Whistling Woods International School Of Media & Communication Hosted Anaya Mohanty, Executive Vice-president, Endemol Shine Group, For An Exclusive Masterclass On Content Development For Cinema & Ott Platforms
Whistling Woods International (WWI), a film, communication, and creative arts institute, undertakes several initiatives to ensure a collaborative and industry-focused learning experience for its students. The WWI School of Media & Communication (SMC) hosted Anaya Mohanty, Executive Vice-President, Endemol Shine Group, for an exclusive masterclass on Content Development for Cinema and OTT platforms. The masterclass involves expert-led sessions designed to give students insights from the best in the industry, across different verticals.
The session was moderated by Rahul Puri, Head of Academics, WWI, along with Spoorthi Karthikeyan, a student moderator, with over 100 students in attendance.
With a career spanning over two decades in the media & entertainment industry, Anaya Mohanty provided insights into content strategy, the value of conveying diverse stories, and the craft of writing content that resonates with the audience. She has commissioned multiple projects for OTT platforms like Netflix and AltBalaji, bringing interesting and untold stories to the fore.
The session commenced with Anaya Mohanty elaborating her experience of approaching her first film project, a documentary on the Land Rights in Odisha. She said, “For OTT content, the narrative or plot is secondary. The character is always primary.”
As the session progressed, she emphasised on how mainstream characterisation falls short of depicting relatable characters. She also elaborated about gender and regional stereotypes setting in characterisation and how as content producers, one can move away from them. Building on this point, she shared some insider hacks to approach script writing and content development and also stressed on the importance of collaboration between writers and showrunners to create good content.
Capturing the gist of the masterclass, Anaya Mohanty shared, “We need to start respecting audiences and give them good content to watch.”