White, Blue & the Art
By: Aswin Ram
Tags: Talent, Startup, Performing Arts

“We got the Idea!” After a day-long brainstorming session, we finally agreed on the content for an important promotional video for our product. The idea was the result of another idea that occurred to one of us on the previous day; that “We should rack our brains together”. The first idea came too late as there were only two days left for the last date for submission.

We realized we won’t get even a semi-professional to shoot the video after making a couple of calls to enquire.

“It’s very difficult to connect at the last minute….” The Studio shop owner started searching for an outdated address book where he had penned down the contacts and we were sure that it was going to be a futile exercise.

We knew what to shoot; the scenes, their sequence, the camera movement… in fact, everything. We had an iPhone too.

“Let’s do it!” In no time, we started capturing the footages of the city traffic. Time Lapse, Wide-angle, Guerilla shots and what not! Quite satisfied with the maiden filming endeavor, we sat down at the editing table. No, the clips weren’t as good as we thought.

“No worries, let’s edit, put some background music and it’ll be alright.” We weren’t taking much time to reach on agreements now.

Editing on Mac was a charm and the music was available open-source.

“We need a voice over, somebody who narrates the stuff”.

We tested our own voices and ended up frowning upon all the clips. Then the frantic hunt for a dubbing artist began. We posted our requirements on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter…A Whatsapp message ran through our circles and beyond. In an hour, we got some samples. But most of them lacked something…. either the voice modulation or the prosody, the emotion or the accent. Finally, we closed in on a friend’s voice, the one that seemed to be better than the rest. We jumped the hurdles and clicked the ‘Submit’ button a few minutes before the clock hit the deadline.

We were relieved and relaxed. We watched the entire video once again and honestly admitted that it was mediocre. The idea deserved a better execution and artistic treatment.

But a much bigger realization was awaiting me the next morning. There were many responses to our FB group posts. From a lot of People who have done dubbing for FM channels, short films, etc. There were professionals, part-timers, aspirants, or people who could do this because they had worked on such projects.

This kept me thinking over the next few days. I thought there would be a lot of people who have similar work experience, but currently doing white-collar or blue-collar jobs due to various reasons. Like an ex-actor working for a corporate firm, a potential composer teaching music in school, A wannabe choreographer who shows off some steps while walking, etc… What will happen if opportunities like this reach out to them? Won’t they be happy to dig out the Art in them and perform? We asked people, and unsurprisingly, they said “Yes! Definitely”.

And won’t there be a lot of people like us, who want to hire somebody, but do not know the proper channel or simply don’t have the time to go talent hunting? Yes, there are a lot, who rely on personal contacts to hire an artist. And such expeditions usually end up in the lack of real understanding between the hirer and the artist.

So, we built Star Hunt with a mission to create a common platform for the hirers and artists. It helps in finding the right artist from a pool of talents who are waiting to portray their work to the world. If you’re a hirer, it’s quick and easy to find an artist who has the exact skill-sets and experience that you are looking for. For the Artists, Star Hunt makes it easy to connect and understand the requirements.

Star Hunt… For Art! Not for the White or the Blue.