Saw ‘Mahabharata’ style COVID-19 video? Meet the Kerala cops who made it

After running the Kerala Police’s social media pages for more than 1.5 years, the video team of the social media cell knows what works best to convey important messages.
Saw ‘Mahabharata’ style COVID-19 video? Meet the Kerala cops who made it
Saw ‘Mahabharata’ style COVID-19 video? Meet the Kerala cops who made it
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Within a minute, arrows have been shot and explosions set off, sending the enemy running. Who knew a mini version of one of the longest epics in Indian television history could be told in seconds, without dialogues, names or story? The video team of the social media cell of Kerala Police, that’s who.

The same team, which has been winning hearts with its hilarious social media posts using humour as a really efficient tool to tell important messages, is making short videos about the dreaded coronavirus.

In the newest video, uploaded on Thursday, two men stand on opposite ends and shoot arrows at each other, Mahabharata style. They wear strange looking helmets and the background is an artificial setting of rocky hills and forts. One of the two men is the coronavirus, all his arrows bursting into the spiky ball images which have been used to represent the virus. The other man – the hero of the story – has arrows bursting into a bottle of hand sanitiser and then more comically into a large lock with ‘Down’ written on it. The corona-man cannot stand it any longer, he cries loudly and runs away.

“After running our social media pages for more than 1.5 years now, we know that humour is often the best way to communicate with the public. If we use a preachy tone about the dos and don’ts it may not reach people as much as these funny videos,” says Arun BT, director of this last video that was captioned ‘Nammal athijeevikum’ (We will overcome).

Arun and five other policemen run the various social media pages of Kerala Police, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, ShareChat, YouTube and Hello.

All the work on the videos, including acting and handling the camera, is done by police personnel.

“The animation and special effects are all done by Bimal VS, who is part of the social media cell. The others in the social media cell include Kamal Nath, Akhil, Santhosh PS and Santhosh Saraswathy. While some of us work on the videos, the others handle the social media pages,” explains Arun.

Other policemen take on the role of actors, like Sivakumar P and Gibin B Nair did for Nammal athijeevikum.

A little before this, the team had released another short video in which Gibin played a mischievous man throwing stones at a tree and coming across an odd looking purple ball. The object initially fascinates him but as its spikes seem to grow, he runs off until he is suddenly empowered by the presence of two men – a health worker and a police man, offering him his weapons: a hand sanitiser and a mask. He is no longer afraid.

The film received a lot of praise, and the animation and VFX work done by Bimal was especially appreciated. Arun had directed that video too. “That video has one crore views. These are the ideas that come up after quick discussions and are mostly shot within the office campus. Every idea has basically one aim behind it: to reach out to the maximum number of people,” Arun says.

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