Viewfinder: A sustainable culture

Some days ago I went for a workshop. It was called Viewfinder: A Sustainable Culture and it was organised and conducted by Dipa De Motwane, producer on Jubilee (among a bunch of other films and series) and mother to Vikram Motwane. The workshop was on a Saturday morning at the Sun n Sand hotel in Juhu. 

It was in a small ballroom up on the second floor. They had put up roundtables all around the ballroom and around each roundtable there were 5 to 6 chairs. We all sat in groups, and in my group was Aarti Bajaj, editor of Jubilee, Rockstar, etc. 

The first session was an overview of the production pipeline, in which Dipa aunty took the audience through the whole production process. She peppered the session with bits of her own experience, and kept it interactive by asking the audience to chip in with their own experiences. 

For the most part, the whole thing felt like an 'in' circle because almost everyone knew each other and had worked with Phantom before. Very few folx - like me - were complete outsiders. But honestly, that's the part I cared for the least, so I went around making connections anyway. 

Then we had lunch. After lunch, the group activities began. They gave us a sheet of paper with some scenarios on them, and we had to brainstorm solutions to those scenarios. They gave us about half an hour to brainstorm, then went around in turns asking each group for their solution to the problem. This worked to break the ice among us, and was a good exercise overall. 

After this session, Dipa aunty spoke about her experiences for a bit (again) before breaking into the next session: a panel discussion with 4 guests from the industry. We had Kazvin Dangor (production designer), Vasan Bala (director), Yashoda Parthasarthy (VFX artist) and Shruti Kapoor (costume designer). They took about an hour to talk to us about how as producers we could support them better. Then the floor was open for questions and answers, and that took about half an hour or so. 

Then we broke for tea and snacks, during which time we socialized some more. I went and spoke to almost everyone, exchanging numbers and handing out my new card. 

The last session was a budgeting overview session by Dipa aunty. She sat on a chair and spoke to everyone this time. This was way more interactive as she threw it open for everyone and fielded questions from the audience. This went on for about a couple of hours, until we finally closed around 7 pm. 

All in all, it wasn't a great workshop or anything. Just about covered the basics. Even more surprising, the 'sustainability' part of the conversation only addressed recycling plastics and using matka water on set. Mental health, gender & disability inclusion, etc weren't even touched on. I get that neurodivergence is a very new concept for most, but LGBTQIA+ awareness should be there in media circles at least by now. 

Anyway, I thought of making a note of all this because we want to do workshops too. We want to see if this kind of a format works by calling in small groups of parents, caregivers, teachers, etc, and doing a neurodivergence 101 primer, across India. Even potentially get a brand on board. 

Must put down all the segments, resources, subjects and formats we could explore. 

Here's a group picture from the workshop -