Small screen, big scam

Stills from ‘Scam City’

Have you ever picked up an unknown call and lost your life savings? Perhaps you've spoken to ‘cops' on a video call accusing you of ordering something illegal. If yes, you've brushed up against the reality of digital scams. Civic Studios, in partnership with Anti-Slavery International, has chosen to inform about scams through storytelling. In conversation with mid-day, director Kashmira Patil and producer Anushka Shah discuss how their micro-drama series, Scam City, breaks down online scams in a format designed for quick consumption, all the while building awareness.

Excerpts from the interview.

How did the idea come about? Why a micro-drama format?
Patil: We got the idea from various news clippings. We usually only see one side of the story when you get scammed, but here you realise that there's a multi-billion-dollar industry of modern slavery on the other side. We chose social media because attention is finite in today's digital world. The story was urgent. We did not want to wait around and hope that the fate of the story is dependent on someone who greenlights it from the platform point of view. We also wanted to ensure that people are able to grasp this in a manner that is quick, easy, and shareable with their family, friends; make everybody aware.

Kashmira Patil and Anushka Shah

Why use animation and Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
P: I think AI scaled up our production fast, compared to a traditional set-up. It would have also cost us more resources. We felt that in this way, we will be able to scale up, tell more stories, and reach more audience. When we started, AI was not so evolved. It had a unique look and was a new form of consumption. So, something that breaks the clutter was important. One of the challenges with AI is not being able to be hyper real with human emotions and actions. So when it comes to animation, we did have that flexibility and creativity to explore more treatment options. And there's a lot more that is forgiven when it comes to animation in terms of consumption.

Shah: We were also trying to give it a gamification concept. The idea that Maya, the lead character, was trying to escape from the scam compound had a lot to do with bringing in the analogy to when you're playing a video game.

How cost-effective was it?
P: I think one-twentieth of what we would spend on a [on a traditional production]. It was like a fraction of it.

What AI tools powered the show?
P: We started in October last year. We had Arundhati [Bhande] on board, who wrote the screenplays. All that we see on screen were illustrated by Mansi [Joshi], who drew every shot by hand. We used tools like Kling, Halo, and 11 Labs for the animation part to convert image to video. The editing and post-production was done by Pulkit [Verma].

S: We've been careful to not replace IP generation with AI. So the writing, research, all of that was human and post-production was focused on AI. So as AI is evolving so rapidly, we're also navigating our ethical boundaries around it.

The scams discussed

Digital arrests
Honey-traps
UPI scams
Crypto scams

What is ‘Scam City' about?

Inspired by multiple real events, ‘Scam City' follows Maya Venu, a young woman trafficked into a Cambodian cyber-scam compound, a place where fear is routine, obedience is survival, and every call is a carefully rehearsed lie.