SAAKHI SINGH

Meet Michelle Wu, the mayor-elect for the city of Boston. After 200 years of Boston selecting white men, Wu is the first woman and person of colour to be elected into office. This documentary captures the final two weeks leading up to the anticipated Boston mayoral race and provides insight into the community that supports the Wu campaign. The Wu team continues to use this documentary to share the stories of the volunteers, workers, and supporters who made the Wu campaign the success it came to be. Directed, produced and edited by Saakhi Singh. Music Credits: Back in Time, Courage, Motion, Perception by Borrtex via Artlist

Meet Samrath Singh, the first observant Sikh to be a Division 1 Baseball player. Even in the face of adversity, Samrath continues to persevere through life's challenges with a positive outlook on his future and his identity. THE BRIEF Samrath wanted an opportunity to express his positive attitude and demonstrate he is more than his hardships. Coming from a Sikh background, I immediately resonated with Samrath’s story and decided to help him share his story. MY ROLE & RESPONSE In addition to covering Samrath’s remarkable baseball career, I wanted to give audiences insight into Samrath’s life outside of baseball. For instance, by making an active choice to pair visuals that were representative of Samrath’s faith along with visuals of his normal daily life. I believed doing so would allow Samrath the chance to showcase his character and values in multifaceted ways as opposed to being simply defined by his career or religion. It was key for the documentary’s narrative to shed light on the different adversities Samrath faced but, more importantly, follow up with how he processed those situations and moved forward. THE RESULT The careful attention towards constructing a balanced narrative and visual story resulted in creating a successful documentary that accurately conveys Samrath's character and values. Directed, produced and edited by Saakhi Singh. Music: Take My Hand by Sid Acharya via Artlist

Considered to be a National Living Treasure, Masahiro Maeda, a renowned ceramics artisan, gives us an insight into his creative process and his philosophy of craftsmanship. THE BRIEF Expressing a desire to share his story with foreign audiences (non-Japanese natives), Maeda San wanted to create a video that reflected his artistry and explained his practices to people who were perhaps unfamiliar with ceramics. My skills in video production coupled with my passion for the arts and, importantly, my multilingual background, made me the ideal Director/Producer/Editor for this project. MY ROLE & RESPONSE As the one to spearhead this documentary, I was first tasked with creatively conceptualising Maeda San's story. After conducting deep research into Maeda San’s work and Japanese ceramics while considering the target demographic, my strategy aimed to adopt a visual documentary style that would accurately convey Maeda San’s craftsmanship through which his passion and character could shine through. The key point of Maeda San’s narrative would be symbolized through his kiln - a key factor in his ceramic style and a representation of his controlled yet carefree artistry. In order to effectively explain Maeda San's work, I also decided to sequence the documeentary according to the chronological order of Maeda San's ceramic processes. Finally, I made a point to create English subtitles. THE RESULT The execution of my concept in addition to the high-quality production, created a successful documentary. The documentary was even selected by Tokyo 2020 Olympic Committee to be screened at Kanagawa Hall as a part of their mission to promote Japanese arts and culture. Maeda San continues to use this documentary to share his work and story to global audiences. Director/Producer/Editor: Saakhi Singh Production Company: Mr+Positive Tokyo (https://www.mrpositive.work/) Music: Streams by Johannes Bornlōf via Epidemic Sound