Film festival: When seconds make you laugh, cry, angry & sad!

On the second day of 'Alpavirama 2011', South Asian Short and Documentary Film Festival organised by the film and video communication discipline of NID, the crowd went rolling on the floor, simultaneously gaining knowledge while watching some unique ad films, public service announcements (PSAs) and channel promos.

Calling it 'Creative Seconds?' the seminar was aimed on how advertising films, PSAs and channel promos are made, the ground reality behind the making of some of the best in the industry, the budget, target audience and more. While NID alumni members, Sonal Dabral, Anirudha Sen and Sheetal Sudhir were the speakers for the seminar, Anupam Mishra, an NID alumnus, was the moderator.

Recounting some of his old memories related to his 'common' name when he first stepped onto Gujarat soil, Sonal Dabral introduced the crowd to a few creative ad films created by his team. "Creating or making a 60 second film is a lot like a relay race. Once the contract is in hand, the baton is passed to the creative team; once the creative ideas are made, the baton is passed to the production team and so on till it reaches its set target audience."

Dabral showcased the audience a mix of ad films from across Asia and had divided these films into different genres such as comedy, sad, sector wise division and so on.

Aniruddha Sen, on the other hand, spoke on the complexities, joys and more pertaining to making an advertising film. The speaker session came to an end, with an eye opening talk by Sheetal Sudhir on how a show is created and how directors then sell their ideas to television channels.