A former t2 Campus team member is in the running for the New York Emmy Awards and we at t2 are oh-so-proud! Here’s a lowdown on the girl and her noms (that’s GenY speak for nomination).
Who’s that girl?
Sriyanka Ray, former student of La Martiniere for Girls (batch of 2008) and Presidency College English department (batch of 2011). After college, she went on to pursue a Masters in media studies at The New School, New York.
What’s the buzz?
Sriyanka, who is a producer at BRIC TV in New York, has secured two nominations in the New York Emmys 2016. One is for the short documentary A Life Apart: An Ex-Hasid in Brooklyn in the religion: news/feature category. The docu is based on author Shulem Deen, who was exiled after being tagged a heretic by his conservative Hasidic Jewish village New Square, in upstate New York.
The second is in the interview/discussion category, for an episode titled Covering Race for the BRIC TV show Straight Up, for which Sriyanka is an associate producer.
Straight Up is a Brooklyn-style spin on the reporter roundtable. Journalists are invited to a bar in Brooklyn to swap stories on their beats and give the viewer their take on domestic and international events. Covering Race was produced after the Baltimore riot of April-May 2015.
So, what are the New York Emmys?
The New York Emmy Awards are the New York chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. One could say it is the highest honour for television in the tri-state area comprising New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. In Sriyanka’s words, “It’s a super big deal!” There are also other Emmys, such as the Primetime Emmys, Daytime Emmys and International Emmys.
The award ceremony for the NY Emmys will be held in Manhattan on March 19.
Awards and more...
Last year Sriyanka and her colleague Raquel Salazar received the Ippies Award, given by the prestigious CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, for their short documentary War, Identity and Friendship in Brighton Beach in the best video category. The docu follows three teenagers, two from Ukraine and one from Russia, to explore if their friendship was affected by the war in their homelands.
Presidency days...
Sriyanka is the founder and former president of Presidency University’s theatre society. As part of the society, Sriyanka would write and direct plays, and even staged a couple of them at Gyan Manch. And that, she says, helped hone her producing skills.
“Directing a bunch of college students is one of the hardest things to do because obviously nobody listens to you. Everyone was just running around, going off to the tank or maths-er chhaath and coming back, er, happy. That is when I used to get super bossy. That experience has helped me with my producing skills a lot. I am good at being bossy and organised, someone who can also bring the crew together to get the work done,” she says.
t2 Campus team moments...
And being on the t2 Campus team, says Sriyanka, taught her the perils of speaking without thinking!
“It was IPL season in 2012 and we were discussing the different pubs we should cover where young people are watching the matches. I don’t know why, but I said, ‘Don’t you know, young people don’t go to bars anymore? It’s all about house parties now.’ The bosses were interested in this idea and I gave them the whole spiel about young people drinking purple cocktails in purple clothes to support the Kolkata Knight Riders!
“One of my seniors looked at me and said, ‘Since you know all about it, go cover a house party.’ But I had NO idea who was throwing a house party, who wears purple clothes and drinks purple drinks! But there was no getting out of this now. Since I couldn’t find any purple party, I had to throw a KKR-themed IPL gathering at my home. I forced my friends to wear purple, googled purple-coloured drinks and made the cocktails, got purple balloons and threw a party. And then wrote a report on ‘How to throw a KKR-themed purple party!’”
Priyankar Patra
What is your message for Sriyanka?
Tell t2@abp.in
