“Swajana” means “our people”. This Indian production team decided to call their website Swajana to aptly describe their intent–”to show daily life in India through the eyes of people who actually live there.”It’s a collaboration between an Indian and a U.S. video team. The Indian team does all the research and production while the American team is responsible for promotion and resolving technical problems.
Each video is a mini documentary that highlights an individual Indian citizen. It presents a “slice-of-life” look at that person and their occupation. Swajana distinguishes itself from other video websites by being built as a “vlog” (video weblogging) website. Vlog sites are more interactive than conventional streaming websites. They offer site surfers the opportunity to view and then comment on each video. The comments posted can be as informative in terms of assessing the impact of the videos on the viewer, as the videos are themselves. The heightened level of interactivity makes Swajana that much more culturally cool.
Vlogging, part of the web 2.0 umbrella known as “User Generated Content”, has strengths and weaknesses. A weakness, best summarized by one Swajana commenter, is that ” one of the most frustrating things about watching UGC is that it’s mainly entertainment, self-based vanity self publishing.” UGC’s strength lies upon its ability to allow serious, independent filmmakers to pursue their craft when they’re more “dollar menunaires” than they are millionaires. Ajay, Hitesh, Prasad, Nive and Freeman prove here that it is possible to create high quality content on a low, low budget.
Seven videos have been posted on Swajana since its inception in December, 2006. The stated goal of the producers is to post a new video each Monday. Each video is prefaced by a text paragraph providing context about the profiled person. In addition to showcasing their the everyday life of their fellow citizens, the producers of Swajana hope to inspire more inter-nation cultural collaboration.
Finally, Swajana streams in QuickTime, Windows Media and Flash. Surf on over to Swajana and see what you’re missing.
