Short..
Past few days have dissolved into website design -
Lance's website is now completely functional {be sure to check out the wonderful photographs which Lance has captured} and did a minor redesign to the
unkreative website and updated sections of
my website - that almost completes the website design part of my 'to do' list - now I just need to start designing a website for 'Nowhere to Love'.
I have encoded the TV Spots which I put together for South Seas Film School and have put them up on my
portfolio page {look at the bottom right of the page}. They are currenty screening on
Alt.TV, which is the latest free to air music channel broadcasting in Auckland.
Sunday was a happy day but today have been feeling crook. It has been really windy and chilly today but I biked to work and back and I suspect that cycling without proper weather cover might have had something to do with me catching a cold. I watched '
The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse' yesterday evening and it was really bad. I don't know what they were trying to do or maybe they were exclusively targetting the original TV shows audience because I didn't get into the story one least bit - it felt like self-indulgence of some kind. Definitely a not recommended watch.
Anyway will sign off for now as I can't seem to write or think cohesively with the constant sneezing.
Bye for now,
Amit
Movies and Design
Technically it was the end of the school year yesterday {post production department carries on till December 9th}, so it feels like a closure for this year but not really. It will be an interesting next week with the last intro course for the year scheduled in and this time I am going to try something different - just have to see if it works or not.
It has been a lazy saturday (but not exactly a sane one). Watched a couple of movies - '
When will I be loved' and '
Appleseed' , read a mini series '
Hardboiled' ; had a company meeting with Lance and finished designing most of
Lance's website. So it wasn't totally unproductive.
'When will I be loved' played across as an average contained independent film. Some of the editing style was interesting in parts but the use of music was kind of irritating. Overall the movie doesn't overstay its welcome and cruises along nicely. 'Appleseed' was fascinating in pushing the boundaries of animation. The animation is absolutely stunning and the landscape looks so real.
The reason the day wasn't sane was because I got woken up at 3.00 AM in the morning. One of my flatmates ex-girlfriends turned up drunk and started banging on the door. My flatmate got up a minute before me and opened the door and he was as pissed off as me. He handled the situation as best as a person could when they are half asleep but terribly angry. There is a fine line between love and obsession and some people fail to recognize it. I could not go back to bed for another couple of hours though as my deep sleep was broken, so I wasn't feeling 100% happy when i finally did wake up in the morning. But I guess it equated itself in the end.
Got more stuff to design tomorrow - so hopefully it will be a little more productive than today.
Adios for now,
Amit
Meisner.....
It has been a really interesting evening. I was talking to Richard - the lead actor in 'Memories', a couple of days back and we were talking about acting among other things when Richard asked me if I would like to come along to one of the acting classes given by Michael Saccente, who teaches the Meisner Technique here in Auckland. I was thrilled at the idea and asked Richard if he could arrange for it (which he graciously did) and today evening I got the chance to go and watch one of the sessions.
It was a wonderful experience and I learnt heaps of stuff just watching and it also gave me some crazy ideas about directing and also about approaching any particular scene. It was kind of Michael to have allowed me to just sit in the class and observe. Michael is incredibly open and honest and has a unique teaching style. It was nice to be able to see the students react so positively to his comments or criticism and try to improve themselves. The couple of hours I did spend there were great and I think I need to sleep on the experience and assimilate and process the information and things that i picked up there.
Anyway I will hit the sack as I can barely keep my eyes open at this stage.
Adios,
Amit
Mid-week
The flame burns high for a moon that is but a world awayFollowing are some more pics from the crazy hat party at Lance's on Saturday - I can't believe it is already through Wednesday.
Burning Red, Burning blue but burning still
Some of the netball team-mates - Jo (black jacket), Bronwyn and me {besides Jo is her partner}
Lance's crazy viking head gear - I swear he could have walked straight into 10th century and blended right into that society.There are way too many pics to put up here, I will upload them once I get some time over the next week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday just disappeared into a pile of meetings. I got the replacement '
Serenity' comics {published by Dark Horse comics} today and finished reading them - they tie into the movie nicely and now the movie makes more sense in terms of how some of the central characters, like Inara and Sheperd Book have left - '
Serenity' and join in later into the movie.
I think that is the update from me for now.
Cheers,
Amit
From Hell
I finished reading '
From Hell' by Alan Moore and it was a really dense read and there are parts where you cringe at the thought of looking at the next frame. The movie adaptation starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham was absolute trash compared to the graphic novel. I don't think I will read it again - too painful. The other graphic novel I finished today was '
The Last American' - which was depressing to read because it shows a reality that could be possible.
The book I have started reading now is '
Sound Recording & Reproduction' by Glyn Alkin - which is an interesting read. I would recommend it to anyone interested in sound, which incidentally seems to be an area which is usually neglected in the overall scheme of the camera, lighting, audio department.
Amit
Batman v/s Superman
Two superhero franchises reborn: Batman and Superman, and there is nothing more thrilling than the prospect off these two superheros colliding against each other on film {they have already done so in comics - several times}. And why this random thought? Well - the teaser trailer for
Superman Returns has been released online and comparing it to the teaser trailer for
Batman Begins - it is hard not to notice the most obvious thing - Bruce Wayne as a kid falls to the ground while Clark Kent as a kid doesn't. And that one incident alone defines how different the two heros are in terms of psyche and motivations. It would be great to have a clash of the titans with opposing view points of the world, especially when Warner Bros. own both the franchises. Btw - the teaser for Superman Returns is kind of cool but it is way short for a teaser and the music is over the top - maybe the teaser will play better in a big theatre instead of the computer. Between the two I prefer the teaser trailer for Batman Begins.
Today has been a day of redeeming the free vouchers for different things: a free drink at Starbucks {thanks Deb} and couple of free products from
Sanitarium {because something I bought turned out to be bad and they gave free vouchers to make up for it}. Besides that haven't got anything major happening except for a crazy hat party at Lance's place later tonight. And obviously thinking and planning for 'Nowhere to Love' which has now become a major part of my psyche.
As a signoff note I have made changes to the blog, so that one doesn't have to be a member of blogger to post comments.
Bye for now,
Amit
The Constant Gardner
I have finally figured out what kind of animal I am - according to the
chinese animal zodiac sign I am a snake but everything points me to being
a porcupine - no, not as in the chinese signs but in the real sense of the world. I think there are no illusions from my side there.
I just returned from watching '
The Constant Gardner' and it was a mesmerizing experience. The colours are vivid as the camera captures the rawness of africa along with the coldness of the civilized world, the editing is fantastic and so is the acting - both by Rachel Weisz as well by Ralph Fiennes. It is romantic, it is political and it doesn't shy away from seeing the various faces of human psyche. Emotionally - there are points where the movie does dip and goes for the bigger picture instead of holding onto the personal touch but it soon returns to what it does best and ends in one of the most beautiful and painful settings possible. A must watch.
I got heaps of stuff in mail today - a few copies of NZ DVD of 'Memories' ; a book I ordered from amazon.com {
Contracts for Film & TV by Mark Litwak}; a $10 cheque from DNA Film Festival in Canada {one of the kindest gestures I have seen from a film festival}; a few books from a friend.
The script for 'Nowhere to Love' has come through. It is a lovely little story and is worth being told and i can see it as being a memorable experience. So here in starts the journey. If you eager to know what it is about then I guess you will have to wait for it to be made and released. I will now get back to reading the script again.
Ciao,
Amit
Conspiracy
Conspiracy seems to be the theme for the day - I watched '
Spartan' - a movie by David Mamet and read a 6 part mini-series titled '
Badlands' . Spartan was a nice movie - definitely under rated but still a really nice movie. Everything about the movie is spot on and it does tell the story in a different way and never spoon feeds anything {which could be the reason why it did not do well at the box office}. Val Kilmer delivers a top notch performance which lifts the movie up several places. Badlands was an interesting read and it definitely hits you hard because of the art work combined with story telling. I watched '
Motorcycle Diaries' again and it was still touching and uplifting and a great movie to see again - it has a magical quality which is hard to define.
Benji sent over some pics from Zion National Park where Zion Independent Film Festival was held - to view more of the pics you can visit
Benji's website. What a glorious setting!!!
Also find the links to the teaser poster for 'Nowhere to Love' in different screen resolutions.
Driving on the motorway can become monotonous and all you are paying attention to is driving - I was in a similar state when the mini truck in front of me caught my eye. It said "Our business is in the shit". I was amused and went into the other lane to see the side of the truck, to find out which business openly proclaims that there company is in shit. It turned out that they were in the business of cleaning drainages, so there business was literally in the shit :-)
Good night,
Amit
WOF
A really small update: It has been a thrilling day - in a manner of speaking, I finished the second major phase of the paperwork at school and now there is only 1 set left to go. I think the thrill of finishing a major task drowns the struggle it takes to get there.
My car also managed to get a warrant of fitness for another 6 months and it is always a major thrill when it does pass the warrant. The promo for the record label is on and we will be doing that sometime over the next couple of weeks.
Signing off for now on a happy happy note.
Amit
Miracleman
I finished reading the whole series of 'Miracleman' - well as many as they came out with. I found
this link which provided the answer to why 'Miracleman: Silver Age' ends abruptly after the first 2 issues {note - silver age was written by Neil Gaiman}. Alan Moore is a downright visionary and combined together - 'V for Vendetta'; 'Swamp Thing'; 'Watchmen' and 'Miracleman' put him in stratosphere. And I still haven't had the chance to read 'From Hell' or 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' and based on the comics that I have read till now I can't wait to get my hands of those 2 series.
It has been a lazy and rainy sunday, to say the least. I had a long survey with a gentleman who had dropped in from the Stastics department {5000 new immigrants every year are selected for the survey}, which was like any other survey but the chat afterwards with the gentleman was really interesting. Currently I am in talks with the record label (for whom we did the earlier music video) to do a promo video and also another music video for them - will let you know how it shapes up. For now another poem as my sign-off
The bright yellow rustling
licking the colours into black.
Unwashed by the tears of heaven
The circle comes full
Raising life.
Eternally basic
Eternally morphing.
Amit
{Update - Just watched '
Nothing' - a canadian film and had mixed feelings. Interesting concept but flawed implementation and it definitely overstays its welcome. Still it was an interesting experiment, which is rare in mainstream films.}
Pieces of April
Just got up from watching '
Pieces of April' - a digital indie film {shot on a Sony PD150 but had a budget of US$ 300,000} and it was a lovely movie. It is a small but personal movie and the characters are well drawn out. I have seen Katie Holmes in 2 movies now - 'Batman Begins' and now 'Pieces of April' and I must say that her performance in 'POA' is atleast 10 times better than 'BB'.
As promised, here is the preview of the teaser poster for our second movie, '
Nowhere to Love'
{working title} and it is a quirky comedy, written by Jordan Harmon. I will be putting up a downloadable bigger sized teaser poster sometime soon {it does make an awesome desktop background}. Hope you enjoy the teaser and would love to hear your comments on it.
Finished reading 'Nick Fury v/s SHIELD' - it provided for an interesting read but half way into the mini series I did not like the dumbing down and the sudden turn into an outlandish plot. I think it was a way that Marvel Comics found to make a profit out of a closing down a dying series. The next series I have started reading is '
Miracleman' -written by Alan Moore and it is turning out to be a great read.
Benji is representing 'Memories' at Zion Independent Film Festival and also speaking on a panel for low budget independent film making, so eagerly waiting for an update (and maybe some photos) from him on how the movie went at the festival.
I still have to make a detailed plan for the trip to India. Maybe should get onto it soon, especially since the trip is now only a month away. I did drop in an email to
Ramoji Film City (the world's largest film production complex) in Hyderabad, to see if they would like to show us around their facilties and got a prompt reply back saying that they would be happy to show us around and that we should set aside atleast 5 hours for looking at the technical facilties. So that is one day of the trip planned out. (:-)
As a sign-off here is a link to a
useful software, which I stumbled onto while searching for a way to convert normal video files into PSP video files {for trying to experiment with creating a UMD copy of 'Memories'}.
Ciao,
Amit
Fly
I went and watched 'Serenity' again- and this time the sound was a whole lot better and I did enjoy the movie a lot more but overall I think 'Serenity' is just an OK movie. I enjoyed the T.V series, 'Firefly', a lot more because it was unexpected, it was funny and it was charming but somehow the charm is missing from the movie. And I do hate it when characters tell you part of the story instead of letting the silence speak the words and there are a fair few dumb moments like that. I guess my gripe is that they decided to sacrifice the character arc of the more interesting characters to make a saleable movie. Don't get me wrong - there are unexpected twists and turns in the movie and a fair bit of humor injected into the movie but somehow the overall storyline feels cut down and compacted. It doesn't feel right or maybe I have overgrown the 'Serenity' universe. It has been a month and half and no sign of the 3 part 'Serenity' comics that I had ordered, so I dropped in an email to TFAW and they will be resending the comics as the earlier ones have been presumed 'lost in transit'.
The next movie that I am eagerly waiting for is 'The Constant Gardner' - which releases next week. I finished a major chunk of paperwork at school and now have another 2 big chunks to go through - I am hoping that I will finish it before the end of this year, so that it doesn't go across to the next year. I didn't actually feel like updating because I am feeling brain dead but thought I would write something to show that I am alive and still kicking.
Over the course of last week I had one of my nightmares {which I remember from last week} come to life -literally and I did feel lucky coming out of it unharmed. It is weird having a deja vu but it gets even weirder when stuff actually happens as you saw it in your dreams. It is almost as if our mind does travel into the future as well as past in its subconscious state.
I think I will take leave for now before I confirm your feeling that I am full of shit.
Amit
Anguish
Continuing on the recent spat of poems I seem to have spewed out - another one:
The path has become lost
for the eyes which grow old.
For a road which was clear
till a moment gone.
A dream does exist deep in
Illusion of the reality.
Motion charted
to maintain its own.
Different garbs fall apart.
Naked and confused
standing in the middle
Of the ageless time.
None fitting the temporal.
The vision goes blurred
Drowned by resonating screams
unheard by the billion.
Common to become
the beautiful.
The torment, the love
the dreams, the real
engulfed in a ball of fire
that nay exists.
The interview I did with TAKE magazine has now been published and is also available to read online
HERE. The days have grown longer because of summer but my days at school seem to feel shorter because of the workload.
Adios,
Amit
Wheatgrass
Yeah..I know what a strange thing to write about -
wheatgrass (???) . I went to the local juice bar and instead of ordering the normal juice I have I decided to try something new and ordered a shot of wheatgrass, yep- a shot {as in a shot of vodka}. I was tempted by the board at the juice bar which stated
the benefits of wheatgrass and man - it was good but strange at the same time {the taste did not leave my mouth till 6 hours after} . If you haven't tried it, definitely worth a try. I will be having it more often I think.
It has been a sleepy sunday and the things I managed to do was read someone's script to give feedback, read a four part mini-series called 'Score' published by Piranha Press {it is set in a corrupt near-future Hollywood and it was a fascinating read}, designed the first draft of the teaser poster{will share it once I have approval from the core creatives involved}, wrote another poem{will share it in a couple of days} and that's about it... Not too productive but not wasteful either.
Will take leave for now.
Ciao,
Amit
Slightly visible
Lance and me went trying to get some images for the teaser poster for the next movie. We got lucky and I think there is one image which is striking and I am currently working on it to make a concept poster. But besides that I am in talks with another person to design a teaser poster and if that works out then should be able to share it sometime soon.
Not a day for sailing
An image which Lance took while trying out compositionsOther than that don't really feel like writing much on a rainy night with fireworks going off all over the place {makes it feel like 'War of the Worlds' - the fireworks in the rain clouds creates a unique distorting effect}
Amit
Invisible
The alone man on the invisible island stands.
Looking at the wonderlands.
For the signs of recognition,
From beyond.
The gaze goes long and wide,
looking at the friends and strangers passing by.
Not a glimmer of love
or hatred,
Does he recognize.
The cry goes high,
and the tears roll by.
Knowing not a sign of breath.
As the ship passes the invisible island by,
where the lonely man smiles a knowing smile.
Amit
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
I received a phone call from
SPADA early this evening telling me that I have narrowly missed out on being one of the finalists for this year’s New Filmmaker Award at SPADA this year. It is kind of cool that atleast that they personally rang me to tell the news and also explaining that the decision was really close as far as my application was concerned. Personally, I wasn’t expecting to be in the finals knowing well that I have been working in the industry only for the past 2 years and that particular award is open to anyone who has been working in the industry for 10 years or less and that there would have been more people deserving of the shot because of the time they have spent in the industry. But it is a good feeling knowing that I came that close and that our work did bring us some much needed attention in the industry. I guess I will apply again once I have some more projects under my belt. After all I am a new film maker for another 8 years. (:-)
What do you see?The past couple of days at school have been wrapped up in meetings and paperwork and I think I will be regaining some perspective by the end of this week, so that I can be a lot more productive. Sometimes it is really important to step back to look at the bigger picture.
The music video which we did for Mo'reece has been confirmed for Coke New Releases this Sunday on TV2. It's playing as a NZ fresh clip after the first ad break at the beginning of part 2 (sometime shortly after 10-30am). So that would be Unkreative Artists first music video on National TV.
I just returned from watching ‘
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang’ and it is a fun movie. It is kind of unpredictable, which provides the most fun in the movie and Robert Downey Jr. is the heart and soul of the movie – he is simply superb. Val Kilmer is his usual good self but Michelle Monaghan was alright, she did not create any extra magic and there is no chemistry between her and RDJ. It is the chemistry between Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. which keeps the movie going, along with RDJ’s incredible sense of comic timing. There are some classic scenes like when RDJ looses his finger for the second time; when he plays Russian roulette; when he hangs onto his life from a bridge in LA. The plot becomes dense and really convoluted very quickly and sitting there I was thinking I don’t really care for the plot – I just love seeing what these characters keep getting themselves into next.
There are couple of other things happening in relation to the next movie but I will save those updates till they become concrete. For now enjoy or curse the poem I was talking about recently{i was too lazy to update my section of the website} -
The BirdSet me free,
From the confines of my own mind.
For I dare dream.
Set me free,
From the single notes of music.
For I dare feel.
The half-ness of the whole.
The rising tides of uncertainty,
In the sea of calm.
Set me free.
The beating heart pumping harder.
For the junction of cross worlds,
Never to be.
Set me free.
Adios for now..
Amit
