Document about Documentary!

We all feel that Visual effect on human brain is stronger compare to Verbal. How many of us love watching cartoon instead of reading a comic book, Majority right? So whenever we want to convey message to large audience in an effective way, we should consider visual medium as Social media is used so extensively across the globe it makes us easier to connect with many people. If you also feel the same but are not sure how to make a short movie/Documentary read along.

If you have passion to do something, nothing can stop you. I’m sure you would have heard it from many people many times. So let’s get to the practicality of making a documentary. I was always inclined towards working for social cause, but never thought making short films could be an impact. It was around a year and half ago I got a chance to work in short film with a creative group of people who wanted to add value to the life of those underprivileged through art forms such as theater and motion picture.

Trust me I had no experience or have idea on how to make short films. It was after we started I learnt things slowly. Even though I had no background with acting skills, I just blindly trusted the team and started working. To deliver a documentary which makes impact on audience, you should always have a strong baseline/Story/Theme. After you know this, all other aspects like camera for shooting, editing, casting come into picture. A good story will be sold without having a lot of effects in it, says the director I worked with. So stop worrying too much about what kind of camera will be best, any basic model is good enough to shoot. As long as you know how to hold it still and to move it to capture motion.

As having good story/ Idea/Direction is important, good editor is equally important. When I say editor, don’t compare it to editing for big movies. If you know to use windows movie maker, you can learn basic editing skills which is enough for editing the documentary. But if you feel your camera/shooting/Direction did not go well and want best editing, you can always get it edited by external resource. But in my personal opinion it is best to have all the resources within the team to get the best output in lower budget.

I Sure can’t teach you how to make documentary in this one article for sure, it will be come to you when you start doing it. But here are few tips I can share,

•  Pen down your script or idea and the ways you want to go about it before starting.
•  Make sure all the resources are ready, before you start your shooting.
•  Record all the voices separately, this will help during editing.

If you have interest in making documentaries and never started it due to some reasons, remember this quote from Seth Godin - The only thing worse than starting something and failing is not starting something.

Do I get to choose CM/PM?

I guess this is the right time to put forth my thoughts on politics, elections are coming up you see. I don't really understand this politics or maybe I'm not very keen to follow it. As a normal citizen of this country i always wonder if my voting does matter in electing the chief minister or prime minister. As they are the main ones responsible for the growth of me, my city and my country.

When these voting do happen, it is for the MLA of the particular area I stay in. Let us say I vote for a person in "X" party, election of CM happens by number of wins a particular party gets. When it isn't "X" party, how am I electing the Chief minister who has the control over state?

World Inspiration Day- As simple as that!

Everyday we wake up with the hope to reach one step closer to our dreams or goals. Just imagine you had no dreams, do you think life would've been interesting? You would have had no reason to wake up and push yourself a little harder to achieve something big in life.

With our daily routine and busy work schedules, we tend to lose hope or stay lazy to come out of comfort-zone and start working towards the goals. That's why we need inspiration to keep us going. Motivation from someone or something might last few hours or days, but inspiration stays longer with us. It is not only important to get inspiration and keep ourselves going ahead in life  but to inspire others around us so that they can move forward.

When inspiration is such a big part in our life, doesn't it deserve to have a day of celebration? That's when MR.Sujit Lalwani came up with idea to coin a day as world inspiration day. As April 23rd was the day Inspiration unlimited idea was conceived we celebrate World Inspiration Day(WID) on 23rd April from this year.

Here's a video of people from 23 plus countries wishing for World Inspiration day:
http://youtu.be/zvGsT9uF9qI

I would just like to say, i aspire to inspire others around me. Do you?

Choice is Yours!

We keep hearing from every source possible that we get what we deserve. But most of us aren't happy the way our lives is. All that we do is complain about how things are going on in life. How many times have we not compared our life with others and thought "man i deserved that"?  I'm Sure many at times.

IU Literacy Day!

Yet another opportunity came in front of me which would allow me to do the thing which i love; visiting school kids and share things i know. Here is how my experience was:
We had to leave early morning so that we reach school which is near Devanahalli village by 8 am. Though my pick up was at 6:30 am, i was skeptical if i would wake up or no, that's because I'm not at all a morning person. Even during my college exams i use to wake up after 7 or 8. But when you really want to do something, you cannot have such excuses. So i got into the cab and we were 10 volunteers heading to two different schools. We quickly decided on the agenda and Shoma who initiated the whole camp gave us the deck for teaching kids.

I lead group of four in one school where we waited for the teachers to arrive. But My God what enthusiastic kids they were! Coming to us and asking what will we be teaching them and where we are from. They were just not afraid or shy to speak with strangers it seemed. Once teacher arrived, i discussed the agenda with her and she arranged a room where 5th to 8th std kids could be accommodated. They were around 40 students but with so much energy and eager to know things. Most of them hadn't used computers in there life but few had chance to use one which was there in the school. So we started teaching them from basics and how Internet could help them. After an hour session, we conducted a quiz and they were so good to at, i ran out of chocolates which we had taken.

Next was a motivational section, which i was suppose to take up. I was scared as i had to speak only in Kannada( You all know how good Bangaloreans Kannada is, we use so many English words in between). We played a Video before starting that section and asked kids what they learnt from it, I was amazed to hear moral from few kids. The level of understanding they had was brilliant. And i started speaking about topic i had for the day. It was actually rejuvenating for me too. Boosted up my own motivational level.

Finally when we were done for the day, we asked kids for the feedback and they were so happy about the session which made us feel proud. Teacher in that school was very encouraging and was happy about our visit.

We might not be able to teach them computers in those couple of hours but if we are successful in helping at least one kid in dreaming big and believing in dreams, that will be an accomplishment.

Spread a Smile Today :)

No life at work ?

I always here or read this saying "Pursue Your passion" , But when I look around most of us do not get to do it for their own reasons.It may be because it wouldn't fetch you enough money for living or there is very less opportunity. Does it mean you cannot be happy ? Sure no. All that we need to do is be Positive and love what you do.

I understand we often end up doing same kind of job everyday. But then we will need to put that extra effort to do it in a creative way. Talk to other team-mates on what you working on, this will not only help you build a conversation but also might give you a clear picture about your work. Keeping a smile on and creating a lively environment helps you to love what you do, It might also inspire others to be positive :-) 

Don't say no to participate in extra curricular activities in office, It will help you refresh your mind. We might end up not doing anything over weekends just because we are too lazy. This is the time you might utilize to do what you love; your passion.In my case I dance, I involve in NGO activities, I play badminton. 

Be the one you want to be. Stay Positive and be Active. I know it is easy to say all the above words and hard to implement. But just remember only you can make yourself happy :-) 

Why Mentor-Mentee Relationship is Important?

Cognitive dissonance is defined in modern psychology as the state of holding two or more conflicting ideas, beliefs, values or emotions. The reason why I used the above definition is because each one of us would have come across such a dilemma at least once in our life. I bet you can think of one such instance right now. Sometimes you wonder how your life might be right now, if you hadn’t taken that important decision. While taking such decision you might have consulted many people or discussed as many times as possible. Even if you hadn’t spoken to anyone, you must have undergone thousands of thought process in your mind. Your mind was in state of cognitive dissonance while taking such decision.

In your day to day life, you come across many discrepancies regarding various issues and you need to take a decision within limited span of time. Sometimes you wish there was someone who could take all the burden of thinking and show the exact path which you need to follow. In this busy competitive corporate life it is better to have knowledgeable and wise Guide to help you chose the right direction. And that guide is who we call a mentor :)

The very first question is whom should we chose as our mentor? Let us consider the career path itself, should we choose our Manager, lead, Architect or colleague as our mentor? Can we choose mentor from different team? It can be anyone but the only requirement is you should have the complete faith in that person and the confidence that he/she will bring out the best in you.

Look for the Person who is stable, supportive and successful in handling their work. Find out whether he/she can take out some time and assist you in your career path. Once you have identified your mentor, schedule regular meeting as per convenience. Make sure this meeting isn’t affecting yours or your mentor’s job. Give your mentor a brief introduction about yourself, your roles & responsibilities and your expectations. Be accountable in informing your mentor about the status of your growth. Never hesitate to discuss with your mentor when you are confused about taking some decisions.

Suppose if you were approached by someone to take them as a mentee, make sure you are in a position to take the responsibility of that person. If you feel you are capable, take some time and prepare few general purpose guidelines for your mentee to follow. Ask them to follow the guidelines in their day to day activities for certain amount of time and get the feedback from them to evaluate the current status of the mentee. Always give the best possible solution for your mentee, but never compel them to do the same.

A mentor-mentee relationship is something like the coach and the sports star. The sports person success lies in following coach’s guidelines and the successful coach is the one who creates a star from the sportsman.

First Short Movie of mine !

Conflicts with strangers views !

It was 6 in the evening when i boarded into the bus Alone which was from kolar to Bangalore. Even though it was 2 hours journey, i made myself comfortable in the seat next to window so that i wouldn't be too tired to next days work at office. I'm usually up for some conversation with the person next to me whenever i travel alone. But this time since i was on calls for like 45mins, i didn't greet the person next to me.

I was surprised when she started the conversation; she said hi, are you working in Kolar? And our conversation went on in introducing our self.
For this blog sake lets call her Cathy. Quick introduction about her: cathy, married to a Asst professor and works as lecturer in Nursing college. She is doing her PG from Rajiv Gandhi institute from Karnataka. She stayed in Bangalore for 4days.

Cathy :Its so easy to get IT job in Bangalore right?
me: (ya right, if so All B.E graduates in Bangalore would be employed :D ) Yes it is if you are talented enough.

Cathy: How do you live in Bangalore, there is so much traffic.?
Me: This time on her face, See when people from all over wants to come and stay in Bangalore, population increases and everyone has to travel so its common to have traffic jams. But I'm sure it will become better since Metro is also coming up.

Cathy: I stayed here for four days, there is nothing to see other than malls !
Me: Its a metropolitan city and IT hub of India. Still there are places like ulsoor lake, cubbon park, lalbagh, wonder la, Vidhan Soudha , Vishveshwariah Museum for the visitors to look for.

Cathy: But Our Hyderabad has Monuments like Golkonda, charminar.
Me: (Here people are only like monuments who embrace any culture or language :) ) I suggested to vistit Mysore palace.

And then we started conversing about which places are beautifull to visit.
She asked me if her English is fluent enough as she had to take up some exam to go to Canada. I gave her my feedback. And we left greeting each other all the best.

By this what i observed was, People will always find negatives in you or your place or your closed ones.
Sometimes we must not ignore it and try to tell the positives in everything.

In a conversation do not argue, be compose and speak. Appreciate the other one where ever needed. Share the positive energy to all. :)

Career Confusions !!

Aim for the sky :)

What is the answer you get when you ask a kid what he/she wants to become when they grow up?  Surely you can't get one answer for this. But whatever the child says it wouldn't think whether it is achievable or not.They just blindly Believe that they will achieve there dreams.
As we start growing up our dreams change, we will start making goals which are simpler to achieve rather than what we are capable of doing. This is the case with most of the people around us. Only few souls will actually take risk, work hard and do much more than what they are capable of, these are the few successful people we have in society. The reason for us not having big dreams may be because

•  Would be raised in a orthodox family, where you wouldn't have come out of the shell to even think anything big.
• Just following the conventional study-work routine.
• Not having a platform to showcase the talents you got.
• Fear of failing.
• Waiting for someone else to guide you at every step, which rarely happens.

Now let me come back to the title of the post "career confusion". Everyone of us had to decide at some point of time what career path we are going to choose for rest of our life. There will be lot of confusions for most of us since we don't really know in which career path we will be happy and satisfied. Here I would like to give some points on choosing the career you would be happy with.

• Do not just blindly listen to parents/friends/relatives on what course you have to do.
• If you are intelligent but have no special talent like singing, dance, writing etc. , Join the course which has your interesting subject.
• Do not  forget to keep practising what your passion is (dance, sports, writing), this will keep you happy.
• Get over the fear of failure, and start up something on your own. As India needs lots of entrepreneurs  and there are many opportunities as well.

I would want to conclude saying that choose what you are really interested in rather just following someone.

You should try and fail but shouldn't fail to try as said by Stephen Kaggwa.