Panasonic Dimensions 3D film competition:-

A 3D competition put together by Panasonic where 7 film schools across India participated in a short duration movie/documentary making contest in 3D, a workshop at Upper Deck @ Lonavala where Barry Braverman (DOP / 3D expert) took everyone through the basics of 3D in quite a depth at the same time introducing Panasonic's AG-3DA1 camera.

Upper Deck - Lonavala

You can check this page for the specs and some basics of the camera and 3D:-
http://pro-av.panasonic.net/en/3d/ag-3da1/index.html

Film schools that participated in this competition were
LV Prasad - Chennai

Chennai Film Industrial School (CFIS) - Chennai

Asian Academy of Film and Television (AAFT) - Delhi

NDTVmi - Delhi

Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) - Pune

Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication (SIMC) - Pune

Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute - Kolkata

The entire gang.

In the workshop, Barry not only covered 3D but also looked into storytelling and how one could use 3D to enhance the story by using it. The limitations and the so-called rules or basic principals one could say were also shared during the course of this workshop.  

A bunch of professionals from the industry including me, were asked to act as mentors or creative producers, our responsibility was to make sure that while creativity was given a free hand there were no basics that were overlooked and a check on budgets of course. Nikhil Gonsalves was the chief producer and all teams had to report to him.

The mentors along with Barry and Nikhil.

The fields from which each mentor come are as follows:-
Satyanshu Singh - Scriptwriter

Arjun Venkatesh - Cinematographer

Rohan Talwalkar - Assistant Director

Augustine Fernandes (Auggie) - Director. 

Chirag Patel - Cinematographer / Photographer

Tunali Mukherjee - Photographer / Writer

Kumar Devanshu - Scriptwriter

Over the 3 days, the teams were given a chance to use 3D cameras, so that technical questions mainly because of the medium could be sorted, also limits of the camera and medium were figured. Each team had to work on stories which they had to pitch and only after all the producers were happy were the teams given a green signal for that story to be their 3D film which they would work on following the workshop. While pitching each team had to have back up ideas in case the one pitched failed to make the cut, also they had to come up with a Title, log line (story in one line or something that is memorable from the film), and a poster for the pitch. (This is something that a few directors go through when they try to sell their script to producers or financiers)

Post the workshop teams returned to their colleges and work on their storyboards, location recce, casting, costumes and mainly budgeting, dates were fixed post-budget approvals and this followed by prep and shoot. All teams were given sufficient time and were called in batches for their respective edits at Qlabs in Mumbai, the process involved a basic 2D edit a 3D conform, DI while dubs and sound mix on 5.1 Dolby. The finished films were burnt onto blu ray and were ready for judging.

The judging was done by none other than
Rajkumar Hirani 
Nikhil Advani  and
Karan Johar

So while the winning team got to fly to LA to visit the Panasonic Studios the rest of us took back the fact that we were among the rare few who got to learn and work in a medium that is still in the developing stage. We also got to take back memories along with a whole bunch of new friends from across the country.

You can watch the episodes that were covered by NDTV and which were aired in the links below
(Don't know how long these links will last though.)

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Final Episode






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