Whistling Woods

Since Subhash Ghai seems to have started another PR round for the Whistling Woods Institute for Film, Television & Media Arts, I need to put in my two cents. Why? Call it professional curiosity. For those who don´t know I´m the technical manager of a private college for media technology. We teach sound engineering, the whole range of web and offline design and anything concerning the technical aspects of filmmaking (camera, lights, animation, postpro etc).
So there is quite some crossover in the courses offered.
And here start the two cents. The Iqbal DVD by Murkta Arts has a commercial for Whistling Woods on it. And it sucks. Big time! If I were a competitor and released that thing you could sue me for slander.
It starts with the usual Censors Board Certificate and while it is shown the sound crackles and hisses like an 45" from the 20ies. Well could be an artistic statement. To show how movies used to sound. Nope. The crackling continues right to the end. To top that you see Subhash and a big part of the A-List of Bombays Directors and Producers give statements why it is so cool that Bombay finally gets the best Film Institute there can be. But its hard to understand as most of them sound as if the were talking from under a thick blanket. My favourite parts are the bits with Karan Johar. You can´t see his freaking face! The lighting makes him look like those camouflaged guys in the Jerry Springer show that don´t want to be recognised. There is a big black shadow right over his whole face!!











How can they do that? If you go to their website and look at the tuiton fees and how they try to present themselves. I just don´t get it. I remember last year we made a 30 second Cinemaspot and I almost killed my staff to get it as professional as possible even with our very tight budget.

Indian film productions made a big leap in technical aspects since around 1998. If that commercial was from 1990 I would not have thought anything but 2005?