RTI in Cinemas – Animation this Time

In October 2005 Right to Information (RTI) Act was introduced in India and since then many initiatives have been undertaken to promote awareness on this subject. Apart from undertaking activities like training of Public Information Officers (PIOs), training of trainers and encouraging people through talks and seminars on how to use RTI and the value of its practical usage, it’s encouraging to observe the media’s involvement in promoting the Act. CHRI too has worked towards informing people on this topic through its various media and programmatic initiatives. Informative and dramatic radio series, catchy spots and jingles for the audio and visual medium have been quite innovative in reaching out to the people in the remotest areas. CHRI’s attempt has been to make its products even more simple and appealing. Each of our campaigns have quite a success given the number and kind of feedback we receive from our audiences. Taking further this initiative of spreading awareness on RTI, CHRI decided to produce and air a spot on RTI exclusively for the remote cinema goers.

Why a RTI campaign
In spite of the impetus given to the various campaigns on RTI, there lies a huge disparity between the rural and urban India when it comes to awareness on the Act. While in the urban areas, people have some awareness however, the rural population as well people living in smaller towns and cities in India still needs to be awakened to this great power that they can use for their benefit and empowerment. Taking cue from this finding, CHRI decided to develop an audio-visual spot targeting the remote audiences. Far-flung cinema halls were decided to be the medium of dissemination for the spot. Cinema halls are one place where a captive audience can be addressed with a message and 100 per cent audience attention is guaranteed. Each spot is aired on a rotation basis, ensuring that each spot gets a prime slot of being played just before the movie starts. This is one time when the audience makes it a point to be seated inside the hall. Even the latecomers who have missed the advertisements would prefer being inside the hall just before the movie starts.

Reach out
When it came to demarcating our target areas and regions, we were clear in our minds that this time we would specifically reach out to the remote areas focusing on the B and C grade cinema halls. Focusing on the remote locations of our target audience, we selected 10 states in the northern region of India - Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajashthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Finally 411 cinema halls (grade B and C) were pin pointed for carrying out the campaign. A leading advertising solutions company helped us reach out to the various cinema halls.

Programme Content
We decided to develop a low-budget animation that attracts and appeals to the audience, and presents RTI in a fresh approach. We had already developed Saakshi (protagonist for the radio series on RTI) and Info Genie (mascot for the 2008 annual calendar). Since the characters were already tested with the audience segments and were highly appreciated, it was safe to go ahead with them as lively characters for the spot. We selected an animation production house that was ready to work on a limited budget. And within two months of brainstorming and conceptualisation we were ready with the animation spot. Saakshi opens the Act book and Genie appears from it. He then spells out the features of RTI and its usage on a magical mirror. Application procedure, application fees, role of the information commission, appeals etc has been colourfully discussed in the slides. The product was then tested with varied audiences to check for its acceptability and freshness. After receiving a good response from various segments of audience (rural, urban, students, teachers, lawyers) we were confident that this would work well across various cinema halls.

Media Coverage
We were careful to choose the low budget cinema halls and did not concentrate on the high end ones as our target audience would hardly visit the expensive cinema halls. We changed the screening time and venues depending on the success of the film in a particular theatre. Once the campaign was launched another level of advocacy was to be undertaken – to inform the civil society, media and government about this initiative. Most media appreciated this endeavour and New Delhi Television (NDTV) a leading national channel in India covered the campaign details for the entire day on their national Hindi news channel NDTV India. The news feature highlighted the screening inside the hall, took sound bytes from viewers coming out of the theatre as well as from the CHRI representative working on the campaign. This was the first time that an animation spot was being aired in cinema halls to spread awareness on the issue of RTI. CHRI takes great pride in being the first organisation to do so. The campaign has brought many people closer to the Act, and many have realised the importance and power of the RTI. Shanti Devi on watching the spot in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh was surprised that an Act like this existed. She has had problems with her electricity bills for months now. “I will file an application as soon as I get home. It’s wonderful to have such a powerful means to derive information from the government,” she added.

Going forward
Taking motivation from the success of this campaign, CHRI endeavours to take the cinema campaign to various states of India by replicating it in various regional languages. The southern, western and eastern states need a translated version for creating awareness. CHRI is also planning on coming up with a high quality 3-D animation that is even better than what we have made so far. One of the biggest challenge here is to take such public service information products to the nook and corners of the country and spread knowledge on RTI not just through cinemas but TV, radio, outdoor media campaigning and other relevant means of communication.

RTI Genie