February 17-18, 2020
Deviprasad Goenka Management College of Media Studies (DGMCMS)
In a bid to encourage students to freely interact with and learn from the best of the best in the business of media, Deviprasad Goenka Management College of Media Studies (DGMCMS), Malad (W) celebrated its two-day fest, Media ICE Age (MIA) amidst a lot of splendour on 17th & 18th of February 2020. In the concept of “ICE”, ‘I’ stands for Information, ‘C’ for Communication and ‘E’ for Entertainment.
This inter-collegiate media festival drew 30 college teams to partake in activities which included panel discussions, conclaves, workshops and events around various topics ranging from photography, film, theatre, advertising, marketing, print media, cyber security, animation and VFX and art.
Festival Summary
In a discussion titled ‘Hacked’, Cyber Security, Cybercrime and Fraud Investigation specialist Pravin Rege kept the students engaged on how to secure their information and the changing laws on cybersecurity in India. Mr. Rege’s session enlightened students from various colleges about various aspects of cybercrime and how to protect their data.
The two-day festival also included those who inspired change in an event called, Changemakers, where influencer Laxman Gole, described as the real life Munna bhai, with his propagation of Gandhian ideals amongst jail inmates, graced the occasion. He inspired young minds to achieve their potential.
Moderated by director Kushal Soni, a panel discussion with filmmaker and director Swapna Waghmare-Joshi, critic Padma Shri Bhawana Somaaya, and Bollywood film director Ashwini Chaudhary brought out questions by the students on the art of critiquing and reviewing mainstream cinema. “Lights. Camera. Opinions” took the audience through nuances of reviewing techniques and cinematic reality.
Epoch-making theatre personalities like Delnaaz Irani, Mihir Bhuta, Lubna Salim and Apara Mehta took the packed hall on a nostalgic journey of theatre and the importance of regional languages in Indian theatre in a panel discussion titled, ‘Theatre: The Strongest Form of Live Art’.
A fireside chat between journalist, writer and filmmaker Satyen Bordoloi, and Ashwini Mishra, a socially-conscious rapper, YouTube users, had an interesting discussion with the audience about forms of censorship by both state and non-state actors. ‘Like. Share. Censor’ informed the audience about the different ways content is manufactured, censored and filtered for audiences, and how to circumvent censorship. Upon being questioned by the audience, the duo informed them about the detrimental impact of censorship on society and freedoms of expression.
The panel on how to deal with Fake News saw some of the prominent journalists and fake news detectors from the media industry. Yogesh Pawar, a journalist with more than 24 years of experience in print, web and TV news, was joined by Hoax News Slayer Pankaj Jain, who has also reported for India Today and Aaj Tak, and Shweta Bhandral, a Google-certified fake news verification consultant. The discussion was moderated by former journalist, writer and educator Ketan Vaidya.
The final panel was called ‘OTT is the new Black’ which was attended by OTT stars, and was moderated by director Kushal Soni. Other panellists included Archita Jasani, Rashmi Agdekar, Ahsaas Channa, Chhavi Mittal, Ankita Anthony. They informed the audience about their careers and how OTTs influenced and shaped their choices.
As Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the biggest technology trends, the workshop was aimed at helping budding web designers and animators create such AR characters and make the user interface more attractive and fun. AR is used in Snapchat lenses, apps that help you find your car in a parking lot and a variety of shopping apps that let you try your clothes on without actually having to leave home. Monish Raut, Persica Picardo and Snehal Dhruve, founders of Superfan.AI came to DGMC to conduct the workshop titled, ‘Off World’.
Popular professional comedians such as Kiku Sharda and Poornima Datta-Toprani conducted ‘Journey of a Joke’ at Bajaj Hall, amidst cheers and laughter on how to tickle the audience’s funny bone. Recounting the trajectory of their careers. They advised the students on various methods on how to crack jokes and win the audience over.
Maya and 3DS Max conducted the workshop was conducted by Head of MM & RA at Trace VFX Rutvij Barot. With over 15 years in animation, Barot has worked on projects with different animation styles and with different animation directors. His Theatre and TV series experience helped him understand the finer nuances of character acting, along with his stint as assistant editor on live-action telefilms. With a comprehensive knowledge about the filmmaking process right from pre-production through post production, Barot highlighted the technical aspects of gaming taught to students who came from different colleges.
The workshop, Write to Publish. Clinch the Deal! Conducted by FTII Alumni Mr.Amit Singh elaborated on not just writing but also methods to form and pitch your script. This workshop was conceived to guide aspiring writers about how to write, edit, pitch and publish a script.
To help students learn about life as an RJ, DGMC invited Big FM’s star, RJ Abhilash on ‘On Air with…’. The workshop began with RJ Abhilash not only entertain the audience, but also inform them about his long journey from theatre to radio. RJ Abhilash provided tips on voice modulation, word choice and methods to channelise energy into your voice.
From experimenting with everyday objects in order to generate some interesting effects, to recording them in an audio-treated studio, it takes a great amount of skill to learn and master the art of foley at ‘Synchrony’. Innovative foley artist Kaamod Kharade of Delhi Belly fame conducted this workshop which was attended by students from all over the city.
The coveted India Film Project (IFP), in collaboration with DGMC, held an exclusive filmmaking workshop at Media ICE Age, where filmmakers participated in a 24-hour challenge. The eager students were provided a theme on which to make a film in a day, and were judged by the renowned IFP judge, Gaurav Dave
The highlight of the media festival was Voice of Youth, which provided collegians an opportunity to deliberate on issues that concern the country. DGMC chose a techno-savy topic like “Artificial Reality” which plays a crucial part in our lives and one which we don’t discuss. Devendra Pai, course director of a post-graduate programme in leadership, politics and government at RMP’s Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership, and a regular face in the Model Parliament circuit in Mumbai, presided as the Speaker in this Youth Parliament.
For students who were interested in advertising, MAD AD was a great way to show their creativity. Ad skills through innovative strategies and letting loose bright ideas was the purpose of this event, which compeled students to think out of the box. MAD AD, judged by Dhunji Wadia, CEO at Handloom Picture Company and Arijit Ray, Marketing and Advertising professional with 26 years of experience, helped the youngsters pitch in TVC ad and radio jingles in multidimensional ways.
At the event Object Theatre, students who were required to attend a workshop, Write to Publish. Clinch the Deal!, were handed out a few chits from two bowls. The chits mentioned objects from “Then & Now”. The students were then asked to add a third object of their own choice to this list and construct a script based on these three objects, which were the essential elements in their narrative. The next day, they returned with the complete script and pitched it to Professor Selvi S., whose views aided the budding scriptwriters in sharpening their skills.
Editor Sandeep Yadav was the judge for the event Timeline to Big Screen. This event revolved around Editing, which is a crucial element in filmmaking. The participants were asked to develop something noteworthy in a specific genre and showcase their editing skills. Students had the complete creative liberty of editing – from colour grading to adding music and transitions.
Face Off, a face painting competition was judged by prominent painters. Conceptual landscape artist Maithiliee Zaveri and artist Jigisha Dwivedi were delighted by the novel ideas that were on display on the faces of the students from colleges all over the city.
Through the Lens was a unique photography event, where students were given the theme of shooting pictures of people who were below poverty line, on the first day of the festival. The photos that were shot in 24 hours were shown to an eminent panel of photographers who posed as judges for the event. The students then narrated the story for the panel of judges for 2-3 minutes which displaying their photographs. The panel consisted of Photo Editor of The Hindu in Mumbai Prashant Nakwe, The Associated Press’ internationally-renowned photographer Rafiq Maqbool and multi-ward winning photographer from European Pressphoto Agency’s Mumbai bureau Divyakant Solanki.
Launch Digital, a digital marketing event, where participants presented a marketing strategy for a product launch was judged by Karl Gomes and Varun Duggirala. Karl Gomes works at Dentsu Aegis Network, a consulting arm of global media and digital marketing conglomerate. Whereas, Varun Duggirala has a background in broadcast production at MTV and Channel [v] before he co-founded The Glitch, where he works as Content Chief, overseeing the core process for content creation across the integrated content model.
In Escape Room, participants competed in teams and endured three levels of difficulties. The participants’ hands and legs were cuffed and he/she completed a set of tasks, in the dark, in short period of time. The time-bound event was popular with the youth as it entailed circumventing tasks, u sing brain and brawn.
Media Hunt was another such event which got participants all riled up while performing a series of tasks filled with twists and turns. Each team had two participants and was provided a list of 25 tasks that need to be accomplished in order to win the challenge. On completion of whatever was assigned to them, the team was asked to return to the place where the event began. Each team got only 30 minutes to complete their tasks.
Overall, the entire fest was a grand success which saw more than 4000 footfalls and hundreds of participants from dozens of colleges across the city participating with outstanding enthusiasm in the two-day affair.
