Hindi Class – Winter Quarter Project
I’m pleased to finally post our class video project for Beginning Hindi, Winter Quarter. The centerpiece of the project is a re-enactment of selected parts from the Ramayan. Our whole class got involved in this video, with two members contributing original songs they composed and sung (check out the ~18:00 marker for a great song about Hanuman).
click here to watch the video in HD at Vimeo
A skeleton script was finalized the night before and shooting commenced the next day with minimal memorization. The locations were scouted out during the shoot, and the Ramayan segment principle photography with two HD cameras went on for 8 hours, ending at sundown. Ljubi, a film studies major, Amit, and I tackled the editing process — but this film was completed only through the Herculean effort by Ljubi who spent 22 hours straight at the editing desk so the movie could be completed in time for the Hindi final exam period. One of the more complex scenes to edit was the fight scene at the end — it was not choreographed so we pieced together a sequence in the editing room. It was a delight to shoot simultaneously with two HD cameras and gave us tremendous opportunities in the editing room. Our biggest challenge, as you can tell from the video, is sound quality. Wind and background noise were very difficult to mitigate.
All in all, it was a great experience and I’m glad our whole class came together to make it happen.
joy Said,
May 19, 2009 @ 5:03 am
amit!!! I totally forgot he was at stanford now!