From Chennai to Hong Kong - Thank you!

Another kickstarter backer video with behind the scenes preview of what you'll see and hear on the DVD. Thanks for all your support.

From Chennai to Hong Kong - Thank You! from Kirsten Anderson on Vimeo.

DVD Update #12 Shooting Begins

Success with a steep learning curve...

We are two days into our 17 day shoot and still mostly on schedule. We were able to cover a script a day plus deal with all the first time trouble-shooting kinks of setting up sets in poorly lit, echoing rooms, teaching kids lines on the spot and fixing/finding props at the last minute. We're all exhausted but in two days I feel like I personally have just attended film school and have learned an enormous amount about how to make the next few weeks much smoother. When we aren't filming, I'll be spending my time simplifying and organizing the scripts better to make sure the shoot days are smoother. When we are filming I'll prep people better for the entire day so we can move faster as a team.

Day 1 Set: Kids painting props for the school annual day

Day 2: Kids at school talking about the sounds they've learned that day.

Before each scene, the kids practice their lines with a coach.

Shooting in 100-104F weather is exhausting, especially since we are on location and do not have a cool AC studio space to use. This means we can't even have fans on when the camera is rolling. Snacks and lots of water breaks are essential!

A true experiential learning experience for everyone. We all pause to watch and listen to the last take to see what needs to change, mistakes we've made and what worked well. Digital cameras and instant playback are such a blessing when working with kids.

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!

Wow! Great news!

We did it, or rather all our kickstarter backers did it. We have reached our $4,000 goal for the next episode of our DVD project. Thank you so much to everyone who has pledged and is backing this project. Your support means a lot all of us on the English team at Aid India. It is encouraging to know that there are so many people out there supporting and encouraging us to continue this work. We met with our directors last week and have begun talks about the next several episodes. Now that we've raised enough money for another episode we are that much closer to our goal of completing the project. We hope to have the next shoot in June.

But we still have 16 days left on kickstarter and each episode is going to cost about $4000, so please pass this onto friends, family or colleagues. We can still use all the help we can get. Additional funds raised beyond our $4000 goal will go towards additional episodes. And the more episodes we can produce in one go, the more we can bring our costs down.

Please pass this on to friends, family and colleauges. We aren't done yet. For information about the reading project and the DVD initiative, please follow the link below to our kickstarter site:

DVD Update #5: Filming!

Going to the first day of the shoot
Uma Rani, Kirstne, Sumangali (back row), Swetha, January, Vignesh, Chandru (front row)

Day 1, Audio Recording 2pm-7pm

We picked up the students at noon and brought them to the office. The Koovathur kids had also arrived. I asked Swetha and Chandru to come and help me get lunch from a nearby hotel. Upon leaving the office I realized that Swetha didn’t have chappals. Apparently her chappals broke at the bus stand when she reached Chennai and so she was barefoot. So after putting in our order for lunch we went to a small chappal stall and bought her new chappals for 40Rs. For lunch we ate parrota and meals together in the office with all the staff. For most of the students it is their first time being around computers and in an office. They wanted to see everything and explore, but we had to keep an eye on them so they didn’t disturb the office too much. We finally left for the hall in two cars at about 2pm. The kids and their teacher all piled into the ambassador with Parvathy. Sumangali, Priya, Kalai and I all went in Suman’s car and followed the ambassador to the Goethe Institute, Max Mueller Bhavan. Walking into the studio for the first time was a little exciting for everyone. They had never been in a big studio space before. It is like big concrete hall, that had a a vinyl floor rolled out in the middle. The production crew had put up a backdrop for the set and blacked out the windows. For the first day on the set, the students mostly sat with the music technician and the actors and practiced the jingle and other tunes that will be used in the episode. They recorded their voices for the music--wearing big headphones and talking into a mic. Even though it was their first time performing, they didn't seem to have any stage fright. They all warmed up to it very quickly. Although it did take them some time to get all the tunes down...and the music technician will need to have to edit a lot to make some of their recordings useable, but they were very cute!

On the set waiting for the directors to say "Rolling, Action!"

Day 2, Shoot 7am to 7pm

I was up and at Brinda school by 6:30am to meet the two boys. Vignesh was there right on time and came alone, at least a 15 minute walk requiring crossing a very busy street. Chandru was 30 minutes late but came by his father’s auto. We went to the office and picked up the Koovathur girls, got in the taxi and went to Max Mueller Bhavan.

Today the students got to put on their costumes, make-up and stand on the set in front of the lights for the first time. Very exciting, but they soon realized it was also very exhausting and hot. We were able to run the air conditioning unit for the room when we weren't shooting, but it was too loud to use all the time, so the room got very warm after awhile. We were constantly rushing up on set with water bottles and biscuits to keep the kids energized. Nobody knew what to expect the first day of the shooting, but we all figured out very quickly that this was going to be a slow long process that involved a lot of waiting around. The production crew had to shift and adjust lights. The camera men had to find the right angles and the directors had to set the stage. And then we had to manage the kids and make sure they weren't going to tear down the sets.

A long day on the set in front of the lights. They did an amazing job staying energetic and enthusiastic all the way through.

Day 3, Shoot 7am-10pm

I had another sleepless night singing “A kite cap, a cone cap” and “Tommy is a tall tiger” in my fitfull sleep. These songs and the jingle are going to drive me crazy. I guess its good that they are catchy, but if I can't get them out of my head soon, I might go mad.

Vignesh met me at Brinda at 6:25. The car picked us all up at the office at 6:50. We arrived at MMB by 7am and had tea and biscuits. As soon as Sumangali and Parvathy arrived we started getting the kids ready—makeup and ironing costumes. The kids were on the set by 8am doing some filler shots of them playing near the caravan while the other actors got ready. Chandru had the best part—playing the drum attached to the caravan. Yesterday we only got about 25 minutes on film and needed much more, so today was going to be a LONG day...lots of scenes to cover in a very short time. We had had high hopes of finishing early, but ended up barely dragging the kids out of the studio at 10pm. Lots of lessons learned about time management! We will need to adjust our planning and schedules a lot for the rest of the episodes.

A week after the initial shoot, we went to the Koovathur school and shot some scenes outside.

Some hilarious moments on set:

• One student can NOT pronounce tub and it comes out as ‘dub’
• When the kids met the creature they were totally freaked out. But even before he put on his costume, they picked out who he was in the room without having any clues. He has long hair and hadn’t shaved. He kinda already looked like a creature.
  
• Watching kids record for the first time—big head phones on listening to the music without being able to hear their own voice. They were mumbling and off tune.
  
• One student kept adding “ing” to every phrase in the song. It took many many tries to get it right. She was saying things like: “Read booking” “Play gamesing”
• Street/folk dancing during cap song...the boys love it. This may be a hit song. They went wild when they heard it and couldn't stop dancing to it.
  
• Cultural bathroom issues. The kids had perhaps never been in a bathroom with toilets and no squat toilet before. The girls were squatting on a marble floor bathroom with a toilet. Luckily there was a drain in the floor and they were washing it with water, but still--inappropriate. We found an outside toilet behind the studio that was squat style so that we could avoid the issue.
  
• Chandru saying “cut” “take” and “action” before the directors. We had to remind him many times that it was not his job.
  
• Chandru using friendly verb forms with adults which is actually viewed as being very impolite. We had to have a talk with him about how and when to use polite forms of Tamil.
• Chandru needs a minder to sit with him, remind him every 2 minutes to be quiet. We may need to hire an assistant just to monitor him in the future.
  
• “Vignesh is a always a good boy” said by Vignesh after Gilli Gilli Valli said he was a good boy. He only talks in the third person.
  

The kids have become very serious actors very quickly. They remember their lines, know when and where to be and can change their personalities as soon as they hear the word "Rolling, Action!" But they have also started demaning A/c cars and will need to start wearing sunglasses to hide from the papparazzi. What have we created?

DVD Update #2: Measurements & Rehearsal

All of our other pending projects have been pushed to the side this week. The pilot episode for the DVD is full speed ahead and there is lots that needs to be done. Thank goodness for a team of people: producers, costume designers, set designers, musical technicians, content people (us), actors, parents, teachers, and friends willing to give feedback, etc. This would never be possible without everyone enthusiastically working together on this project.

Last week we went to the school with a tailor and had the kids selected for the DVD measured. Cloth was bought and the tailor stitched them new DVD school uniforms. We choose bright fun colours: orange and purple. Sadly the tailor got the top and bottom confused and made the dark purple into shirts and blouses which will totally drown out the kids. We had asked for orange shirts and blouses. There needs to be a bright colour on top to offset their skin tones and hair colour. Deep purple will hide them entirely and we will only be able to see their teeth and the whites of their eyes on camera. Not acceptable! But we paid the tailor anyway. The producers are currently scouring the city for new lighter purple cloth and a tailor that can stitch 6 shirts in 24 hours.


Last week we meet with the parents of the students from the school in Chennai. We discussed the program and the logistics of the shoot. They all agreed and signed off on the permission slip. I am trying to keep in mind what I would be thinking and feeling if I were in their shoes...if I had been selected to act in a DVD in 4th or 5th grade, it might be the biggest thing that had ever happened to me. I wonder how something like this changes your life as a kid. Is it the biggest event to date for them? Considering movies are so popular here, giving kids an opportunity to act in front of a camera on a set is a pretty cool experience. As part of our side video project, the making of the DVD, we are going to do little video bios on each student when we drop them off at home this week.


Yesterday we had a 4 hour rehearsal with all six students and our main actor. She is great with children and they all seem to love her so it is working out perfectly from that perspective. She took them through several excercises and warm-ups to get them playing with their voice and facial expressions. And then she went through the first episode with them line by line. There was a lot of laughing and positive reaction to the script--Thank goodness! The kids seemed excited by the story line and picked up on the English very quickly. Only 3 of the students (all the girls) have been exposed to the program before. The boys haven't had any experience with the program so they are a little slower to pick it up, but tried really hard. Everyone had a good time. We ended the rehearsal with a parrota lunch and then managed to get all the kids home, earlier than expected.

Escorting them home was half the adventure yesterday. While we know that these kids come from disadvantaged backgrounds and live in slums, we never really see or experience the slums. Chennai has a few large slum areas, but most slums areas are hidden throughout the city down narrow lanes, hidden behind corners and blocked by walls or buildings. One turn off the main road and it is a different world. A world one wouldn't know exisited in Chennai unless you make an effort to find and see it for yourself. Yesterday I walked through two slum areas to drop off the kids after rehearsal. Being a foreigner there is obvious curiosity as to why I'm there. It's ok to see foreigners on the main roads, but there isn't any good reason why I should be walking through the slums otherwise. This was very clear in one area when the young men started calling out to me. As soon as we announced we were there with a student for a 'shoot for a school program' the attitude changed entirely. Not only was the student given slaps on the back (in congratulations), but we were shown straight to his house and everyone was instantly super helpful. It's all about relationships and establishing the right connections. We will be dropping him back again the rest of the week. It'll be interesting to see how their reaction to me and the others changes over time. But it'll be more interesting to see how he and the other students change over the days of the shooting. Will it increase their self-confidence? Will they display more pride? Will they step up to the acting role? Will they freeze up in front of the camera?

More after the shoot!

DVD Update #1

The DVD project is moving along very quickly! Last week we conducted auditions for the childrens parts in the DVD. We spent about 2 hours at a nearby school with about 20 children. Tarun & Anushka brought their camera to record the students for reference later. We played games with the kids. Sang songs. Asked them to play charades. Taught them some of our phonics sounds and actions. And generally encouraged them to be a little wild and crazy and have a good time. There were definitely some dominate characters that stood out.

Students singing in unison for camera close-ups.

Students playing a game in with the actress that will play our main 'teacher' character.

Students volunteering for charades.

We have selected the students, 3 boys and 3 girls. We will have four main speaking parts and two additional roles for activities and games. We are in the process of getting school and parent permission this week. We will hold rehearsals next Monday and shoot Wednesday-Friday and again the following Monday. Lots to be done this week: costumes, sets, and finalize the script and jingle. Fun fun fun!!

Materials Update #5: Teacher Pic

Our revised and much improved 'teacher' picture.

Materials Update #3: Printing

Good news! We have material. Our blending flip chart just arrived (pictures to be posted soon). The tool itself turned out pretty well. Several people in the office have already sat and started playing with it blending the different sounds together to make sensical and non-sensical words. However, the black ink quality isn't great and there are some smudges in places. We are going to complain to the printer, but now that we have already printed 500 there probably isn't much we can do.

Our sight word cards and sentences cards have also arrived. And while I haven't seen the final product, I'm told they look good.

Materials Update #2: Printing

With more than a few delays and bumps in the road, we have finally sent 3 things to be printed: 160 sight word cards, 64 sentence cards and the flipchart. We are printing 500 of each, so we are still waiting to get price quotes from different printers, but the materials have been finalized and they are on there way. Hopefully within a week we will be able to see and hold a final product! What an exciting moment that will be when this project finally begins to materialize!

The title page of our "flip and blend" phonetic blending flipchart. Illustrations were done by Luckshmi and the design was done by RJ, an intern from McGill University.

Materials Update #1: Illustrations

In order to get all our materials ready to be printed we need two things 1) content and 2) illustrations. Most of our content is complete, although it's in constant revision. But the biggest piece has been contracting out illustrations for this project. Not only do the illustrations have to be simple and bold, they have to be culturally relevant and appropriate for rural primary children in India. Currently we are working with five illustrators. We have collected 242 illustrations, but we still need 80+. We are desperately waiting for our illustrators to make corrections, send us sketches for approval and finally send us final images. It has been a really fun process thinking about what images we want to use to teach certain sounds or groups of sounds. And it has been really fun seeing what the illustrators send back to us. We are working with some very creative people. Here are a few examples of what our materials will look like and include:

"This pig has pants." This is the image on the 'p' flashcard.

"A rabbit rides a rocket." This is the image on the 'r' flashcard.

Solution #1: Alternative DVD Production Companies

With the news that our DVD production company was backing out, we swung into high gear and found two other alternatives. We met with them last week to discuss our concept and have submitted samples of our content. They will each write up a proposal and submit a budget by the end of this week. Let's hope our initial budget is within range of these new proposals. Both have different strengths to offer the project 1) is production focused 2) is education and multi-media focused. I'm secretly hoping that there is a way to bring them both into the project. Hopefully we will be able to make a decision and get a signed contract within a week.

Challenge #1: DVD Production Post-poned

Let's face it, this isn't the first challenge the project has faced, but it is very frustrating, hence the blog post. Everyday seems to confront us with one more challenge: the illustrator is busy or wants more money than we can offer, the internet isn't working, the power is cut, our printer changes his initial quotes, our design and layout editor falls sick, etc. etc.

But two days ago I got an SMS from our DVD director/producer saying she would have to push back the time line by 2 months. Apparently, not everything in India works based on personal relationships and contacts....we should have insisted on a signed contract at our last meeting. Now we are scrambling to find a new film production company that can do this project for us and we were supposed to start filming in two weeks.

On the upside, we have a bit more time to finalize our content and go to print with our materials. Although we need a few more illustrators and a logo we can all agree on.

AID India's English Action Research Team

Celebrating our grant award with an afternoon ice cream outing.
(Kirsten, Sumangali, Parvathy, Priya and
Sumangali's daughter front and center)

Stay Tuned!

New and improved: This blog is being revised and revamped to host the progress and developments of the "Ready to Read" Program. This reading program aims at providing primary-age students in Tamil Nadu's government schools tools to begin reading in English through a time-bound module.

More Coming Soon!