Musings of an Idiot

Collateral

Went and saw the movie 'COLLATERAL' yesterday and loved it. The landscape of LA becomes so haunting, isolated and tense. The performances by everyone was fantastic and the way you are drawn into the confines of the taxi and the mind games between the leads is fascinating. What I loved the most was the colours of the film. The camera never shies away from showing the depth of the LA skyline..The magic of HD - you see way past into the night and thus creating an atmos in itself for the film. I didn't like 'Heat' for some reason but this move blew my mind away. It is really tight in terms of editing, pacing, narration. Tom Cruise's character could have been a little more sociopathic and mean but it is toned down a bit. And Jamie Foxx was great in his role. The movie definitely defines what the future of 'Digital VS Film' argument can be.

The quest for aerial footage from Heletranz fell through because of mis-communication on prices and I simply can not afford it. It is kind of sad but I think I will go with film without that. Blair Monk, at Heletranz, did go out of his way to try and help us out with the film and am really thankful to him for doing this but I guess the dreams of aerial footage will have to wait for another project where we have proper funds to do it.

A long labour weekend is coming up and I am looking forward to doing nothing at all. Maybe write a short film script or something -just chilling out doing nothing. Today on the other hand is gonna be a really really busy day - with Triangle's studio show and then lots of online and offline approvals in the edit suites at school and catching up on extra projects for school. So I better get started on my day and will probably write something in tomorrow or whenever i get some time next.

ciao,
amit

UPDATE - evening:

Triangle TV Show went well and the 2 shows are in the can -ready for broadcast. Synching up without the SPG {Synchronized Pulse Generator} is really really hard but we managed to get the camera synched to each other. Also had a chat with Rob, who is in Singapore right now - it was great talking to him after a long time.

Benji might be able to sell his car and get a plane ticket to come to NZ to edit the movie and I am really excited about it. Got the external hard drive today and now am simply waiting for the PrecisionM60 - which should be another week away.

Hands are shaking slightly after playing cricket for a couple of hours with Matt, Darryn - my colleagues and Lance, Natalye, Kim, Yvan, Doug - students from this year. It was so much fun and we ended up breaking up the tennis ball into 2 pieces and hit it onto the roof. The weather is just gorgeous today and had such a fun time relaxing. The funniest moment was Yvan the Belgian batting and Doug the American balling - both playing the game of cricket for the first time. Moments like these is what makes South Seas such a fantastic place to be at.

Alastair dropped in to school before going off to work and he said he is absolutely loving his job at Touchdown TV. And Ollie dropped in as well - he begins work at VTR on Tuesday. It feels really good seeing your students getting jobs but still dropping in occasionally. I guess that is one of the joys of being into teaching as a profession.

Looks like it is going to be a long night as I need to approve 3 onlines of Final term docos before they are laid back onto the master tape. It is great that things have finally started rolling and it is surprising how time flies at South Seas. Have a long weekend looming ahead of me. Have to plan something to utilize atleast some of the time.

Catch ya later.

posted by Amit @ 8:24 AM