Finishing Touches
Past few days have been really busy -with school as well as with the movie.. had meetings with technical team which came in from TVNZ and the meeting went really well. Besides that a couple more jobs opened up which I will be sorting out next week.
Finishing touches are being given to the movie, so that it is ready for screenings, festivals and distributors. Alastair did the credits yesterday night - the credits look simple and elegant. Sat in with Matt yesterday night to get some SFX fixed and adjusted... Also did some modifications to the colour grade of particular scenes, overall the movie feels right.. And Benji is finishing off the second round of audio refinement, which should be done within today or tomorrow.
Heard back from one of the american distributors today. They saw the rough cut and said that the movie was "interesting" and "captivating" and they wanted to represent us, if the rights were still available. So that is again fantastic news and a positive step..the movie will have much better impact once everything is in place.
Also went to a screening at Panavision theatre, conducted by Peter Haynes - another independent film maker. He was kind to screen our teaser trailers and the beach scene....the reaction was again positive. While introducing the movie -i got disoriented by the situation because of the Deja Vu I had at that place and time...
Watched
'I,Robot' and it was not bad at all. I really enjoyed the movie.. Got out
Collateral on DVD and will watch it later tonight.. It is another weekend which has just vanished. And a long week lies ahead.
Off for now...Enjoy.
Amit
Dates
The date for the cast and crew screening has been set for March 5th, Satuday.
Mark and Miles from Magna Pacific will be coming to the screening - which I am excited about.
I have uploaded a scene from the movie - which you can watch
HERE {it is 12 MB -so it will be a decent download}
I had to pop into Triangle TV to calibrate all their broadcast monitors.
I am just tired and want to go to bed. More updates later.
Amit
Tidings
Has been a busy day and it definitely brought good tidings.. Matt brought in the external drive with all the SFX done..the only one which wasn't done was trying to remove the logo from the aeroplane shot...so i rang up Qantas office and managed to get to the right person after a couple of tries and was jumping with joy when they said that we could use the shot and they did not have any problem with it. So thats a major problem solved and I will definitely credit a thanks to Qantas as well.
Rang up Minuit and got to talk to Ruth - am excited to show them the rough cut and will catch up with them when they come up to auckland next weekend, when they perform at AK'05. The meeting with Panasonic has been postponed till 1st March - which is when both me and Lance will be attending the seminar and later in the evening will be presenting a couple of scenes at the screening which Pansonic is conducting at Berkeley Cinemas in Botany Down.
A good part of the evening was spent recording some crucial voice overs which we had overlooked till now and also finished off the remaining ADR's... recording the voice overs was fun as we had international students speaking in different eurpoean languages like spanish, french, german, austrian, hindi and then other students helped out with english lines.. that is gonna fill up the opening hole we have in the title sequence. I think i will be fixing the date for cast and crew screening soon..
Overall, a tiring but very fruitful day. I think I will sleep very happy and peaceful knowing that now we have got all the elements we need to finish off the movie {bar a couple of music pieces}....
I am off for now.
Amit
Flying Daggers
Saw 'House of Flying Daggers' yesterday evening and the first words which came out of my mouth were "Crap...beautiful crap". The movie is beautifully shot but it just doesn't have a proper story playing out...I thought 'Hero' was a much better movie than this one in terms of story cohesiveness and narrative. 'Daggers' had too many happy coincidences which I just could not buy into. The art work was cool and so was the colours within the movie..the acting is passable and nothing special about that...Overall I was disappointed in the movie.
Today, picked up the CD from Jamie's place which has the colour corrected project files..I think Benji will put it together on Monday. Also watched the cut of the movie in the lecture theatre for checking sound mix, with Benji and Doug. Benji has noted down about 3 pages of corrections that we need and got some valuable feedback from Doug about the movie...I think some of the things which came up, make sense and we just need to start tweaking the movie here and there to refine it.
Overall I think we are pretty much there with the movie..once sound effects and music go in and then audio is fine tuned and we tighten up the beginning and a couple of other points in the movie, we are there... I think we have a good product on our hands once we do those final touch ups.
It was good catching up with Doug after a long time. His work permit came through and he will be one of the two editors on a sci-fi kids TV series commissioned by BBC, which i think is a fantastic gig and I am sure that it will help him heaps. Also caught up with Jonathon Samson - which was again interesting, seeing his efforts in making his way through the maze that is NZ film and tv industry..
Had to call off the ADR's today and will probably do it sometime during the week. Tomorrow will be the edit session on the architecture project, if things go ahead as per plan. And also have to finish writing the proposals for the project we are doing with Indian Newslink.
Today has been tiring but relaxing...and i don't want to get down into writing the mundane things because that is quite boring. Anyway bye for now.
Amit
Long Day
Today has been a long long day and I am still typing {just about}...Today was the day for editing 'Street Signs'...it was fun but definitely tiring keeping track of all the students, seeing how they are coping with the editing process. Later in the evening - had the first evening lecture of the year called 'Art of Editing'...it was fun...did things a lot differently and i think it worked - well, you can never be sure :-).
Scoop published the press release online, which was really cool of them. You can read the article
HERE. Got loads of meeting planned out for next week...
Panasonic called back and they said that they would want Lance and me to present a couple of scenes from the movie at a seminar/screening which they are holding on 1st of March. It is a good opportunity to showcase our efforts and will be going to meet Rick at Panasonic sometime next week. Also have a meeting at NEXT technology sometime next week to discuss alternate courses of action with the distribution of the movie. And then have the guest lecture with Lindsay Chalmers from TVNZ, next thursday and also have some technical people coming in from TVNZ, which is again something I am looking forward to.
Put in my expression of interest with the New Zealand immigration service, now have to wait and see if they invite me to apply for permanent residency.Keeping fingers crossed on that one. Sent off screening DVD's to a few international distributors..Have to wait and see what they come back with. Also have to get paperwork chalked out for the freelance projects. Jamie has finished the colour grading and now waiting for Matt to finish the SFX {saw some of the stuff he has been doing and it looks fantastic}
Anyway, tired for now...just need to give myself a break and go to bed...a whole weekend of work lies in front.
Bye for now,
Amit
Meetings and Feedback
The whole of today has gone into meetings...exciting and plenty of challenges. First was with Nerida and Ian and Saumya regarding marketing strategies for the school...it was fun... then was the meeting at Indian Newslink for doing an event coverage - just have to sit down and chalk out exact details, so that everyone is in the clear. And then dropped into Onfilm to drop off the press kit to Nick and to discuss a tie-up between South Seas and Onfilm for possible international newsletter. And since then I have been at the computer -doing paperwork -related to the movie as well as the school.
Both the distributors got back today - Hoyts Distribution doesn't want to pick up the film as they think it is not in line with their current plans and also they feel that only 1 in 8 NZ movies make back their money, so they are not willing to take the risk..I found that amusing because they were assuming that we had done the movie on a million-2 million dollar budget or something. I did not correct them because if someone bases their decision on the nationality of the film instead of the actual content of the film then the distributor is obviously not worth the time....
John Davies from Arkles Entertainment got back and his feedback was really good and valuable....some ravishing comments and some solid feedback. One of the comments which stuck out was "this is the most beautifully shot digital feature in NZ i have seen till now"...full points to the cinematography, top points for the story and editing, above average points for acting but overall he felt that we could shave off some minutes to tighten up the pace... and he is definitely keen to buy it, which is a big positive. So I will sit down and watch the whole movie again and see where things can be tightened up... also waiting for the music score, so that can fill in the gaps which feel empty at the moment. So thats been the whole day... it just flew past.
TIME.......
Deja Vu
It is a strange time. I have been seeing more and more Deja Vus over the past 2 weeks - it is almost disorienting..It is almost as if I have visited this particular point in time more often.
The past 2 days have been busy but relaxing at the same time. Friday was the last day for Triangle Studio show and since 2 people dropped out at the last moment, Darryn and me had to become part of the crew. I was on camera while Darryn was on Audio. It meant that the day which could have gone towards getting some crucial paperwork out of the way, went into the studio. Made up for that by spending a few hours today and yesterday by going in to school and doing some paperwork... Also need to prepare for this thursday's first evening post lecture.
Yesterday, bumped into Ryan and Frasier from the 2003 batch and it was a pleasent surprise. Later in the day Lance came over and had a small discussion about the next movie and also what all we had learnt from this one and what worked for us and what didn't. Went to Ira's place but unfortunately the copy of Avid did not install on his powerbook..so will have to load up FCP later this week.
Went and saw
'The Aviator' yesterday evening and it was fantastic. Saw it on the Megascreen on Queen street, which was an experience in itself. Any attempts to try and write about the experience will only do injustice to the movie. Martin Scorsese lives in celluloid and thats the best way to put it.
I drove around for an hour - just pointless, driving where I felt like turning. It helped clear up my headspace -something which I needed desperately, so I could re-analyse my list of things to do. Sometimes, there is so much work and you are caught up in the flow of things that it is hard to step away and objectively look at whats happening around you. I think that driving around definitely helped me step away from my current point in time to re-assess.
Time flies...it really does. It is such a relative concept but we do get caught up in it. Just finished watching a low budget sci-fi movie called
"The Cube". It was cool...flawed acting but fantastic concept and execution. Definitely worth a watch.
Anyway..am off for now. Got to do some more thinking.
Ciao,
Amit
Sore throat, Article and Guest Lecture
The sore throat is still there and i am hoping that it will die down in another couple of days. It was really bad yesterday where it was really hard even trying to speak but had to keep at it because it was the first editing day for the students. The beginning of the year is definitely the hardest because the groups are divided up into 32 smaller groups...so it is definitely tiring making sure that you are giving all your energies to everyone and that they are learning. The first term is so crucial in terms of work ethics and work flow.
The first lecture on Monday was again fun and fantastic...i seem to be a lot more relaxed than last year - maybe it is the fact that i had made the transition from being a student to a tutor half way through last year and also doing this movie has also changed my perspective on lots of things...
The article in 'The Aucklander' came out yesterday - it was again a really positive article and it is again a humbling experience. Click
HERE to watch it - it is a big scan {about 250K}, so will take time to download. I will put it up on the website later on.
Today, also had the guest lecture at school and Chris Plummer was simply fantastic...he is really relaxed, down to earth, and does handle questions really well. I will write more on that later. Can't really think straight while coughing all the time.
And before I sign off for the day - only other updates are that I had a small meeting with John Davies, gave him the rough cut of the movie. Let's see what he comes back with as an offer next week. Got feedback from Ira and he liked the movie which is really cool. So positive feedback coming in for the movie is definitely encouraging.
Anyway off for now...can't think straight for the moment.
Amit
sic
Saturday and it brought some more surprises - someone broke into Unit-6 at school this time. This is really pissing me off and obviously it is pissing everyone off at school. What a stupid thing to do. Fortunately there was nothing major missing - an audio kit and a tripod. It could have been much worse again. Something is definitely fishy - whoever is doing this seems to know how to get around without tripping the alarms and take whatever they please. I think the school is up for major security upheaval.
Recorded more ADR's today and we are nearly done with them. Went to Rasoi - the indian vegetarian eating joint on K'Road and had a masala dosa after such a long time - it was good.
The meeting at TVNZ went really good and it is definitely an exciting feeling meeting people and working towards forming better relationship with the industry. I am confident that this year would be great in terms of trying out new things to advance South Seas's relationship with the industry in terms of post production and improving the graduate skill levels.
I had edited the trailer for David Coddington's short film, Punuwai, a couple of weeks back and finally got around to compressing it and putting it up on the website. You can view it
HERE. It took about an hour to edit and about 30 minutes off to online..not bad... editing trailers is a totally different artform than editing anything else. It is always fun.
My first lecture with the class is on Monday and next week is also our final run of the Triangle TV shows -to finish off our commitment towards that production. Definitely looking forward for my first lecture this year and am also waiting for the studio show to finish off. Have caught a flu out of the blue and have a sore throat - just feels a little bit weird. I have been drinking lots of hot drinks but it is just hard to think straight.
Anyway am off for now.
Amit
First Newsprint and School
School is definitely more tiring in the first couple of weeks. Maybe it is because you are trying to know everyone and just creating the building blocks for proper functioning of the school. Today was definitely more tiring than the others because I was photographing everyone for their photo ID's.
Yesterday evening, we had the screening of
'In My Father's Den' at Rialto for the students. This was in preperation for next week's guest lecture by Chris Plummer -the editor of the film. Special thanks to Paul at Rialto for helping us out with the discounted tickets as well as arranging for a bigger screening theatre on such a short notice.
THE FIRST ARTICLE on our movie, 'Memories of Tomorrow' appeared yesterday in Indian Newslink, one of the biggest Indian newspapers in New Zealand. Click
HERE to read the article.
It is kind of humbling reading about yourself in the print. It becomes surreal and you wonder if it is really you that they are talking about. Venkat, the editor of the newspaper has indeed given us a positive review and a thumbs up. And this is definitely the beginning of the publicity drive and exposure for the movie.
Cedric prepared a press release and sent it over to NZPA and someone rang back within the hour to confirm the story, so hopefully it will mean that smaller newspapers across the country will pick up the story if they have place to fill. I made a press kit DVD yesterday night so that Cedric could send over to the 2 major national newspapers, to get them interested in doing a story on our film. 'The Aucklander' pushed our story back - don't know when it will be coming out.
While the PR is going on, we are now onto the last stages of post production - time to just wrap up everything and tie everything together. Time comes closer to show to the world on what we have been doing over the past 1 year.
Anyway am off for now. Got major meeting at TVNZ tomorrow morning.
Ciao,
Amit
{PS. - I got sent this link by my sis, in response to my question on origin of chopsticks. Click
HERE to read it. Thanks for this kiddy.}
First Day of 2005
Today was the first day of the new batch and it was really exciting and buzzy. Helped out David with the team-building exercises in the morning. Every student who has ever graduated from South Seas has gone through the same induction exercises and it is a fantastic set of exercises which help in breaking barriers so easily -some batches hate it, some love it -this years batch took to it, which is definitely a good sign. Later in the afternoon David did his 'egg-saving' exercises. Each team is given an egg, 2 pieces of paper, 2 baloons and some thread. They have to come up with some kind of contraption so that when dropped from 10 feet above the ground, the egg survives the break. Here are some snaps which I took :
One of the students trying their "egg-saving" skills
Students await the results of their team's turn
Everyone awaits a team to throw their egg down.
Another student trying their luck.
Gerben giving a few useful pointers to the new batch
Yesterday, we completed our main set of ADR's and it was also a day of shock. Someone broke into Unit-4 at school and stole some stuff. Police came in and took finger prints and stuff. It is just such a random incident and does really piss me off because that is everything that NZ is not. Just have to start being more careful and keep locking stuff all the time.
Also managed to find some photos from the get together we had with the international students last week at One Red Dog. I have put them down below.
Anyway - will take leave for now. Got to do some school work which I brought back home.
Cheerio
Amit
