Manifest

• Project Type: Internship
• Location: Pondicherry
• Year: 2022
• Tools Used: Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Lightroom Classic, Canon 1500D, Sony A7C, A7iii, FX6.

A documentation and behind-the-scenes look at AuroApaar’s Manifest Dance-Film Incubator 2022, which saw two dance films produced and developed, right from ideation to filming and editing. I was a part of the production team for both dance-films.

I was also part of the team that organized and executed a three-day Dance-Film festival that preceded the workshop/incubator.

‘Manifest’, by AuroApaar is the only annual dance-film festival of India, and was India’s first onsite festival in July, 2022. Over a 100 dance-films from all over the world were submitted, and 50+ of them from 23 countries were screened during the three-day festival.

There were presentations on choreography in Bollywood and the legendary Sitara Devi as well as panel discussions with film and dance experts. There were online livestream discussions with international dance-filmmakers as well.

8 Jury awards (unique to each winning film) and certificates, were handed over to attending dance-filmmakers or couriered to international filmmakers.

The core team of the Manifest Dance-Film Festival, 2022.

I was part of the team that organized the event. That involved planning and arranging accommodation for the performers, filmmakers and jury members as well as their transport to and from the festival venues, promoting the event by printing and putting up posters at numerous places across town and creating and uploading social media posts, clerical work like cataloguing each submission, entering its details as well as forming and maintaining a mailing list for all the participants in the festival and finally, performing checks of all the audio and video equipment at the two festival venues.

From L-R, putting up posters, equipment checks at the festival venue, panel discussions and talks with film and dance experts during the festival.

The festival was followed by the Manifest Dance-Film Incubator. Two dance-films were developed in a hybrid online-offline mode from the script to exhibition stage. The two films produced are “(UN)SEEN” by Anjana Ghonasgi and “Biroho” by Sumedha Bhattacharyya.

I was a part of the production team for both dance-films. My responsibilities included performing location recces, finalizing them and creating floor plans, arranging food and accommodation for the dancers and mentors, managing equipment as well as shooting behind-the-scenes images and videos and documenting the incubator. Watch both films below, or know more about these projects by clicking on the link in each caption.

“(UN)SEEN” by Anjana Ghonasgi. Know more here.

“Biroho” by Sumedha Bhattacharyya. Know more here.

The following behind the scenes images are from the week long duration of the incubator.

Above: Rehearsals and prep work for “Biroho” and “(UN)SEEN”.

Above: Behind the scenes photographs from Anjana’s “(UN)SEEN”.

Above: Behind the scenes photographs from Sumedha’s “Biroho”.

Some equipment was also provided to us by SONY India Chennai (2 cameras and 3 lenses). I also edited a behind the scenes video focusing on the equipment provided by them, the SONY FX6 cinema camera in particular.

Behind the scenes video featuring the use of the Sony FX6 that I edited.