Fluid Borders - Hallo Goa Nara

What happens when you put a bunch of 20 odd students from 2 cultures, not knowing each other's languages, in one space, for one day? On September 6, a group of university students and professors from Nara, Japan got together with students of Goa University for a day-long cross-cultural interaction at the International Center, Goa. This interaction was a part of the Toyota Foundation funded "Goa - Nara Neighbourhood Project"

Fluid Borders is an audio presentation of the day's events.

View the Audio Slideshow

De-constructing Goa-Nara

I realised just how much of a hassle it can be, specially for beginners like myself, to balance between audio and photography. Both require just as much thought and attention! For each scene, I made sure I got my images first. I then put down the camera and began recording the audio. But in many instances I found that I needed to capture audio and simultaneously also get a still image. Those were time when I had the mic in one hand and framed shots with the other. A good experience!

Following advice from great teachers like Cyndy Green and Angela Grant (if these are not already on your daily reading list, I strongly recommend you have them), I have begun my multimedia work with a strong emphasis on audio. So, besides making sure I got my shots as I normally would in photojournalism, I also ensured I had good audio for all scenes.

Back home, I edited my audio recordings (using Audacity) down to the clips I thought I could use. Then came the task of sequencing the audio. For this, I used the two interviews I did on location as a rough backbone to go through the timeline (I did mix the interviews around, taking portions from one spot and moving them to another - before or after).

Next, I selected the good live audio from the scenes and inserted them between the interview clips. Finally, I recorded my voiceover to tie together the various segments. I kept voiceover down to the minimum, using it only where absolutely required.

Reading Cyndy and Angela, I realised how important it is, for us photojournalists, to get the audio track right. My endeavour is to try and get an audio that could even go as a standalone piece - perhaps on radio a la NPR (potential buyers, please note :-) ?). Not sure how much I succeeded towards this end.

Anyway, I finally got down to picture selection and editing. (Note: I more or less had a pretty good idea about the images I had, before I began the production). I then sequenced them and got the images and audio into SoundSlides. Here I had to adjust the timings for each image to match audio and images and the result is what you see.

One key point is background music. I've used music by gurdonark, under the CC license from ccmixter.org/. This is a must have site on your list for production. Under the license, music is free to re-use and distribute with attribution to the creator.

View the Presentation

Holy Cross School - Final Cuts

At the end of Day 6 of the DST Workshop held at Holy Cross High School in Siolim, 10 films were complete. Salil Konkar, Alito Siqueira, Gasper D’souza and Preeti Padgaonkar sat editing the films under direction from the participants. And the young enthusiasts knew exactly what they wanted!

Here are the final films.

'Sateri Mai' - Alisha Govekar:




'My House in the Past' - Bryan Britto




'Zhar' - Delaila Fernandes




'My Beautiful House' - George Monteiro

'When I first caught a Fish' - Michael Fernandes

'Vhal Mhozo Ixtt' - Nabila D'Souza

'The Ground and Me' - Rowena Petters

'Ticketless in Borivali Park' - Sharon Sebastian

'My Dream- Football' - Valencia Braganza

'My living room' - Yohann Fernandes