On December 4, a press conference was held dedicated to the upcoming international multimedia forum on the results of the work in 2018 of the Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan in the World Collections project, as well as the 10th Festival of Socially Significant Media Products, which will be held as part of the forum.
NAESMI Chairman Firdavs ABDUKHALIKOV spoke about the festival, the importance of social advertising and plans for the next year.
- You are already holding the tenth anniversary festival. When you started it, did you have any vision and plans? Have these expectations come true 10 years later?
- We all took part in the discussion and adoption of the Development Strategy of Uzbekistan for 2017-2021 initiated by the President of our country Shavkat Mirziyoyev, a large-scale road map for the implementation of state projects and programs. However, this is not only the business of the state, but of the whole society, including civil institutions.
That is why the social advertising festival is designed to draw public attention to the implementation of the adopted Strategy, as well as to those problems that prevent us from moving forward. When we started the festival, we did not think at all that it would become traditional. The idea was born through such an event to stimulate the process of making social videos, which are needed in order to briefly, concisely and intelligibly explain to the society what problems it has, to draw attention to acute issues, by and large. At the same time, of course, the task was to attract the attention of society to those projects that are being implemented in the country, no matter if they are state or public. Through such advertising, everyone can convey their message to the audience. And non-state television and radio studios of the country united around this idea. Time has shown that this festival is in demand. I can not say that everything went smoothly on his way. There were times when we needed financial support to run the festival. This year, Deputy Prime Minister Aziz Abdukhakimov responded to our call to join, and the State Committee for Tourism Development provided us with funds.
- Why did you choose the theme of tourism?
- If we analyze modern media production of a social nature, we can see that in 2018 a lot of videos are dedicated specifically to tourism and the cultural legacy of Uzbekistan. At first, we thought about devoting one nomination to tourism, and the rest to other topics. Then we decided that this might not be entirely fair to those creative groups that did their best to promote Uzbekistan through these videos. We saw that there are a lot of such groups and directions and we decided to dedicate the festival entirely to cultural heritage through the prism of tourism development in Uzbekistan.
Social advertising is very important for our republic. As soon as ministries and various departments understand that this is the most intelligible form of bringing information to the population, and especially young people, about certain existing projects or problems, then this direction will be seriously developed. So far, unfortunately, this has not been observed. Although everyone understands the importance of social videos. We can see videos where plants and factories rise, various topics are touched upon, but there is no system here. After all, social videos run for about two minutes, they do not have to be shown only on television, they can be launched on the Internet, social networks or instant messengers, which means that views on these videos can be huge. They will find their audience.
- In your opinion, how many times should a person watch a social video to keep this message in his head?
- This is the question that constantly confronts us when we do media planning on a TV channel. You know, I think it depends on the content of the video. Not even off topic. The topic can be serious, but the content is weak, and for the tenth time no one will watch it. There are videos that you can watch for months. It is very important that the video reaches the heart, and not just the brain. There are videos that hit right in the heart. Once a person looked at it and changed his attitude to a particular situation. This is the power of social videos. But there must be a creative approach. Our festival aims to stimulate creative groups to create just such works.
This year, the main prizes will be a Spark car and a VIP tour of Uzbekistan. This is also the initiative of Aziz Abdukhakimov, we did not expect that he would approach the issue in such a way, on such a scale.
- If we talk about choosing the winner, the jury of the festival determines it by online voting. Why was this particular system chosen?
- This form has been present for ten years. This is the only competition in Uzbekistan, when all participants see online who becomes the winner. At the festival, everyone can see who voted for whom, which jury member voted for whom. For us, the most important thing is that everything is transparent and honest. It is no coincidence that we invite foreign experts to the jury so that the festival participants understand that it is impossible to find the key to them, they will be impartial. And one more thing - we do not announce the names of the jury members in advance
When the jury members come to the competition, they see all the videos for the first time. We try to select those that "cling" from the first viewing.
- Isn't it too subjective?
- Yes, but how else? Each member of the jury expresses his opinion, this is the democracy of the competition. Everything is clean here. One saw and cast his/her vote.
The day before the start of the festival, we will announce the names of the jury members. The festival is dedicated to the international forum. At this event, we want to report to the public, the international community about what we did in 2018 during the implementation of the project. We would like to invite scholars who will come to this forum as members of the jury of the festival. This topic is not alien to them, they are not just tourists, but real experts in the field of cultural legacy of Uzbekistan. They can evaluate the work impartially and professionally.
- If we talk about the selection criteria, then the video should be up to 2 minutes long. Are there any other technical requirements?
- We are not talking about technical indicators. Maybe, as an exception, videos a little longer will be considered, but they are harder to perceive. This is where professionalism lies - in the shortest possible time to lay down the whole essence and get into the heart. There is only one criterion - the video can be simple, but very intelligible.
- The international forum will sum up the results of 2018. Will plans for 2019 be announced? Share them please.
- On the first day of the forum, we will sum up the results of the outgoing year and collect all the proposals of scholars and participants on how they see the issues of further preservation, study and popularization of the cultural legacy of Uzbekistan. On the second day, we are just going to present the road map for 2019.
As for plans, there are many ideas. For example, the famous expert on Central Asia, scholar Frederick Starr proposed to revive in virtual reality our ancient cities that no longer exist: Marakanda, Kampyr-Tepa, which, according to Rtveladze, is Alexandria of Alexander the Great, there are many fortresses in Nukus. The architectural forms of these cities have already been studied, and if we apply new technologies, we will be able to show the society, the international community, our youth what these cities looked like before.
In St. Petersburg, about 300 scholars from all over the world united around the idea of creating an international community of scholars to preserve, study and popularize the cultural legacy of Uzbekistan. This is a unique case that shows that we are dear to world science, to world scholars. We should be proud of this and help in the implementation of initiatives.
Sergey Lapteff, a scholar at the Miho Museum (Japan) has been working on the idea of restoring glazed ceramics of domes for several years. This is very relevant, since the original recipe for the composition from which the glaze is made has been lost. He has an idea, the scholar has already found some technologies and is close to discovery. We also try to help him. There are many scholars in our community who have different ideas like these.
There is a very important point. We must educate our youth, and they are increasingly turning to modern multimedia technologies. Therefore, you need to be with her on this wave of technological progress and speak the same language. What is it for? So that young people are proud of their country, know their roots and understand that they are the heirs of a great nation with a great history. Fantastic powers were located here and global events took place, minds lived that influenced the course of history and the way we now perceive some things.
You need to be proud of this, this pride gives you the strength to follow the path of life and achieve something more.
