This is my take on the campaign – on what I learned from it. They’re more about our thinking, rather than what we did or didn’t do.

We really underestimated how difficult it was to make a video. We thought we could walk out, record whatever we want, cut and paste the clips and hey presto - our video would be ready. Not that simple, as we eventually found out. None of us had any prior experience with movie making. Secondly, we hadn’t considered things like lighting, backgrounds, and audio. When we actually tried it, it was a lot harder than that. Another thing is that we didn’t have any movie making software, nor had we worked with any earlier. Susa managed to work it out eventually, but we could’ve done a better job.

The need for a good campaign gave us tunnel vision at times. We were looking for what would look good on our application rather than something that would make a difference. We got stuck in a rut, thinking in circles, our discussions coming back to where they had begun. We eventually managed to get out of that mindset, but a lot of time was wasted putting the cart before the horse.

Both these experiences, I think, were part of the learning curve, and not wrong planning or strategy. We hope to keep this in mind while working on our projects with Pan-Himalayan Grassroots.