Musings of an Idiot

Tacos

It has been a busy few days at school. Yesterday was really tiring for some reason and I was restless and could not go to bed till 3.30 today morning.

A new review for 'Memories' has come in at Pulp Movies and you can check it out HERE. Another good review. Phew...

Today - I finally went to the gym again after a gap of almost a month and it felt good. My back has improved and the physio-therapy sessions worked wonders {and ACC covered the cost of my treatment..wohooo}. And yeah - the best thing of all was that I cooked Tacos for the first time and they were yummy - I got so carried away that I took some photographs to tempt anyone reading this to get some mexican food :D


David M got me some new comic stock for my mind to graze on and I finished reading 'World's Finest' - which is a story involving Batman and Superman - nice artwork, bad story. Did not enjoy it but there are a lot more mini series to sink my teeth into.

The election campaigning is in full swing and that seems to be in the headlines day in and day out - which is irritating. Petrol prices have gone up again and now I am seriously considering getting myself a bike. The petrol price has hit NZ$ 1.55 per litre, which means that it has gone up by 55 cents in less than 6 months time.

The movie which I am eagerly looking forward to is 'The Constant Gardener' - don't know when it will get release here in NZ. Man sometimes it sucks when you have to wait ages to see a good movie get released here. Instead you get such crap as 'Stealth' getting a priority release to cover up for the US market debacle.

If the update sounds disconnected - then it probably is because thats how my mind is functioning right now. I need some sleep.

Bye,
Amit

Labels: Food, Memories of Tomorrow, Movies

posted by Amit @ 9:23 PM 0 Comments

Snowboarding

It looks like the password for the image gallery will not be sorted till Wednesday, so no photos straight away but I will post another few pics here to make up for that. The trip to Mount Raupehu was one of the coolest trips I have had {nothing can beat the Motuhei Island trip which I took with Lance and Benji}. Lance again arranged for this trip along with Annabelle and it was nice that it coincided with my birthday – gave me a chance to do something new and learn something new.

We left Auckland on Friday evening after initial hiccups {change of vehicles at the last minute, late start} and it was really cool that all the four of us gelled together instantly – Tarekh, Anna, Lance and me. Tarekh ended up driving us to the Mount and back as Anna’s BMW looked overloaded and we weren’t sure about it, so we decided not to take the risk and jumped onto Tarekh’s bulldozer..heeheeee…not really – it was a 4WD Jeep (???) It took us close to 5 hours to get to our destination and I must say – night driving is really tiring {not that I was driving or anything} and it was really cool that Tarekh stayed awake the whole time. :-) The drive was fairly un-eventful, except for the classic Austin Powers parking when we stopped by at Burger King for a feed- we had a real good laugh on that.

The lodge we were staying was in National Park –which is about 20 minutes drive from the Mount and it was a nice unit – simple but warm. The only small niggle was that the flush in the bathroom would take ages to fill up and that too only 1/4^th of the tank capacity, so there had to be atleast half an hour gap between any of us using the toilet, Incidentally there was no cellphone coverage in the lodge, so did not receive any phone calls on birthday and that must have been frustrating whoever was trying to ring me.

Birthday’s for me don’t have any major significance – except of course that it gives another occasion to celebrate and spend some money. A thought which popped up in my head was – shouldn’t the mother be wished a happy birthday since she is the one who has given birth?? I went to sleep after receiving birthday wishes from my roomies.

Saturday was a wonderful day – nice and sunny. Started off the day by hiring a snowboard and boots while the rest of my stuff was borrowed stuff from Lance {which saved me some dollars}. It is amazing how much even things like jackets, boots, gloves etc. cost at the skiing centers – the amount of money generated by local tourism is indeed mind boggling. Tarekh drove us to the mountain, as usual, and I decided to take a beginner’s lesson in snow boarding while Lance headed off to the top of the mountain while Tarekh and Anna shuffled between the base slope and the middle of the mountain. My lesson went better than expected – I stayed on my feet/board for a lot longer than I thought I would. The first 10 minutes and the last 15-20 minutes out of the 1 and half hour session were the hardest as I kept falling down during that time. It is a lot more tiring than I thought, especially when you are not used to it and don’t know what to expect. It snowed straight after we all met up at the café. Instead of going back snow boarding, we drove back to our lodge and had a few games of table tennis after which we decided to go to the thermal pools in Tookanu. Anna decided to stay back to have some rest, so us three boys jumped into the vehicle and off we went.

Again I did not know what to expect and it was a 45 minute drive to Tookanu. The thermal pools were a revelation. We got into the private pools which had naturally warm thermal spring water in the pools and it had a consistent temperature of 40 degrees centigrade. It was relaxing and therapeutic – after spending 10 minutes in there you start sweating and have this incredible urge to get out of the pool but at the same time the warmth is so comforting that you don’t want to. The funniest thing was the loud speaker which would yell out some pool number, time to time {we heard it at least 5 times in the 20 minutes we were in the pool} to vacate their pool. Here you are in this amazing setting –enjoying a nice thermal bath under the sky and suddenly the quite is shattered by a voice shouting something over a lour speaker. The private pools were for 20 minute duration each and the most basic system they found for informing that your time was up was a public announcement system – typically kiwi.

After the lovely time at the thermal pools, we decided to get some pizza from a neighboring township of Turangi, which is the Trout fishing capital of the world. But man – what a quite place to live in. It was a Friday evening and the town was dead- the only areas which seemed alive were the BP station with a Burger King attached to it and another local joint called Four Fish – which had a restaurant, a liquor store, a pizza joint and a pub. New Zealand is like that {at least all the towns and cities I have seen on the North Island} – except for the main cities like Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and some smaller cities, where there is heaps of life and activity, the country side is pretty quite. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not but life is definitely really uncomplicated and possibly depressing. Maybe that’s the reason why people flock to the bigger places – Auckland alone holds 1/3^rd of NZ’s population. We did get our pizza from Four Fish and they were yummy. We got back to the lodge and finished the rest of the pizza and this time Tarekh decided to stay back in the room to catch up some rest while Anna, Lance and me headed off to the lounge where we played table tennis while waiting for the rugby game between All Blacks and Springboks to start. I won most of the table tennis games – which we played before and after the rugby game. There was also this wonderful game which was in the lounge. It had 4 handles with a button on top and in the centre of the base was a light area and as soon as you hit start the red light would blink on and off - the idea was that you had to hit your button first as soon as the red light turned green and if you hit your button before it turned green or if you were the last person to hit your button after it turned green then you would get a mild electric shock. I got the shock a few times and was afraid to play the game afterwards but it was addictive and heaps of fun.

All of us took a break and watched the rugby match which the All Blacks won, thus keeping their chances of winning the Tri-nations cup alive. It is surprising how much I enjoy watching rugby now – 2 years back I did not like the game at all and it did not make sense to me as to why you have to pass your ball backward when the aim was to get the ball to move forward, also why the ball had to be oval shaped instead of round and lots of stuff like that but now I think I have come to know the rules of the game and thus enjoy it more. Here an All Blacks rugby game is equivalent to a one day cricket match in India {nations are so obsessed with their sports} – if the All Blacks loose their game, the nation goes into mourning and discussions. After the rugby game –we went back to playing table tennis and as we met up with other people who were staying at the lodge, we played some drinking games {not real drinking games since all of us were tired and all of us wanted to go snowboarding the next day as well} – which was heaps of fun.

We retired to our unit and I fell into deep sleep as soon as I hit the bed and started snoring and it was funny because Lance woke me up, so that I could change my sleeping position and I distinctly remember asking him if I was snoring and he said ‘Yes’ and I changed positions and started snoring again {Lance told me the next morning that I stopped snoring after a while}. So that was the end of my wonderful birthday.

The birthday which definitely stands on top of my list was when I was 13 years old {in 1990}. I had just come back to Delhi to stay with mom and dad, after being away from them for 4 years {3 years in a boarding school in Andhra Pradesh and a year with my second family i.e mom’s sister and her family}. Because of the different schooling system in North India- my birthday fell bang in the middle of our first term exams and on 28^th August, 1990 I had my Math’s exam. And if you know me – you will know how much I hate Math but being silly me I still decided to go ahead and celebrate my birthday. Both mom and dad asked me not to celebrate it on that day but postpone it till later but for some reason I was adamant and instead of preparing for my exam, I was hell-bent on celebrating. My parents relented and Dad took me on our scooter to get the birthday cake and I can still remember holding an umbrella over the cake while dad was getting drenched in the pouring rain while driving the scooter {monsoon season hits Delhi in August-September} around. I went ahead –invited my friends and celebrated the birthday. I was so tired after the event that I did not study and fell asleep and without surprise - I failed my Math’s exam the next day. I felt really horrible because I realized that what mom and dad were trying to say to me was the right thing to do but I ignored them and caused them so much inconvenience and pain, just because of my stubbornness and my desire to self-destruct at that point. Even though the immediate outcome of the birthday wasn’t pleasing at all, somehow that event has stayed with me ever since and probably shaped me as a person because after that moment of realization something in me changed and I guess I value that one event more than anything else because it taught me quite a few things about life. Before you think that I am full of shit, I will return to the present time and space.

Sunday was another glorious day and this time around instead of snowboarding, I decided to just go to the upper slopes of the mountain for sight seeing and that’s where I got some wicked photographs. The funny incident which happened was that I was asked for my ID while getting some beer for Lance and myself - I was stunned for a moment because here I was having turned 28 and I am being asked to prove that I am over 18 years of age. I joked about it with the bar girl and asked her if I should take it as a compliment -she served me the drinks without insisting on my ID after that. A similar incident had happened at Turangi -the evening before, when we got some beers for the night and I was asked for my ID to prove my age. Really - do I look 18 or are people blind?

Since we had to return to Auckland the same evening, we left the Mountain by afternoon, came back to the lodger – packed up and left back for Auckland. The trip back was shorter because we took a shorter route and we had heaps of fun playing a random game Lance invented. Lance said the first person to see a deer on the route back wins a point and we ignored it for half the journey and out of nowhere Lance shouts out the deer, which were in a farm. It was bizarre but really funny and from that point we added so many improbable things to the list and I must admit that Lance won that game. He was able to spot a hawk, a cat, a person carrying a bucket, a bike, a black sheep among other things. The funniest moment was trying to find a person carrying a bucket- we drove for at least 80 odd K.M’s but could not find a person carrying a bucket and I was frustrated and shouted “Something is wrong with NZ if no one carries buckets around anymore” and at the same instance Lance spotted a person carrying a yellow bucket – it was just a really funny coincidence as he spotted a black sheep right after that.

Overall it was a unique trip and definitely something I enjoyed heaps. Now that I am back to civilization -I face the consequences of not having my cell phone ‘ON’ over the weekend. The whole of Monday went into finishing off the paperwork for NZQA and I hope it is finally out of the way for sometime because it definitely makes me brain dead.

The netball game was really close and we lost 28-25. We played really well as a team and we lost those crucial points in the last quarter. Our second round draw has been drawn out and we are playing the same team again the first thing in the next round – so should be fun knowing what their strengths and weaknesses are but have the challenge of not having most of our core team.

I just signed off on the DVD design for the NZ/Australia market, to be released by Arkles Entertainment. Dealing with John Davies has been a real pleasure because he is an open person and is really straight forward – he implemented all the suggestions I had for the improvements in design and that kind of thing is really rare with the distributors. So I am excited on how the movie will fare in the local market.

Anyway, I think it has been a pretty long update as I promised and I think I should stop now.

Till later,
Amit

posted by Amit @ 11:43 PM 1 Comments

Back

A real small update as I am barely able to keep my eyes open - a longer update is on the cards.. but for now a couple of pics which will make you want that bigger update.

posted by Amit @ 11:24 PM 0 Comments

Break

The past 3 days at school have been spent locked away in a room, doing paperwork for NZQA requirements for Diploma status to the course....not literally locked away - the tutors just took over the production office. It has been tiring, refreshing, frustrating, maddening and fun at the same time. Most of the stuff is done and I am sure that all the tutors will heave a big sigh of relief once the documentation is sent off.

Today, we had a guest lecture by Kim Waugh- the vice president of post production services at Warner Bros. The guest lecture was arraged for by Olivia - one of the editors this year. It was a really cool lecture and I think personally I got heaps more insight into the studio functioning as well as the post production challenges and workflow in a studio environment. Listening to Kim speak - it again reaffirmed my thoughts that I really do want to be making films all my life.

Just finished watching Shrek-2 and it was alright -it had its moments but it never reached the levels of 'Shrek'. The best part of Shrek-2 was 'Puss in Boots' voiced by Antonio Banderas. The music was not particularly inspiring and felt run of the mill and the story was alright - nothing special like the original.

I got to see the sample poster which Arkles Entertainment will be sending to video stores across the country and also the newly designed DVD slick and I must say that I like the poster - which promotes 2 independent kiwi films ['Futile Attraction' {a comedy} & 'Memories of Tomorrow' {a thriller} ] as both the movies will be released on the same day. While the DVD slick will need some more work to include the selection into new film festivals as well as the awards we won at MCF and some more quotes from the new reviews. But overall it is a unique design and will definitely catch people's eye. On an unrelated note - an italian distributor contacted me, evincing interest in picking up the right for 'Memories' for the italian market - I put them onto York Entertainment who are handling the international sales and distribution for the movie now. Let's hope that something positive shapes up on that front.

I think the next set of updates will not be till Monday or maybe Sunday evening if I get back early. I am going with Lance and a couple of his friends, down to Mount Ruapehu to go snowboarding/skiing, over the weekend. The catch is that I don't know either, so I guess it would be a good experience learning something new and basically getting out of Auckland and getting a complete system cleansing.

Adios for now, hopefully the next post will have some photos from the trip and obviously the experiences.

Amit

posted by Amit @ 11:09 PM 0 Comments

Control Room

I just got up from watching 'Control Room' and it is a riveting watch. This is a must watch documentary, especially if you are in America and it really shows how biased all media centres are and how there is no more 'objectivity' anymore. And this in combination with the other documentary which I wrote about in some post ages ago - 'Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's war on Journalism' - just confirms the point. It is one thing being patriotic and the other thing being completely ignorant and playing into the hands of media.


Click on the poster to visit the official website for the documentary

Anything I write or say will be meaningless till you have seen this documentary and I would highly recommend it to anyone who dares to look at the truth and put foolish patriotism aside and consider the human cost of war. Every single thing makes a difference -one voice may not make a difference but it can definitely start a revolution. The most important thing is that lives are being lost on both sides and by wanting to bomb each other and destroy each other is never going to be a solution to anything.

Or are we living in a world which is hell bent on destroying itself? An illusion which is collapsing in on itself??

Amit

posted by Amit @ 9:58 PM 1 Comments

Surprise

I was reading the complete festival update of Microcinema Festival on John Oak Dalton's blog {John OD is one of the founders of Microcinema Scene} when I ran across a surprise photograph.


What is so significant about it??? Well - if you look closely, one of the main photographs is a production still from our second day of production on 'Memories'. I am attaching the original pic down below so that you know I am not fibbing. This particular photograph is me visualizing something while explaining it to Richard -this was on our shoot in Onehunga late into the afternoon.



So yeah it means that we are famous in USA..heeheee..No, not really. I am just kidding. It is cool though that Microcinema Festival got some good coverage and that we were part of that as well.

Yesterday, got another pleasent surprise. We were scheduled onto another netball match and we won the game 26-10, which is a really exciting feeling. I can safely say that my shooting on Sunday was not a fluke and there is a definite improvement in my shooting standards {I missed some easy ones though}.

I finished the final checks on the DVD master and sent it over to the local distributor. So hopefully - it will pass the tech checks and get approved for duplication. At this stage it looks like both US distributor as well as NZ distributor are planning to release the DVD on the same date {by coincidence} in October. I can't wait to see what kind of slicks both of them come up with.

Watched 'Tears of the Sun' yesterday evening because that was the only thing watchable on TV and I don't know if I like it or not - there were some aspects which I really liked a lot - like not having a romantic connection between the leads, not trying to go for over the top hollywood action movie, some fantastic cinematography but the things which did not quite work for me were Monica Belluci as the doctor combined with the way the movie tends to become preachy at times. Overall - i would say it was a worthwhile watch but only if you can handle some brutality.

The other interesting thing on TV was the debate between Helen Clarke, NZ's current PM and Dr. Don Brash, the leader of National Party {the leading opposition party}. Politics is such a bitch. I didn't really enjoy the debate that much because it looked like a sham. Anyway I am not in a mood to talk about politics at all.

Ciao,
Amit

posted by Amit @ 5:55 PM 0 Comments

Salads

It has been a beautiful weekend. Lovely weather and what do I do –sleep for most of the weekend. :-) I had planned to be more productive, which included designing Lance’s section of the website but I did nothing except enjoy reading Sandman {I have finished reading the entire series} . It is not often that a popular character gets their story to end in comic book series {how would you feel if there was only a limited story series of say ‘Batman’ or ‘Superman’ and the story for that character ends after that series??}. ‘Sandman’ is without doubt one of the notable exceptions – and I really love it for that. The series is enchanting, thrilling, awe inspiring and definitely makes you think. I am sure that the comic publisher would have started spin-offs from the series but there is no better satisfaction to see a story reach its conclusion. It is a must read, if you can get your hands on it.

Over the past week and half I was conducting my own set of ratings as far as chicken salad at different fast food joints is concerned. Since I tend to eat fast food often I decided that I will try and pick up only salads to improve the green content in my diet, so I picked up grilled chicken salad from all major fast food outlets I visited and here is my list in order of preference {as if that makes any difference to you}

Wendy’s: The best thought out salads and really yummy. I wasn’t expecting much and was pleasantly surprised with the variety of salads combined with the value for money.
Nandos: Yummy. The best grilled chicken salad I had but came second because it is costlier than the rest by about a dollar-dollar fifty cents but well worth the price.
McDonalds: Surprising it came third, considering that I have avoided McDonald’s ever since I came to NZ{I must have eaten at McD about 6 times in 2.5 years}. Good taste and value for money.
Subway: It is like eating a subway footlong minus the bread. Good choice of sauces.
KFC: It looks like an assortment of different things and the packaging hampers enjoying the salad. I ate the potato salad separate from the greens and ate the chicken separate from the greens.
Burger King: Surprisingly my least favorite salad was from BK. It is almost as if they offered salad as an after thought.

Earlier yesterday, I got to a meeting early and it was an interesting experience sitting at a café on K’road, watching the people walk by – almost every person had a story written all over them. Sitting there all I could see was how culture is what we make it to be – we, the people, make a culture of the society. Society is such a strange concept and everything almost seems like an illusion –an illusion that every individual holds on to because our very world view and sanity depends on it.

The netball game was exciting – it was a tie, the score read 16-16. A low scoring game and it was a real thriller because we were winning for the first 3 quarters and then one of our defender went down with a twisted ankle and after that we were struggling to keep the lead. The last shot in the dying minutes was by the opposition and that shot did not go in otherwise we would have lost the game. So it was a lucky shave and I think we were happy with the draw. The good thing, on the personal side, was that one of the small 'aiming' mechanisms in my head seemed to click into place and my shooting ratio improved vastly – I think the only way from here is up.

Watched ‘Wedding Crashers’ after the netball game and it was a funny movie. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson were really funny. Rachel McAdams and Isla Fisher were a perfect fit for their roles. The movie was beautifully shot but it had story strands which went nowhere and slowed the pace of the movie down. But it was still one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time – I think it was way better than ‘Meet the Fockers’.

On a completely opposite end - I finally managed to track down a copy of 'Rushmore' and watched it. This was the second movie by Wes Anderson and a definite improvement over 'Bottle Rocket'- which still stands head and shoulders above most of the stuff coming out nowadays. The movie is a really pleasent watch and a moving experience. This is well crafted cinema and a pleasure to spend time with. Obviously as with all of Wes Anderson's films - you either like them or you don't and I have to admit that I really like his style and humor and quirkiness. I think I prefer such movies over hollywood blockbusters - Wes Anderson's movies have their own niche audience and does not find the need to conform to the 'formula'.

Adios for now

Amit

Labels: Food, Graphic Novels, Movies

posted by Amit @ 8:19 PM 0 Comments

Brain Damage

You can live and die a lifetime in a moment. Over the past couple of days, I think I have had quite a few of those moments. At this point I am feeling brain damage after conducting tape operating practical exams for editors over the past 2 days.

Yesterday evening was fun - since Lance could not play netball for his office team {the merecat incident :-) }, I was roped in as his substitute and had heaps of fun playing. It was a thrilling game- we lost the game by 6 points: 32-26 and the thrill was that it was only in the last quarter that we lost some ground otherwise it was neck to neck. Tomorrow - I have my appointment with a physiotherapist, so will get to know what caused the back pain and how to make sure that the problem does not recur.

I have made up my mind - I think I will be making the next movie, even if I don't recieve any funding or money - it will be another microcinema effort. Till this point I was swinging back and forth in my head as to how I really wanted to do the movie. If I am able to raise funds well and good otherwise I have a lot many things to prove.

Another review for 'Memories' has come in -this time from eFilmCritic and it is a mixed review and has got a 3 star rating. It appreciates the goods and points out the weak points of the movie really well. In the words of David Cornelius, the reviewer- "A smart, impressive, and rather flawed indie production." You can check out the full review HERE.

Until later,
Amit

posted by Amit @ 6:27 PM 0 Comments

150

This will be the 150th post for me - nothing special but it is a round number and that always calls for some kind of celebration doesn't it??? No???


We lost our first grade group netbal game 34-26..it was an interesting game but our core team wasn't there for various reasons and it was a patch job..Lance could not do play because one of his fingers was bitten into by a merecat {which are supposed to be these tiny, cute animals}, when he was filming at the Auckland zoo... It is one of those incidents on which you crack up laughing sideways. Lance said he will try to get the footage of that because someone filmed it {afterall a whole bunch of school kids were watching and laughing as well} -while writing about this - it sounds bad but the best way to hear it is from Lance - if you ask nicely he might tell you without biting. (:-)

Went and saw 'Sin City' yesterday night, and the sound design was awesome. It is ground breaking in terms of technology but the movie felt a tad long -maybe I was tired.

Talking of movies - 'Memories' won 3 awards at Microcinemafest: Best Actress for Rachel, Best Editing for Benji and Best Director for me...it was exciting but I think they made a mistake on giving me the director award thingy -would have prefered a cinematography award for Lance but obviously the film which won the cinematography award must have been way better shot than 'Memories'... It is a good feeling getting some recognition for our efforts though.

Another significant thing is that Unkreative Artists Limited is officially a company from today -which is thrilling..baby steps... In something totally unrelated - I got talking to Miguel Coyula, the director of 'Red Cockroaches', another micro-cinema effort which started the revolution in a way {it won more than 20 awards and has had a huge success on the festival circuit}. He shared a small scene from his new movie "Memories of Overdevelopment" with me and I was totally blown away by the visuals, the mood and rhythm and pacing.. That is a movie to keep an eye out for when it comes out. Incidentally RC is being released on DVD by Heretic Films at the end of December and I would suggest that you watch it - to see what a vision and a passion can achieve.

So comes an end to the momentous 150th post and there will be more to come further down.
Ciao,
Amit

posted by Amit @ 9:43 PM 0 Comments

Moviemaker

Man - I feel a lot better..The last time I wrote here I said I was feeling sick and I was indeed, I just recovered from the high fever I had over the past 2 days. I spent the whole of Friday and Saturday in bed, sleeping. It was bizarre - as I lost quite a bit of energy and felt dizzy whenever I got up to walk. It is only today that I feel a little bit of life coming back into me. Feeling fine now.



I have reached the half way mark with the Sandman series. It is compelling and extremely hard to put down. If you do get a chance, do read it - you won't be disappointed.

On the other hand, I am still eagerly waiting to hear what kind of reception 'Memories' got at Microcinema Festival. I think it makes a huge difference for me because that is a true grass roots level film festival and I am surprised that there are not more around in different countries. {Incidentally both Microcinemascene as well as Rewind Video - the co-organizers of Microcinema Festival got a good mention in 'Moviemaker' magazine as well...}.

Anyway - I better get back to 'Sandman'....Will update you if I get to know anything about 'Memories' reception or any further updates.

Ciao,
Amit

{P.S - Finally saw 'Mystic River' and liked the cinematography and acting but it was incredibly slow paced..a nice opposite from the hollywood blockbusters but a little too extravagant in it's extreme... }

posted by Amit @ 3:14 PM 1 Comments

Indie Flick

I had emailed Corey at independentfilm.com a month or so back, asking if he would be interested in giving us some press. He emailed me back, asking me to send him the movie. He watched it, liked it and did an interview with me. The interview is up and you can read it by clicking HERE

And while you are there, don't forget to click on the JVC banner, to check out the new JVC camera - it is also a favor for me, as Corey just got the sponsorship from JVC and they want to see how many people visit that website and being an independent film website, getting sponsorships to keep your passion going is extremely hard. So it would be cool if you do click on the JVC link while you are there.

David came over today and handed me his entire collection of the Sandman series and I am thrilled to bits. It will be lots of reading. Feeling sick right now - must be something that I ate. I will get off from the laptop - just incase I puke all over the machine. :-)

Amit

posted by Amit @ 9:37 PM 0 Comments

Life

I am writing this post with great difficulty as it is hard to put my emotion into words. We sometimes don't really realize how lucky we are - to be alive, to be walking, talking and breathing normally. Today, sat in on an interview for a potential student who wants to study at South Seas and to say that the interview was ,internally, heart breaking would be an understatement. The person who came in for the interview is extremely talented, has a superb visual eye for composition and wants to specialize in camera but he had a horrible accident nine years back {for no fault of his} and now everyday is a challenge for him - can't reveal anything more than that but have to say that it was heart breaking seeing that person fight his way through life - quietly but firmly. It just opened up my eyes to how fragile life really is and life isn't fair at all. It is not fair.

And as I think on how to end this post - i just went into a 10 minute contemplation session. That's how you can describe me whenever I think of today's interview - thinking, questioning, doubting..... Why?????????

Amit

{P.S - I managed to squeeze everything onto DVD-5 - just....now am fixing the menu colours and the DVD will be ready}

posted by Amit @ 9:06 PM 1 Comments

Snoreeeeeeeeeee

I can hear the neighbours living downstairs snore...how?? well that person is an incredibly loud snorer. It took me a good half an hour after I decided to go to sleep to drown out the snoring sound. Incidentally - bumped into that person today evening as they were trying to find the electricity meter. His name is Charles and he is from Zimbawabe and teaches public health and administration at AUT {Auckland University of Technology} - it was a pleasent chat but that did not change the fact that I am amused that a person can snore so loud.

Speaking of which - another funny incident happened. I was trying to get in touch with Ryan, to tell him that I will be putting Gina's music video on the NZ DVD of 'Memories' but got connected to a complete stranger - in wellington... Found out later that Ryan had lost his cellphone and had given up that particular number but then bumped into Ryan later at school. Coincidences and accidents.

The whole day went into meetings and later on into sorting out some jobs which have come up. Also tried doing the test DVD but it has come to 4.5GB - fractionally over the desired limit, so i will have to redigitize some stuff and compress it even harder, to make sure that we manage to get the DVD under the limit.

Things are hotting up in NZ with elections just round the corner and National Party unveiling their immigration policy - "If immigrants don't like the way we do things in New Zealand, then they chose the wrong country to migrate to." Don Brash seems to have joined the ranks with Winston Peters - another politician with an extremist ideology. And surprsingly this comes in when fresh stastics show that population in NZ is close to static. Just makes one wonder whom these politicians are targetting???

Off to listen to the wonderful snoring from the neighbour downstairs from my room- i mean, going off to bed for now.

Amit

posted by Amit @ 8:37 PM 3 Comments

Unarmed and Dangerous?

"We are still an unarmed police force." says Police Association president Greg O'Connor. Why is that statement so significant?? well - frontline police in NZ are being trained in the use of military-style semi-automatic rifles and are to trial a 50,000-volt stun gun - and that is when they don't even carry those weapons on them. Unarmed eh???? Just the rebirth of a police state I suppose.

We lost our netball game by 30-17 but we have already been graded and our league matches begin from next week. So let's see how that goes.

I finished preparing the menus and gave all the assets over to Matt, so that he can now help in creating the master DVD. The challenge is that with the special features and the audio commentary tracks and the option to switch to a 5.1 surround sound system - we are in serious space constraints with a DVD-5 and so Matt is helping sort it out.

More stuff happening on completely unrelated projects and will probably write about it once something is more concrete and worth writing.

Bye for now
Amit

posted by Amit @ 9:24 PM 2 Comments

Sandman

Just finished reading 'Sandman: Doll's House' as well as 'Sandman: Dream Country'. It is compulsive reading, once you start off the books, you can't really put them down. Another 7 more volumes to go - just have to find them somehow. :-)

A new review for 'Memories' has appeared on Extraordinary Movie and Video Guide and you can read the review HERE.

It has been a relaxing Sunday and haven't done anything at all. Now just need to sort out some stuff for making the DVD for 'Memories'.

Ciao,
Amit

posted by Amit @ 5:55 PM 0 Comments

Saturday

And the back is still paining...rang up a hospital which advertised that they deal with sports injuries and such -gave them a ring to hear that they don't have a physiotherapist and they are not upto handling such cases...thats the state of customer care in NZ. meaning - customer care is a shocker here...things never change and it still never fails to surprise me, even after 2 years here. NZ has a lot to learn about marketing and customer care.

The music video has been signed off and delivered...which is fantastic as it was our first paid gig. I have uploaded the music video and you can watch it HERE. It is a 20MB video, so will take time to load up. There is also a hi-rez 36MB version located here.

Today I bumped into Juliet - who did the course with me at South Seas and was one of my directors in the end of year projects. I had edited her doco 'An Asian in My Stable' {i divided into 2 parts and uploaded it onto my section and you can check out 'Part-1' and 'Part-2' by clicking on the links} and that doco always brings back fond memories as it was heaps of fun and Juliet did teach me the importance of giving an editor the creative freedom while editing. The doco was shot by Lance and it was just a beautiful doco to edit. She is currently working as production manager at 'Top of the Pops' and enjoying it.. It was definitely exciting seeing people from our year going places.

Mixed down both the audio commentaries with the movie sound - Benji's as well as the one which Lance and me recorded. I think it will be a good DVD..Benji's track rocks and it definitely gives insight into the editing side of things while the commentary track which Lance and me did was more a geek's point of view. The thing I found while listening to the track was that I tend to say 'actually' quite a bit...hope people don't get irritated if someone accidentally does switch on the commentary track. The NZ DVD rental release is definitely scheduled for October and i am excited. Matt will be helping out making the master DVD - which is cool because need to cram everything in into the DVD-5 video and space will be a big constraint.

I had to fire off a copy of the movie by fedex to Rio International Film Festival as they said they would be interested in having a look at 'Memories' for consideration. I don't know if I should expect anything from it because all the international festivals till now have given 'Memories' a pass, so just have to keep fingers crossed and see if they like it enough to screen it. The thing I am excited about though is Microcinema Fest which begins from August 8th. If you are living anywhere near Chicago - do drop into the festival to support grass roots film making.

Saw 'Blade: Trinity' yesterday and was thoroughly disappointed - it was bad. The website was fantastic and it was one of my favorite websites because it built up the characters really nicely for the movie. The movie itself comes off as a stupid exercise in blowing up vehicles and making money..the storyline was as thin as it could get.

I finished reading 'Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes' and it was fantastic...really good and i would say it is visual literature rather than being a comic. I have started reading the next TBP 'Sandman: The Doll's House' and it is Part-2 of a 10 part series. Neil Gaiman's world is fascinating. I would highly recommend anyone who is vaguely interested in reading.

And yeah, as a sign off note for today: if you have seen 'Memories', please do vote for it on imdb.com. The movie page is located HERE. You do need to be registered on imdb.com {which is free}. Most of the details about the movie are already up and the poster will be put up as soon as the american distributor finalizes it and announces the release date. But yeah - do vote for the movie if you get a chance.

Amit

posted by Amit @ 8:53 PM 0 Comments

New Pain

The back pain which was there last week has returned and it is just painful. It is exhausting trying to put a facade of normality with the pain, so much so that I crashed asleep as soon as I came back home, which is pretty unusual but hey thats life. I will go to a physiotherapist if it doesn't go away by tomorrow.

We won our netball game yesterday and the score stood at 26-17. It was really exciting, being able to finally get back into the groove and with the team functioning like a unit...made some mistakes but overall it was cohesive.

A new review for the movie has come out for 'Memories' on an independent and b-movie website called Cinema Nocturna. You can check out the review by clicking HERE.

Talked to the film commission today at any possiblities of support for independent film makers to travel to atleast one film festival but it does not exist. So that's that.

I have uploaded selected pics from the music video shoot which we did recently for Mo'Reece. You can check out the pics HERE

I am off for now as the pain isn't getting any better.
Amit

posted by Amit @ 10:24 PM 0 Comments