With APOGEE right around the corner, the APOGEE English Press interviewed the coordinator of the Film Making Club (FMaC), Ashrut Sharma, to know more about the club’s contributions to the fest.

Covering all the aspects of film-making, the club will be organizing four events for the fest—Cut Above the Rest: A Short Video Editing Competition, Director’s Chair, Uncharted and an editing workshop. Additionally, the club will also capture the kernel events and the professional shows during the fest for the APOGEE Aftermovie.

Apart from its trademark event—Uncharted, a movie themed Escape Room based on film trivia—the club is introducing new events as well. The editing workshop will be conducted with the Chief Guest as Mr. Sankhojyoti Halder, a youtuber and professional editor who is popularly known as Sanko Kun. The workshop focuses on teaching participants about the professional editing software, Premiere Pro, and Sanko Kun’s youtuber journey .

Furthermore, the club is organizing ‘Director’s Chair’, an event featuring Mr. Sandeep A. Varma, a renowned Indian film director and writer. Best known for his film Manjunath, a biopic based on the true story of Manjunath Shanmugam, Mr. Sandeep Varma aims to give insights into the film-making industry. The event will include a screening of the movie which will then be followed by a talk by the director.

They are also hosting an online competition—‘Cut Above the Rest: A Short Video Editing Competition’—in which participants would put their editing skills to the test. Participants are required to make a minute long video by using video clips provided to them that feature previous fests of BITS Pilani.  Mr. Sandeep Verma and Mr. Sankhojyoti Halder have been invited as judges to assess the participants based on various criteria including creativity, technical proficiency and much more.

When asked about the most challenging aspect of his work for the fest, Ashrut mentioned that it was the brainstorming of a successful event open to both professionals and beginners . They had initially come up with over seven events from which they selected four of them based on their feasibility. Ashrut added that the negotiations could get tricky as well, however the overall experience had been pleasant. 

Ashrut explained that although being a coordinator could occasionally get hectic, he enjoys it as he is passionate about filmmaking and his club. Crediting his juniors and batchmates, he said that they had been extremely cooperative and adhered to all the deadlines. He revealed that with only a few days left for the fest, they are now mainly focusing on publicity as the majority of the other pre-fest work is complete.

On a parting note, Ashrut urged BITSians to attend the events. He hoped that the events would not only allow the participants to have fun but also serve as an educational experience.