Chronicles of lives less known

Ten short films by TV18 highlight the success stories of people in the small and medium enterprises segment.

Tales of people making it big in the corporate world are well documented. But there are a few people who have made it on their own in the small and medium enterprises (SME) segment, and in their own right are no less than those well established in the corporate world.

To highlight these real success stories, The Cell, the creative concern of the TV18 group, has made 10 documentaries on these people.

The unique thing about these documentaries is that each is only a minute-long and showcase how people have gone ahead and made it big despite having started with almost zero capital.

These people include jewellers, cloth merchants, small pharma companies, and IT solutions providers.

Says Zubin Driver, network creative director, The Cell, "The idea was to capture the spirit of the people and their organisations and show it to the whole world." Driver feels that the people behind SMEs have been relatively ignored despite their having done great work.

The documentaries were shot on a limited budget with one camera set up and it took the team about a month to shoot them all.

"The challenge was to find the right people who can genuinely be termed success stories," says Driver.

As a group, TV18 has been focusing on SMEs for a while now. They have an online portal in Hindi for investors from SMEs and have been targetting advertising at them. The documentaries would run on the various channels of the group for about two months, besides promoting these online.

Driver, meanwhile, is looking to do more such work and is looking for people whose lives have not been chronicled properly. "These documentaries are inspirational and provide a refreshing change from hearing or watching people who are featured almost everywhere," he says.

Next on the agenda for the agency is to make 10 more documentaries on SMEs and then do it on a regular basis.