Okay..Smile please!

Over the last decade, children have been the secret ingredient for the success of the Billion-dollar Advertising industry in Mumbai. Kids not only influence purchase decisions at home, but the use of kids in Ads softens the brand image, creates a sense of nostalgia and increases recall for the Ad and the product.

With the increasing demand of a diverse category of children for lead roles, second lead, featured cast, background artists, and even newborn babies, the ‘supply network’ for child actors has become wider and incredibly complex. Casting professionals have been forced to step outside the four walls of the audition studio and scout for new faces in non-traditional spaces and through non-traditional networks.

This research project takes a close look at this intricate and flourishing network of individuals, with in-depth interviews with parents, kids and casting professionals; and observations at audition studios and ad film shoots. This project aims to understand this ecosystem and gain insight into the motivations and aspirations of the parents and kids who are a part of this industry and how this affects the child and his/her childhood.

The findings have been encapsulated in a fifty-five minute Audio Documentary/ Podcast that uses a voice-over style narrative, interviews, ad jingles, and soundscapes from Bombay city, in a playful, experimental and satirical manner; with the aim of reaching a wider audience of parents, children and industry professionals.

Artist Bio:
Shruti Rao is a musician, artist and filmmaker. She had been working in Mumbai for 9 years in a variety of media content including a feature film with Nagesh
Kukunoor, ad films, business news production with CNBC TV18, Travel, music and lifestyle shows for Fox Life and MTV; and later in digital content production for YouTube and Amazon Prime India.

Feeling increasingly disenchanted with the commercial media sector, Shruti wanted to do more meaningful work with her experience and skillset.
Shortly, she quit her Media job in Mumbai and came to Bangalore to pursue her Masters from the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, where she specialized in Knowledge Systems and Practices. For her Masters’ thesis, she wrote, edited and produced an Audio Documentary & Podcast called ‘Okay…Smile Please!’ that talked about the presence and participation of children in the Mumbai Advertising Industry. The idea for this research project came from personal experience from her initial years working as an Assistant Director and having conducted countless auditions for advertisements, and scouting hundreds of kids in the process.

Currently she can be found in Bangalore living with her cats Amu and Gucci; singing and playing percussions for a Music Collective called the ‘Urban Folk Project’, and planning her next Podcast that takes a look at Love and Romance in the digital age of apps.