The smart way to tell a story

Realistic take

Our world is ruled by smartphones. Most people cannot do without this piece of gadget for even a short span of time. It’s this reign of smartphone in our lives that inspired a group of youngsters to make a short movie titled ‘Nocial’.

“The title of the film stands for ‘no social life’. Ever since social networking and smartphones came into being, people have been well-connected. But the amount of interaction has drastically reduced. Every time youngsters go out with their friends, rather than talking to each other or enjoying the ambience of the place, they are busy clicking

picture and posting them online,” says Prajwal, an MTech student who has done the direction, camera work, screenplay, dialogues as well as editing.

“It’s ironic how they want to say that they are having a good time. But they probably wouldn’t have enjoyed at all thanks to their obsession with phones,” he adds.

The movie revolves around a person addicted to smartphones and how his life changes when he meets someone who has never used a smartphone in his life. “He realises life can exist without a smartphone,” notes Prajwal.

The others who worked on the film along with him were Vipnesh, Swaroop, Basvaraju, Shrinidhi, Pranav and Prashanth, who all are working. “We are all long-time friends who have a common interest in movies,” says Prajwal.

Funded by the group itself, the movie was shot in Turahalli Forest in Kanakapura, on the outskirts of the City.

“The main expense was the camera and the voice over. While some parts of it were also shot in Lalbagh, some were shot in Basavanagudi and in and around Jayanagar,” explains Prajwal. It took four months for them to make the film. “Due to everyone’s hectic schedules, we would mainly shoot it over the weekends,” he adds.

Lead actor Shrinidhi says, “I have learnt a lot from ‘Nocial’. Let us make smartphones a boon and not a curse to mankind. We need to disconnect from our phones in order to connect in real life. We are planning to pursue our passion seriously and work harder for our upcoming projects.”

Prajwal agrees, “We plan to make more movies in future. We don’t want to make them for competitions. We’d rather make videos that have an impact on a person’s life.” He adds, “We are planning to make another movie on parenting, and one on how Indians are so worried about how the society reacts to every decision of theirs.”