1The Challenge
What was the challenge?
Prodapt brought 55 people to Mahabalipuram for a day away from the day-to-day — and the ambition was for it to actually count. Not a slot on an agenda that people sit through and forget by the following week, but a shared experience that would leave the group more connected than it arrived.
The group size carried its own demands. A gathering of 55 has to be structured carefully: large enough that people can hide in the crowd if the format allows it, and varied enough that any single activity risks engaging one type of person while losing another. Whatever ran had to hold the full room, give everyone a genuine role, and translate the energy of a good day out into something lasting.
2Our Solution
What solution did we design?
The AI Movie Making Challenge was built for exactly this. Teams take on the role of filmmakers — conceiving a story, scripting it, and using AI tools to bring it to screen within a compressed timeframe.
Two things make it work at this scale. First, film-making has room for every kind of contributor. The storyteller, the visual thinker, the person who quietly keeps the team on schedule, the one who won't settle for the first draft — each finds a real job, and none of them is optional. Nobody sits on the sidelines because there is no sideline to sit on. Second, for a technology organisation like Prodapt, the AI element landed close to home while still being genuinely playful. Participants who work with technology professionally got to use it for something with no deliverable, no client, and no stakes beyond making their team's film the one everyone remembers.
The day closed with Team Karaoke — a fitting finish to an experience built around teams putting themselves out there together.
3How We Did It
How was the programme delivered?
The 55 participants were divided into teams and given their mission: an original short film, blank page to final cut, using AI tools. Teams moved through concept, script, and production — negotiating creative direction, dividing up the work, and racing a deadline that left no room for hesitation.
Our facilitators worked the room throughout, guiding teams through unfamiliar tools and watching the dynamics unfold: how each group aligned on a story, resolved disagreement without stalling, and pushed to finish. Those observations fed a debrief that connected what had just happened on screen back to how the teams collaborate in practice.
Then came the screening — every film played back to the full room. The moment a team sees its work land with 54 colleagues, laughter and all, is the one that makes the day stick. Team Karaoke carried that energy through to the close.
4Key Outcomes
What were the results?
Prodapt's team left Mahabalipuram with something they had made together and could point to. Across the day, teams experienced how quickly a group aligns when the goal is shared and the clock is running, and how much stronger the output gets when every voice in the room has a job to do.
The screening turned individual team efforts into a collective moment, and the karaoke finish sent people home on a high. For a day designed to bring 55 people closer together, the films were the proof — and the shared references they created outlasted the offsite itself.