created on Jun 25, 2016 modified on Jul 01, 2016 04:50
This is a cross-cultural creative project that involves co-writing, directing, and performing a parody of an iconic Indian film. (Think the Mel Brooks genre of spoofs!)
First we saw the trailers of Indian films being shown at the Bollywood Film Festival at the Honolulu Museum of Art. We decided on one film to watch together - RamLeela - an adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set in modern India. After watching and discussing the film, we co-wrote, directed, and performed an abridged spoof of the film. The performance was both live in front of a South Asian audience and also recorded on camera as a short film, then edited and uploaded on youtube. We had to work with a complex film text, its language proficiency, cross-cultural and historical significance. The creative process played out in many dimensions. To begin with students needed to make the complexity accessible and palatable (quite literally in terms of verbal articulation) at their given proficiency level at the same time as they let the film push themselves and their competence out of their comfort zone - linguistic, cultural, kinesthetic, humorous, musical, theatrical, and personal!
1. Movie Trailers - Discussing the trailers of the festival movies that year. more detail
1. Watching and Discussing the Movie - Watch and discuss the movie. more detail
1. Main Characters and Scenes - Shortlist main characters and scenes. more detail
2. First Scene - Writing and begin directing the first scene. more detail
3. Subsequent Scenes - Groups writing scenes. more detail
4. Begin Co-Directing - As the scenes start rolling in, we start directing and putting it together. more detail
5. We Have a Play! - Putting it all together as a first draft of the parody more detail
6. Rehearsals and Performance - Practice practice practice. Perform perform perform more detail
1. Assessment - Ways of assessing a creative project more detail