HYDERABAD: In this age of Instagramming and two-minute vidoes, what do you think make sense? Quick and snappy one-minute videos of course! Add some fun, youthful vigour and a social message and you are all set to go viral.
This is what happened when three youngsters Komal Agarwal, 22, a filmmaker; Hamza Ali, 27, also filmmaker and Monica Jethani, 22, a student pursuing her Masters at St.Francis College got in sync.
Film-making and the dream to tell good stories got them together and they initiated an ad campaign called Common Sense Kee Baat in July 2016. The trio conceptualise one-minute films that address various social issues and come up with simple solutions.
Their latest ad film on Mother’s Day on Saturday, titled ‘Mother Indeed’ is going viral. In the last two days, it has garnered 11,000 views. It is about feelings of a surrogate mother, how she celebrates the baby’s birthday even when she does not know the gender of the baby. This is based on a true story and it was released on May 13.
“I met Hamza at the shoot of a TV show last year and as we shared similar idealogy of filmmaking, we came up with this campaign. The group hangs out at Lamakaan to discuss about films. “So far we have made nine ad films – first was on Father’s day, Swachh Bharat, My Problem, Let’s Pledge, No Choice about women empowerment. For the sixth, we did a video on “Food Wastage” (They tied up with Logical Indian Page). We released our ninth for Mother’s Day,” says Komal.
The team has also worked with the Telangana government for the short film titled “Drunk and Drive” and another on “Road Safety” which is under post production. They also made a short film titled Kaalye with demonetisation as the dropback and currently under post production.
“It is a 35- minute film and all Hindi theatre artists have worked in it. It will be releasing next month,” the team say. About their technique of shooting, Komal says, “It is called Gorilla shooting. Basically we visualise the scenes one day before shooting and the next day we just go and shoot. As we are passionate and we do not hesitate to ask random people to let us shoot in their houses or land.”
On an average, they get 20,000-30,000 views and the number gets better with each film as the number of followers is gradually increasing. In this day of two-minute noodles, are youngsters keen on getting gyan in less than a minute?
“We hope that this brings a change in the society as we just ignite a thought. We all are aware of the problems but no one takes an initiative until they get a spark to think about it. We give the spark through the ad films and let the viewers think and apply in their lives,” says Hamza.
The timing works great to their advantage, says the team. “As they are one minute films, people tend to watch them rather than watching the long videos on the societal problems. These films leave an impact on the viewers mind.”
“We also try and rope in theatre artists as the message is conveyed impactfully when professionals come on board. People connect with their performance and it touches their hearts. There is still lot of exploring of artists to be done,” adds Monica.
They are now looking for brand tie-ups so that they can work on their theme lines. What’s in their bucket list? “A blockbuster Hindi flick.”