Film production went above and beyond Bollywood in a unique study abroad experience.
Over this past summer, several students took part in Beyond Bollywood, a study abroad program in India designed to teach about film production and media in Bollywood. As their final project, the students created a short, Bollywood-style film titled ”A Connection.” This is the first time that a production-based study abroad has taken place.
“From the beginning, we wanted to showcase what we experienced and what we learned while we were in India in our film,” said co-producer media and information senior Katie zurBurg.
“We wanted to show little touches of everything that happened to us during the movie, while also wanting to show an American who was experiencing India for the first time,” she said.
“‘A Connection’ is exactly about the experiences we had while we were in India,” said senior and executive producer, Archit Batra. “Getting to encounter an extremely different culture molded us in a way so that we could include some of our personal experiences in the movie.”
Those experiences were had while traveling across India for three weeks before production on the film began.
“We traveled a lot. We traveled to six or seven big cities, which was the main experimental learning we got,” Batra said. “We got to see different cultures, we saw a cricket match, various historical monuments, the Taj Mahal. We experienced all different types of food, we went to temples. It was truly a formative way to create our film.”
After traveling around India and experiencing the culture for three weeks, their final week was spent in production for their Bollywood-style film.
In Hollywood, everything is very organized and very strict, zurBurg said.
A lecturer spoke to their group and said, ‘That’s not how we do things in Bollywood.’ When they started shooting, zurBurg said she felt like it was complete nonsense.
“The first day on set we were all so new, we were experiencing these new roles of director, producer, actor, for the first time,” zurBurg said. “We knew we were going to be shooting in three different locations for one day, so the writers just wrote those scenes and said, ‘OK, here you go.’ It was crazy and hectic, but a lot of fun and a good learning experience.”
Senior producer and CAS media specialist Amol Pavangadkar mentored the students on the trip.
“They were really hardworking students,” Pavangadkar said. “Not only did they adjust to a foreign environment but they actually produced something that was pretty good quality work in about six days of actual production, so it can be done.”
Pavangadkar said that he himself may have learned more than the students did on the trip.
“It was great working with them and also great being able to work with the other people who came in to help on the set, with guest lectures, organized workshops, and that sort of thing,” Pavangadkar said. “It was a massive, successful team effort.”
