Learnings — India Film Project Season X — Day 3–47 Lessons I Picked Up

It’s Saturday … and Day 3 of MTV’s India Film Project Season X. Today was quite the long day with tons happening, and I’m super happy to have attended this.

Just a quick bit about the event. IFPX is a 4-day event that has a diverse range of noteworthy speakers taking the stage and sharing their interesting tidbits and learnings over their experience. There’s also a bunch of challenges, contests, and other partner giveaways — but truth be told, I’m not too keen on them. What I am keen on, are the conversations and the roundtables.

Here are my lessons from Day 3 of IFPX.

India Film Project X — Day 3 Schedule

These were the conversation I had the privilege to attend on Day 3 of IFPX:

1. Masterclass: Episodic Storytelling ft. Kabir Akhtar and Karan Anshuman
2. Podcaster’s Roundtable ft. Cyrus Broacha, Ranveer Allahbadia, Mantra, Neha Dhupia, and Amit Doshi
3. The Representation Conversation: Who Gets to Tell What Stories ft. Hitesh Kewalya, Apurva Asrani, Atika Chohan, Alankrita Shrivastava, and Mohar Basu
4. The Art of Observation ft. Prashant Godbole

Masterclass: Episodic Storytelling

1. The secret to not being boring — experimentation.
2. Your passion for a project is visible to everyone, including yourself.
3. There is nothing wrong with being really excited about your ideas and projects.
4. Try to provide a rewarding experience, where people who follow your episodes have many “wow” moments.
5. Patience, perseverance, and sticking at it is super important.
6. For success, you need to be talented, you need to know people, and you need luck. Keep trying. Luck eventually makes its way to you.
7. People are more open to international content in 2020. It’s also easier to be an independent creator in today’s world.
8. Your work is not meant for everyone. Especially in a world where so much content exists.
9. There are many good ways and even more bad ways to execute any idea.
10. Cliffhangers help get another season — they’re not necessarily for the audience. Don’t leave audiences frustrated by not having a satisfying end to season 1.
11. Every season, episode, and scene has a multi-act structure.
12. The “struggle” is a part of every creative individual’s life.
13. Everyone has been told by some people — “Your ideas suck”, but that doesn’t mean you stop believing in yourself, and your ideas. One person’s garbage is another’s treasure.

Podcaster’s Roundtable

(The most uplifting, fun, and thoroughly enjoyable session so far)

1. Podcasts give you a better learning experience than most colleges.
2. Podcasts are a great medium for getting a different facet of yourself out there.
3. The only character you play on a podcast is yourself. Be authentic to who you are.
4. The best way to research people is to ask their friends and family.
5. A podcast interview isn’t a set of question, it a conversation. It's scattered.
6. Audiences like your personality and persona in the podcast world.
7. Getting guests, especially the big guns, is the hardest part.

The Representation Conversation: Who Gets to Tell What Stories

1. Lived-in experience is at the core of an authentic portrayal. If you don’t have said experience you can research, and collaborate with people who do.
2. Most people don’t have access to tell their own stories.
3. Someone has to start somewhere. It's not like communities don’t exist, but the more we talk about it, the easier the acceptance becomes.
4. Anyone can tell the stories provided they learn how to tell these stories the right way.
5. There are too many, ‘don’t do’s’ in the world, but that shouldn’t stop you from telling the story you want to tell.
6. In India, mainstream creators and actors are taking a risk by telling stories of the marginalized. So instead of outraging, or questioning someone’s right and authenticity to tell such stories, we should encourage people to tell stories in a better way. Just the fact that these movies exist and someone is putting their neck on the line while making these films is something to give credit for.
7. Commerce and money largely decide what is mass media. We can cry over it, but for creators to get access and reach, there is a business involved and that’s not something to be ignored.
8. The audience has been conditioned to think and spend a certain way. The current economic structure discriminates against independent cinema.
9. Censorship in India is still in-line with Britain’s archaic laws.
10. Films don’t fail, budgets do. So if you’re trying to get more numbers, then you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator, which may in some ways compromise the story creators are actually trying to tell. Expecting such movies to go mainstream is not fair because of thought biases.
11. Empathy is different from pity. And respect is a different thing altogether. As creators, we’ve to respect everyone and have an inherent empathy towards all beings. Respect is at the core of it all.
12. Believe in humans. Think about the human experience. Not just yours. Everyones.
13. It’s more important to think about WHY you want to tell this story, WHAT kind of an impact telling this story would have, than actually telling the story for its sake.

The Art of Observation

(You look, but do you see? Holy lord! What a session this was!)

1. Think different. Think combination. Think upside down. Think analogy. Think humour. Think story. Think surprise. Think art direction. Think edit. Think social. Think.
2. Artists aren’t straightforward.
3. Everybody looks, very few people see. Those who can see, are the creative people.
4. See the details for a better bigger picture.
5. The work you do, is a combination of everyone’s work involved in the creation process.
6. Once you get a subject, think about it. In every aspect, dimension and perspective.
7. Try creating things people haven’t seen before.
8. Ask for time. Don’t compromise because you’re getting a job.
9. You can’t turn creativity on and off.
10. Wait for the happy accidents.
11. Advertising is about sending a message, not selling a product.
12. Let your work prove who you are.
13. Push yourself for more. Push yourself to success.
14. Create new ideas all the time. But use your ideas only based on the relevance.

Well, that was a truly great Saturday! Hopefully, this article provided some insights into the quality of conversations going around within the creator circles of India. In case you’d like to read into the learnings from the previous couple of days, I’ve linked the blogs below.

India Film Project Season X — Day 1–24 Lessons I picked up
Indian Film Project Season X — Day 2–38 Lessons I picked up