Prominent Hollywood directors and producers gathered in India for a six day visit in order to gather information for medical related show topics. The panel discussion was held on 12th May at J.W. Marriot where BollySpice was also present.
The visit is organized by Hollywood Health & Society, a program of The Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in Los Angeles, which has a long history of connecting screenwriters with experts to obtain accurate health information for their scripts. Funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others, HH&S serves as a free resource for public health information to the entertainment industry.
“We are thrilled to bring some of Hollywood’s master storytellers to India to learn from India’s long, rich history of storytelling,” said Sandra de Castro Buffington, Director of Hollywood, Health & Society. “We know that they will be creatively and personally inspired by what they see and learn while in this extraordinary country.”
The five Hollywood writers and producers are here in order to learn more about the people and culture; to gain first-hand knowledge about how people here are managing global health challenges such as TB and HIV; and to gain inspiration for future shows and scripts. They will also learn about local culture, customs, storytelling, and leadership.
The panel consisted of well known personalities from the entertainment industry, including President of the Film and Television Producers Guild of India Ramesh Sippy (Director, Producer), Zoanne Clack (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Amol Gupte (Stanley Ka Dabba), Jennifer Cecil (“Private Practice”), Vinita Nanda (Joint COO, Creativeland Pictures), Michael Nash (“Climate Refugees”), Film director Onir, Walt Disney Feature Animation executive Karen Tenkhoff and John Max Burnett III (“The Troop”). The event was held by Hollywood Health and Society in collaboration with the Guild and was hosted by Sandra de Castro Buffington, Director of Hollywood, Health & Society. Sandra basically talked about their work so far as to what is the procedure followed whenever there a medical show approaches them. Without interfering in the storyline, the organization provides a certified medical advisor who will brief the producers and the others involved with the show as to the medical aspects of the storyline and get their doubts cleared. This ensures that the storyline stays as authentic as possible and also provides inspiration for new storylines. Not only that they maintain active pages for these shows/series on Facebook with links back to their own inputs so the viewer can get to know about more about the medical terminologies and the way the organization was involved in the conceptualization. They also maintain Twitter accounts for the very same. The audience was shown clips where their medical expertise had come into use.
Hollywood Health and Society has been actively involved with very popular T.V. shows like Grey’s anatomy, House, ER, CSI, Desperate Housewives, Army wives etc.
