Live Blogging iDMAa Day 3: The International Perspective (India)

This second part of the morning session featured K. Hariharan director of the L.V. Prasad Film and TV Acadamy and a filmmaker from India.

His topic: The Digital Challenge for Media Artists

He began with information about India and the complexity of Indian media and education. The challenges of pirated works have made "real" or "original" work a premium. There is much going on around the growth of Film. India media have moved to digital quickly with what seems little challenge. Film and TV have moved to AVID easily.

And yet...

The creative communicators -- the digital artists -- are struggling.

The average indian can read and speak at least three languages -- and computer programming is just another one. So the challenge here is that India is an oral and audio based tradition. The visual media artist struggles. and while India is the world's largest producer of films, they do not do any animation. They need content. The digital domain is acquisition, processing and transmission, and is not sequential in India. There is no process -- it is disorganized -- they produce inexpensive film with high technology and yet, the narration is fragmented. The same film can be different from theater to theater because they will edit freely and move things and take things out. Digital technology is seen only as a visual effects tool -- NOT artistic or creative.

So how do you educate individuals in Film who think they can all edit and make movies? There is a lack of role models -- so the teacher becomes the role model. Have to explain theory with clarity and must prove that you are credible. In order to teach here, the faculty have to show them how to create the film by example, then they have to show both what is good and what is bad about that film.

It is clear that there are barriers to working with digital film in India -- it seems that the issue from what I can understand is the Indian culture emphasizes the technical skill to get things done, but the ability to creatively approach a story is a bigger challenge, even though the tradition for the culture is one of story telling. There is a disconnect.

According to Hariharan, Indians do not have a perspective to start -- things flow. The animation programs from the U.S. want people to start with how long, or the depth...it is not the way someone from India would approach developing a film.

Very interesting window for me into the culture for India from the filmmakers perspective.