Story to Screen - A film-making workshop with Ashvin Kumar in Goa

Story to Screen - A film-making workshop 
with Ashvin Kumar in Goa

Spend five days with Oscar® nominated writer/director Ashvin Kumar, learning the art and craft of cinema, its history, aesthetics and language; the processes and techniques of bringing a story to the screen. Learn the art of script and story writing, directing the camera and actors, making editing choices in post-production taught from a filmmaker's point of view.

Click to know more of Ashwin Kumar

Outline & contents

An intense course with illustrated talks and exercises, drawing upon Ashvin's own work and cinema-history, viewing the works of great filmmakers, the course will explore:

Human motives and the screenplay

The construction of shots

The action of the actor

The brutality of a cut

The disbelief of the audience

A good story, well shot, well performed and well edited still constitutes the essence of making an emotional connection with an audience.

Ashvin shows how filmmakers make that happen and how you can make it happen for your own story and film.

Approach

In this course, Film is looked at as an art-form that entertains, emphasizing originality and honesty, celebrating intuition and instinct. Evolving 'thought processes', rejecting temptation of rote or formula. Appreciating history of cinema, applying lessons to our own films. Holding on to 'vision' while facing creative dilemmas, money and time pressures. Cultivating a 'do-it-yourself, learn-while-working approach. Humility towards crew, gratitude and respect towards audience.

With the explosion of digital means of producing and exhibiting films, anyone can purchase a digital camera and editing software and put a movie together. Storytelling i.e. the ritual telling of universal human experience has not changed since the first person told the first story around a camp fire in pre-history. The fundamentals of Visual Storytelling, such as montage theory and grammar of films, have not changed since the first motion picture camera was developed.

Qualification & audience

The workshop can be attended by anyone interested in the art and craft of making films. It provides a versatile set of tools which may be applied across short, feature, fiction and documentary formats and across multiple genres.

For the first-time filmmaker or film student, learning to think like a visual storyteller empowers you to write your own story, pick up a camera and go make a movie. Established filmmakers wishing to reflect upon their process, for instance, breaking writer's block on a screenplay. Thus, for Screenwriters who are trying to make their scripts better. Commissioning editors who have to take a business / creative decision on how to evaluate a script. Producers to awaken their creative-side and how to communicate with creative people. And for Directors, it provides an approach to making a shot-list, what to tell actors and how to direct the camera and edit of a film.

Ashvin Kumar

India's youngest Oscar® nominee, writer, director and editor, his multi-award winning, critically acclaimed films have been shown in more than hundred festivals worldwide.

His work and interests in filmmaking have been eclectic moving through short-films, documentary, feature and medium length fiction pieces; Eclectic range of genre from art-house to thriller, road movie, human drama; politico-human documentary, children's film and recently a unique participatory film involving employing school-kids both in front and behind the camera. His current interests are in working with kids and in education, making films for kids.

He has taught himself his craft and art in a do-it-yourself approach and tries to demystify the complex job of a filmmaker. He adopts a simple and direct approach that aims to provide thinking tools that can be applied universally.

Date, fee & registration

Date / Venue: Thursday, 11^th August to Monday, 15^th August 2011 at Art Chamber, Calangute, Goa.

The course fee for this workshop is Rs. 10,000 per participant.

A special discount for Goans - Rs. 3000/- per participant

Take advantage of an early bird discount by applying no later than the 15^th of July, and pay the reduced fee of Rs. 7,000 only.

School and college going students with a valid photo-id card from the institution may apply for the reduced fee for students of Rs. 3,000 only. Students must apply by the 15^th of July.

Participants can register by downloading application from: http://www.facebook.com/storytoscreen or http://docs.com/CWXI

Contact: film@alipur.com / +918806540395 / +919823217435

For more details see: www.facebook.com/storytoscreen