Report on documentary project

Title of the film Duration Language : : : ( ) 13 minute 37 second Hindi with English subtitle

Genre of film

Documentary (Interactive )

Year of production

2013 MAC 402 Production

Course code and Name of paper

Faculty Supervisor

Mr. Pranta Pratik Patnaik

Mahesh Kumar Meena

2011MACMS007 4th Semester

Department of Culture & Media Studies

School of social science Central university of Rajasthan

We were four candidate in this group for producing documentary film as course work in fourth semester of Culture and Media Studies. Mr Pranta Pratik Patnaik, Asst. Professor of department of Culture and Media Studies.

Topic selection For selecting the Banjara community we decide to make the documentary film to show their daily life struggle and effect of traditional occupation loss. They were used to sell cow and bovine animals but their profession was banned by government due to pressure of Hindu fundamentalist in the name of cow protection during 1990s, so they switched their profession to sell salt from village to village. But with coming of corporate companies in salt business, they become unemployed, this cause to loss to decrease their economic condition. Even they are Hindu but facing opposition by some other dominant group of Hindu.

Photo: - Banjara Family (Female is the main character of our film) at their temporary house in Central University of Rajasthan construction site. Although they have some agriculture land but in their home district Bhilwara, water is not good for agriculture production. It is salty so they do not have any option to survive, in the search of job, they are migrating from place to place in various part of country. Being jobless many Banjara Families become in debt. For paying back the debt they started to work as labors at construction sites. To selecting a Bajnara family, we found that a family has

migrated from Bhilwara to work in Central University of Rajasthans construction site. To show their culture and professional life at working site. It is a big reason to selecting this community in our film that because they are working as un-skilled laborers and leaving their native place. The ban on traditional occupation has influence this community working as labors and their children are not getting education. They are not concern about education because at their place they do not have water for agriculture production, government could not give them to substitute of their traditional. We selected the Family of Kaluram Banjara, they are from Bhilwara District of Rajasthan state. Presently they are working at University of Rajasthan, Bandera-Sindri construction site. To show struggle and achievement in their life we decide to make film on them.

Research work For doing research on this topic we find some information about Banjara community. The history of this community which told by elder man of family. I also cross check by searching internet. I found an article named, In The Name of the Cow: Banjaras Targeted By Hindutva Forces by Bhanwar Megwanshi (Bhilwara). For research work we went to them more than seven times at their temporary place in Central University of Rajasthan

Photo: - I am doing camera during shooting of film at construction site of Central University of Rajasthan.

Technical Experiences:Camera work I worked in this film as main cameraperson, the most of the interview of main women in this film captured by me. While working on DSLRs I found that it is easily to control light and exposure. I learned some defocusing techniques using 55mm lens and 135 mm with Canon 60D camera. Working on DSLR while shooting is easy because it is small, if we work with big camera in Banjara community our protagonist feel shy in front of camera. I shot this film with twocamera setting because I was doing main camera and other member from our group was working with second camera. Shooting a documentary is something different because you cannot retake a shot. If we try, people can get frustrated. Every evening when we come back, we check our equipment and back all the videos into laptop. In the morning before going into filed, I checked my all equipment is whether they are working or not. Script I have written script of this documentary with our group member. While working on script we keep in the mind to show our the story of Banjara community by taking reference of earlier work done by Bhanwar Megwanshi, who is social activist from Bhilwara, Rajasthan.

Editing I edit this film on Final Cut Pro 7. Using this software, I found that it give more comfort working with video editing. When I took my project in to FCP, every time I checked my setting and before finishing editing process, I saved a copy my project in different hard drive. Which has given me more confidence that I will not lose my date and edited part of film. Voice over has written and given by me in this film. In FCP managed all sequence setting according to our project. Film has capture with 24 frame per second with DSLR, so I choose, Apple ProRes 422 High Quality project setting, so that our video quality will not differ or loss. Suggestion:Working on a community-based project, we should always keep in mind that our work should hurt anyones dignity. As I observed in this community, they told many type times to us that please do not use any shot with cause problem to our work.