’Honest cheating’ pardonable in the realm of creativity – Prasoon Pandey
Pune, February 28th: He wrote scripts, designed magazines, conceptualised sets for plays and arranged music in the later part of his school days in Jaipur. But the man who has made more than 500 ad-films and is among the most illustrious alumni of the National Institute of Design had no idea there is something called design.
A chance meeting with Prof Unnithan of Jaipur University resulted into his applying for and ensuring an admission to the Ahmedabad based temple of creativity and evolve as one of the most successful ad-film makers the world knows.
Prasoon Pandey wanted to pursue architecture but the high qualifying scores necessary for admission to an architecture college made him nervous. In any case he hated mathematics and science – subjects close to the heart of any young hopeful intending to do ‘medical’ or ‘engineering.’ Pandey’s mother had in fact thought of renting out a place where Prasoon could start a grocery shop but suggested to him to see Prof Unnithan in case she would know anything that would suit his ‘leanings.’ Giving him a patient hearing, Prof Unnithan thought NID would perhaps be the place where he would find his purpose in life. Pandey applied for and secured an admission to NID. The rest is history.
Pandey took a gathering of accomplished design professionals and students of design through his work-path of nearly 40 years in the concluding session of the 10th Pune Design Festival on Saturday. The popular Dastangoi artist Murtaza Danish Husain was also present on the occasion.
Pandey elaborated, with the help of some of his acclaimed work, how the life around him, socio-cultural nuances and the typical behaviour of the Indian consumer brought ideas that became great commercial messages. He said the use of dialogues should be very objective in films as cinema is a confluence of many forms of expression that together makes an impact. Use of people’s language and getting in the imagery the viewers are familiar with makes a good connect for the product. “Ideas come from life. It is for us to make a connection between the idea and the essence and merits of the products,” Pandey said.
Stressing the need for honesty of purpose and the passion with which one follows an idea, Pandey said one can even risk cheating (in good faith) to realise one’s imagination into a creative piece. He said though advertising films capture life in 3D the strength of the make’s imagination makes it effective even in the 2D format of the films.
