It’s been a Quintastic year. Though officially, I am still two months away from completing a year at The Quint (I joined in May, last year), yet I believe it’s a good time to look back at the year that was.
In the past year, I’ve undertaken a lot of experiments. Most of them, to put it subtly, turned out quite okay. But then, a lot of other experiments came out with phenomenal results. Stories went viral, feedbacks flooded in, and I got a chance to learn and grow with this fun place.
This Smriti Irani-Kanhaiya spoof video was another experiment involving on the heated JNU controversy. It went out as a random, tongue-in-cheek short, but got shared widely. Even other media houses reported on it. It has crossed 1.7 million views on Facebook.
Often Twitter provided us with enough fodder. A surprise trend on the social media website asked people to #RemoveMughals from textbooks. So how would that look and feel? With that idea this interactive story was produced – Slide ‘N’ See: #RemoveMughals? Here’s How That Might Look
Talking of interactive, there was another story on our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was done as a round-up of PM Modi’s foreign visits in 2015.
One of the earlier projects I took up was to create short, explainer videos. I had no idea how to go about them, armed with very basic video editing tools. So I decided to play around with these tools and results, to say the least, were not disappointing at all.
Here’s one of the data-based videos that was produced a couple of months ago, which talked about the existence of modern slavery.
I also got a chance to go undercover for a few videos. Yes, sting operations, and all that sass.
And the experimentations continued with more wacky ideas, portrayed through a mix of photos and videos. For example, this animated History of India through RK Laxman’s Common Man cartoons.
Or this story of What’s A Rose Got to Do With Valentine’s Day?
The wackiness continued.
When Bihar elected a new government.
When James Bond was asked by the Sanskaari Censor Board of India to restrain his kissing.
And when the long-awaited moments arrived: Leo’s Success & Jaitleo’s Cess.
And just to make sure I’m pressing the right keys here, I recently sat down to re-imagine the keyboard according to our online discourses. Because, there should be one-touch access to some of the recent newsmakers. That’s how the latest idea of a Shudh Desi Keyboard was born.
So this was a quick yet nostalgic trip down memory lane, as we begin a new year full of refreshed spirits. Needless to say, there’s more, and much more to come. Stay tuned, and feel The Quint.