Production Team Meets Chennai Filmmaker R.S. Prasanna

The production team, a dynamic group of ten volunteers, interns and Aid India staff, met today to confirm roles and responsibilities and discuss the (slightly grueling) schedule. R.S. Prasanna, a Chennai filmmaker, was our chief guest and motivational speaker. He led a very helpful discussion on how to make a movie with little or no budget. That's us! We focused on trouble shooting especially in the areas of lighting, sound, direction and keeping the momentum going for 3 weeks, especially with the kids. So glad to have a resourceful and experienced filmmaker on call for this initiative.

Two of the child actors prepare a bingo game card using opposites vocabulary. The main focus of the 2 week rehearsal preparation has been to build up their confidence of English vocabulary, grammar, writing and reading that they have already learned through games, activities and one on one interaction with multiple teachers.

The phonetic sound letter props are almost finished. These will be used throughout all the segments to help reinforce the sounds being taught in each segment. Do you know what sound 'ie' and 'oo' make? Think 'tie, die, fried and ' and 'moon, spoon, stool, boot'

Today we took the letters outside and filmed the kids dancing around with each sound in various locations. Still lots more to do, but we got about 1/3 through the letters before the sun got too high in the sky and we were attracting too much attention to be productive.

Adam, our camera in charge, is spending his summer holiday volunteering for this production. Lucky us! He arrived less than a week ago and has already bonded with the kids--playing games, introducing kiwi to them for the first time and teaching them how to hackey sack. And has already spent several long hours in the sun filming on the streets of Chennai.
A great addition to the team!

Our Chennai-based interns are hard at work on their laptops checking scripts, sourcing last minute items, location scouting and working on story-boarding. These guys will be assistant directors as well as our main post-production editing crew. This production would not be possible without such a talented technical team!