Last Updated on 09/24/2018 by Mark Beckenbach
All images by Saif R. and Megha Singha. Used with Creative Commons permission.
MTV India’s Dating in the Dark is exactly what it says on the tin. Nothing says “love is blind” more than actually meeting the potential love of your life (or at least, your next romantic pursuit) in the, well, dark, doesn’t it?
Dating in the Dark is a reality dating show that places a small group of three guys and three girls inside one house to have group and one-on-one dates under the cover of darkness, all with the goal of getting to know each other better.
The show premiered on MTV India last June and follows the format of a Dutch dating show called Daten in het Donker (Dating in the Dark). The original proved to be so popular that the Indian version was just one of the many that had aired previously in countries including the UK, US, China, Australia, and more.
So, how do you promote a show that does everything in the dark to make it appealing to a young target audience? That task fell on Mumbai-based creatives Megha Singha and Saif R., a designer, animator, and director at MTV India, who together came up with the creative and brilliant Dating in the Dark series using photographs and videos showcasing not straight-up humans but characters with full head animal masks, in a dim studio that’s illuminated only by bright neon-colored lights.
So here you’ll see a pigeon and a horse, a tall giraffe and a short Humpty Dumpty, a panda and a fox, a rooster and a bear, two horses, and even an astronaut. The treatment is seemingly a nod to the identities of the contestants that remain anonymous up until the very last minute, the belief that opposites attract, and the likelihood of odd pairings developing by the end of the show.
Want to see more? Check out the full set here, which also includes promotional videos for the show following the same concept! Don’t forget to visit the individual portfolios of Saif R. and Megha Singha to see their respective works, too.