch, Gujarat and another is about the traditional folk culture of Bhadrak, Odisha.
The film makers narrated the traditional cultures from their respective viewpoints in these documentaries. At the end of screening, an interactive session was held with the student audience. Ms. Sandhya Agrawal introduced the guests and Ms. Sargam Saxena proposed Vote of Thanks in the inaugural session. Students from the School of Mass Communication and School of Film and Media Sciences were present along with the faculty members – Ms. Ruby Nanda, Dr. Anurag Sahu, Mr. Ajay Mishra, Mr. Susanta Bahinipati and Mr. Ganeswar Mohapatra.
As part of the course curriculum of Integrated Master of Communication and Journalism, the workshop was conducted to impart practical as well as aesthetic skills on documentary film making. During the different sessions of workshop, Prof. Monteiro and Prof. Jayasankar trained the students on various aspects of documentary production like stages of production, research, proposal note, elements of documentary, type and structure of documentary and scripting. They screened a number of documentaries of various genres. Besides this, students could learn the aesthetics of visual language, techniques of visualization, the required skills and techniques of documentary production.
Throughout the workshop, in addition to the inputs from the resource persons, the students worked on their proposals and scripts. They were divided into three groups, and worked on different topics to design, plan and script for their assigned documentaries. The workshop immensely helped the students to acquire practical knowledge on production of documentary films. In the valedictory session, Dr. Bidu Bhusan Dash, Course Coordinator of the school conveyed his heartfelt thanks to Prof. Jayasankar and Prof. Monteiro for sharing their valuable time and guidance. The workshop was designed by Mr. Souptik Garai, the course instructor.