FICCI FRAMES 2013: Industry veterans discuss skills and talent development

The ongoing 14th chapter of Asia’s foremost conclave on Media & Entertainment – FICCI FRAMES 2013, Day III, today hosted a session on ‘Skills in M&E – The next big leap towards creating greater talent’.

The discussion moderated by Sunil Tandon, Director General, IIMC, hosted a panel of  academics, innovators and skill devlopers like Teri Schwartz, Dean, UCLA School of Theatre, Film & Television, USA;

Jonathan Taplin, Director, Annenberg Center for Innovation, University of South California School of Communications & Journalism; Colin Maclay, MD, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University, Sanjay Gupta,COO, Star India Pvt. Ltd.; D J Narain, Director, FTII; Meghna Ghai Puri, President, Whistling Woods International.

Teri Schwartz, Dean, UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television, USA, said, “We at UCLA believe that story telling is at the core of it all. Story is a timeless and universal tool to enlighten, engage and inspire change. No matter what the new technology is or the different platforms available, story -telling is the one thing that remains the most important aspect of film making.”

Jonathan Taplin, Director, Annenberg Center for Innovation, University of South California School of Communications & Journalism, said, “ I believe in scenes and I think Mumbai is the next big scene. This is the place where innovation is happening. We at USC fix big cool problems including a few relevant to the Indian scene including the Nielsen data issue  and how twitter/ FB  feeds, getting computers to understand  and other issues like - Distance learning, Crowd sourcing and improvising the museum experience.”

The only non-film guy on the panel, Colin Maclay, MD, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University, said, “There is an explosion of creativity happening around the world, with every one getting access to technology. This technology explosion needs to be supported by a few things including openness in collaboration, experimentation and various stakeholders learning from their mistakes. Film-makers need to break down silos and engage with the audiences from the very beginning, adapt their opinion and enrich the story further.”

Commenting on the business aspect, Sanjay Gupta, COO, Star India Pvt. Ltd added, “There is a dearth of talent in this industry. Over 60 Lakh talented people will be needed to achieve our goal of growing the media industry from 17 billion to 70 billion in next 10 years. There are some serious challenges in our HR polices in this industry. It is believed that chaos is creativity in our industry, the informal ways of recruiting need to be changed and we need to be serious on training, mentoring and recruiting the right and local talent for the industry. There is an urgent need to go formal, early and local.”

D J Narain, Director, FTII said, “There is a serious divide between urban sensibilities, 70% of our country is still in the small town which has a pool of untapped talent. Additionally, there are over 1000 live art forms in our country which has huge potential and needs to be preserved.”

Meghna Ghai Puri, President, Whistling Woods International concluded, “Our education system is always been black and white unlike abroad where they ask you to think is grayscale. It’s a skill based education system rather than a memory based that makes the student valuable and durable. I agree with the other panelists, that talent doesn’t only come from Mumbai and Delhi, but it comes from the entire country. We need to focus on all-inclusive and grass-root development of talent.”