Kerala - Kochi   

Cut from the classroom

Staff Reporter

Kochi: The campus of St. Teresa's College has been witnessing it for the last 10 years. Every year, for a day, students don the roles of actors and directors. As part of extra-curricular activity, these young women, doing a graduation course in communicative English, are asked to make short television plays.

And they plan it meticulously. "We first form a story concept [and], then, prepare the story board before actually starting the shooting," said Ardra, one of the students.

The productions are amateurish, as editing tools are unavailable. Shots are taken only in the order that they want to be seen in the final production. Also, the voice track is recorded on the spot, with all the noise, as sound techniques are absent.

"We have planned this to give the students an idea about a new medium of communication. There are also projects such as news reading sessions and a sort of mock press, where students are to face a group of teachers posing as media personnel," said Lekshmi Devi Menon, a faculty member at the Department of English.

The students are to view works by their predecessors before starting their own projects. "Students in previous years had done visualisation of renowned short stories, such as one by Catherine Mansfield. There was one original work, on parental pressure on students to ignore their natural talents and pursue academic ones," Dr. Menon said.

This year, however, the students decided to go in for lighter subjects. The two productions are spoofs based on Bollywood stories. They have completed the shooting and are preparing to submit the work.

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