Musings of an Idiot

Deja Vu

Just came back from a screening of 'Deja Vu' and it was an interesting movie. It is a sci-fi movie hidden in the form of a thriller. The movie did surprise me on how well it was made - it's only major flaw is it's story ending which gives the whole movie an unsatisfactory feel because of inherent questions raised. Time travel is always a hard thing topic to pull off on film and unfortunately this movie doesn't quite pull it off in that department - what is interesting though is how they treat time travel. It definitely sets out to do something different but then falls into the hollywood movie trap. It is a enjoyable watch nonetheless - if you put the time travel logic aside.

You would think I would be updating the blog more often - especially since I have finished my teaching job and have more time on my hands. Well - that ain't true - i mean with having loads of time on my hands - it has been an extremely busy week.

The green screen stuff went well on Wednesday and it definitely was a steep learning curve working with the HVX camera and P2 media. Later that evening I had a meeting with Anita, Marjan and Andy over the climax of act 2 of 'Five' which we have to film in January. It was a productive meeting and the story strands are coming together.

I had 2 afternoon shift training sessions at TVNZ on Thursday and Friday - which meant that my days were really long. I managed to squeeze in 4 hours of editing 'Five' in those 2 days and I am learning to pace myself - so I can still give a 100% to my training sessions. It is holiday season and I don't have any sessions worked out for further work at TVNZ next week, so I will have a full week dedicated to editing 'Five' - which should be heaps of fun.

My physio sessions were supposed to be complete yesterday but I have to go back once more in the new year for them to make sure that I am all fixed up. My neck and back are feeling heaps better and I am continuing the exercises I have been suggested to help the process.

'The Fountain' graphic novel that was resent to me by amazon.com - arrived in mail on Thursday and I read it straight away - it is fascinating. The story combined with the art work pull you into another world. I am not going to discuss the plot or the story because it is hard to explain the depth and philosophy in the story by trying to give a synopsis of it. It was a worthwhile purchase and I am now looking forward to the movie - when it gets released.

Nothing much else to update about for now.
Till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, Graphic Novels, HVX, Movies, P2, Physio, TVNZ

posted by Amit @ 11:04 PM 0 Comments

March of December

Another week gone screaming past and heaps of stuff has happened in the meantime. I am tired from today, so the order of things might be jumbled or sometimes incomplete or both.

I met up with some family friends who were traveling through Australia and New Zealand and had a few days stop over at Auckland. It was good catching up with them.

My swimming lessons are going well and I have 2 more classes left for the year and then will restart next year sometime. School is as hectic as ever. I am glad that I am leaving at the end of this year. I definitely need more time to myself.

I have finished digitizing all the 24 tapes and I have also digitized 2 of the 3 'Behind the Scenes' tapes. I have decided not to use the group clip/multi-cam edit mode in Avid for editing as it will slow the whole thing down and also give less creative movement with the edit. I will be treating it as a single cam edit (even though we shot with 2 cameras). I won't be sub-clipping the footage either as it is another time consuming process instead I will be using locators on the source footage to make the notes I need to edit.

I went and watched a Korean movie called 'The Host' yesterday evening. I didn't particularly like the movie - it is well made and executed but the Koreans have a weird story telling technique. I was constantly frustrated by the build-up of crucial scenes not coming to fruitation and the whole experience wasn't getting any better when the projector in the cinema kept going out of focus from time to time. The movie is well-made - very melodramatic and funny for a horror movie and the special effects are good but the movie just didn't do it for me. Benji on the other hand loves the movie - so you have to decide for yourself.

I had ordered 'The Fountain' from amazon a few weeks back and the book arrived on my doorstep this Saturday but I was dismayed to find that what I got wasn't a graphic novel but a movie tie-in book which had photos from the movie and the original screenplay of the movie. I was very disappointed and I gave amazon customer care a ring later in the evening to explain how I thought I was ordering the graphic novel but instead ended up ordering the movie tie-in book since both have the same description. They were understanding and sorted the stuff out for me. I get to keep the book I have and they will be sending me the graphic novel straight away - so am happy with their customer service.

My desk is almost tidied up and need to sort out the bunch of DVD's/CD's sitting there. My room isn't in too bad a shape - I just need to tidy up small bits and bobs. The next mission is tidying up the house - which has suffered from lack of attention through November because we were filming 'Five'. The 'To Do' list is currently sitting at 6 major things and I think this coming week will be focussed on reducing or completely crossing off the list (if I am lucky).

On a sign-off note I am amazed by articles like this "Single women ask' Where have the good fells gone?'"[and the supplementary article to it..]. Well I think if those single women get off their high horses and stopped being judgmental then they will find all the single guys they need. Typical female way of questioning things when things aren't going their way (shrugs his shoulder in disbelief and dismay).

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Avid, Five, Graphic Novels, Movies, Post Production, Random, Swimming

posted by Amit @ 8:25 PM 0 Comments

Restless..

I am just restless and wide awake. I don't feel one with the universe right now for some reason. There's got to be more to life than just this.

In my state of restlessness, I went and pre-ordered 'The Fountain' graphic novel edited by Darryn Afronsky from amazon.com (click on the image to pre-order if you feel like it). The back story is that the movie was originally supposed to star Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchet with a US$ 75 million budget but because of creative differences between Brad Pitt and the director - the movie got shut down. When the first version of the script was shelved and production was halted Aronofsky rewrote the script and re-envisioned the film. The first version of the script was turned into a graphic novel illustrated by Kent Williams.

The movie did get revived with half the original budget and new stars - Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. The movie opened to rave reviews and some infamous 'booing' at Venice Film Festival. Personally I can't wait to see this movie but it doesn't get released in NZ till Jan or Feb 2007. You can watch the trailer for the movie HERE.

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Graphic Novels, Introspection, Movies

posted by Amit @ 2:36 AM 0 Comments

League Extraordinaire

What a hectic weekend - transfer of houses is complete but now have to get the new place into shape. I carry too much shit - I tried chucking things away but I can't as I am down to the minimum. So now just trying to see where I can fit the stuff in.

The kitchen is fully functional now. Darryn helped me on Sunday morning to pick up a cheap second hand fridge and later in the day Benji bought an old microwave for a bargain. Both the appliances work like a charm even though they are old. I did heaps of utensils shopping to make sure that we have everything we need for the kitchen - the only thing which is now missing from the kitchen is a wok but other than that we are all good.

The Lounge area is still a mess with all my stuff lying around and nothing else there. It now has my bike in one corner, which I decided to ride from the old place to the new place- it was a pleasent but painful ride. There is this really steep hill, so steep that even the car struggles to climb up and I tried my best not to stop biking but it was a bit much. I managed to go up probably half of it before I got down from my bike and pushed it up for the rest of the hill. I will have to find an alternative route incase I want to bike from work (getting to work will be relatively simple).

The first night sleep's was troubled as it would be when you move into a new house - I was in some sort of a quasi-sleep/dream state the whole time and too top it all, the whole thing was a nightmare. The place is really quite here and suddenly your ears are open to all kinds of sounds. In the morning, I could hear a car's stereo parked about 10-15 meters from my bedroom and I could clearly hear the bed creak in the next room, amongst various other sounds. Talking of which - yesterday night I thought that my room was haunted or something because I woke up 2.15 at night because of this constant creaking sound. I rang up Benji and asked him to come over into my room to check out the sound. It so happened that Benji had put his bed against the wall and that noise was him turning in his bed, so now he has pushed the bed off the wall and miraculously the ghost is no more.

In between the shifting process, I managed to have read both the volumes of 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' and it was an awesome comic. The art work as fabulous as the story itself. It was sad to see it end. And now I can see why all the fans were pissed off at the movie. Whoever made it into a movie completely forgot to adapt the tone and the characterizations of the graphic novel. They made it into a caricature and an action-packed hollywood adventure when what it really demanded was a different treatment and adaptation. Pity that people who haven't read the comic will think that it will be crap because the movie was bad.

I watched a couple of trailers on Saturday - 'Black Dahlia' ; 'The Departed' ; and 'The O in Ohio'. Black Dahlia looks like it is going to be an interesting movie while the trailer for 'The Departed' was average but it captures the essence of 'Infernal Affairs' and hopefully the movie would be better than the trailer. 'The O in Ohio' was funny and offbeat - it will definitely have a limited release and will most probabaly find a small faithful audience.

On Saturday, I also went for a location reccee for Angelique's short film, on which I will be doing lighting. It was fun - and I am excited about this project as it gives me a chance to work on another skill set I know that I have but never spent any time exploring. It really is a lucky chance.

I don't know how to end this post so I will just sign off with something I have been thinking about: Life can be simple yet so complex. I think eventually it shapes up into what you want it to be - maybe not to the exact detail but still somewhere close in the vicinity of what you want it to be. So it is good to take risks - follow your heart and the mind will follow.

Good night,
Amit

Labels: Graphic Novels, Introspection, Random

posted by Amit @ 6:12 PM 0 Comments

Pictures!!!

Labels: Graphic Novels, Movies, Nowhere to Love

posted by Amit @ 8:28 PM 0 Comments

Arms Trade

I was watching behind the scenes/featurettes on 'Lord of War' and was thinking - if everyone knows that small arms trade is such a problem then why doesn't the UN step in and reign in the governments of different countries to stop the US$ 1 billion illegal small arms trade and also cut down on the US$ 3 billion legal trade. I ran into a news items yesterday evening which headlined 'U.N. conference on arms ends in failure' - so much for trying to make the world a better place to live. Read the article HERE.

The US Gun lobby - the NRA {National rifles Association} slammed the conference saying that it is a threat to their constitutional rights. What a pile of bullshit argument!!! The truth is that Africa and other volatile regions of the world are tearing themselves apart because they are being given a means to do that - so that governments and illegal arms traders can make a profit from the killings. Small Arms cause 90% of civilian casualties and things will only get worse with intensifying conflicts all around the world.

If you look at the top 3 countries making the most money out of small arms trade- they are USA, Russia and France : all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - how is that for irony? The next country on that list is U.K - another permanent member of the security council.

But U.S is by far the largest exporter of arms -selling more than the next 14 countries on the list combined together and the U.S government wants everyone to believe that they are a peace loving country with their only interest being world peace - Bullshit!!!!! All you have to do is look at the Wikipedia page on Arms Industry and you start getting a better picture of the hypocrisy that runs through the world. People think that World War III would be one cataclysmic event but the fact is that it is already going on - all the wars which are going on right now are smaller parts of the bigger picture and there will be a snapout point sometime soon which will lead to multiple nations going to war at the same time. And at that point we will wonder as to why we never saw it coming.


Anyway - I won't talk much about what happened this weekend as nothing much did. Just movie work and house cleaning. I will leave you with some photos from the weekend.


No..hold on - talking about Long Bay Beach - I have never actually seen that many dogs on a beach before. Every second person had a dog with them - it was kind of bizarre. Also not related to Long Bay Beach, watched a really really long japanese sci-fi movie called 'Casshern'. It was another of those weird experiences. The story kept going on and on. The director obviously had a solid vision but not the money to back it up, so the SFX were passable but well integrated into the story. They made an epic for US$ 5 million. The weakest point of the movie was it's overdrawn and long narrative. If only they had trimmed it down by an hour....

Talking of Japanese - Benji lent me a book which dealt with the underground manga movement in Japan and was essentially a collection of underground manga stories. I have to say that Japanese are into some really weird stuff and in a way it makes me wonder if as a society they are even stable. I have started reading a sci-fi Manga titled 'Blame!' and it has been a thrilling read because of the art work, the pacing and the concept. I have finished Vol. 1 and have just started off Vol. 2

I think I will take leave with a concept teaser poster for 'Five' - the movie that I am planning to do after 'Nowhere'.


Ciao,
Amit

Labels: Five, Graphic Novels, Introspection, Movies

posted by Amit @ 9:33 PM 0 Comments

Fool's Paradise

Tired is the best way to describe how I am feeling right now. School is draining me out at the moment. On the other hand - I have watched heaps of movies over the last few days: Osama; Harvey Krumpet (short film); Small Time Crooks; Hitch ; Clone Wars Vol 1. & 2.

Had a really productive meeting in regards to 'Nowhere' and now just holding breath for the fifth draft to come through. I am fairly surprised that we are at the fifth draft of the script because nothing has changed much with the story but a lot has changed within the story. It is proving to be a really great learning curve.

I am now onto the last volume of 'Preacher' - so yeah I have been doing some solid reading on that and I would say that it is a great graphic novel. I can't stop saying it because I don't know how many people have even heard about it but it is a MUST read.

The more I think about - the more my concept of right, wrong and areas in between are shifting, changing and morphing.

Amit

Labels: Graphic Novels, Nowhere to Love, TV Series

posted by Amit @ 11:00 PM 0 Comments

Vengeance

It has been ages since I have updated and time has flown so quick that I did find myself surprised that it took a good 4 days before I got the opportunity to update the blog. Because of the short week - the school has been really hectic and the next week is going to be a long one. The past couple of days have gone into socializing - the most socialization I have done in a long time {in such a small span of time}. Friday afternoon had a couple of drinks and played pool with students, friday evening was staff party and the whole of today was gone in a fundraising gym event {had a half an hour spin class which was fun} and a BBQ at Allie's place later on.


I went and saw 'The Omen' remake alongwith Benji {who is now my new flatmate} and it was bad - it was well made and stuff {for US$ 60 million} but the pacing of the story was off, the build-up and payoff was missing and the casting of Damien, Robert Thorne was simply wrong. What was right was the casting of Mia Farrow as Mrs. Baylock and that is about the only good thing I can think. I much prefer the book which was a real page turner.

David M. lent me his series of 'The Preacher' and it is an engrossing read combined with stunning art work. It again deals with religion and spirituality but not in a way you would expect. Bizarre, unexpected and daring are the ways to describe it - and that is after reading just the first volume of the 9 volume collection.


Managed to watch 'Sympathy for Lady Vengeance' on DVD and it was good - the visuals are stunning and the story builds up nicely towards the end. I must say the beginning of the movie is confusing with story jumps into past,present, future, fantasy and reality one after the other but once the story settles down it shapes up to be a powerfully violent movie revolving around communal revenge and personal vendetta. The ending was kind of overdrawn and gets back into the confusion which reigns at the start of the movie. But still a worthy follow up to 'Old Boy'.

It is kind of a weird way to sum up 4 days but I think I will leave it at this. I will possibly upload selected photographs from the last studio shows and parties over the next day or so.

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Graphic Novels, Movies, Party

posted by Amit @ 6:18 PM 0 Comments

Broken & Fixed

Guess what that is? Yeah that's our TV - atleast the shell minus all the components inside it. The TV died an untimely death today morning and Tim went about trying to fix it, since it is his TV and the idea of putting a fish bowl inside the empty shell as replacement entertainment centre (while cancelling our Sky TV subscription) did not particularly appeal to him. It is the kiwi spirit of ingenuity and the 'do it yourself' attitude which shone through and Tim spent the whole of the sunday trying to find the problem - which turned out to be a blown fuse. He then went and bought a replacement fuse to try fix the problem.


It took Tim about 6 hours of toiling through the circuits and fuses, to be able to fix the problem. He put it back on and as soon as the power was switched on again, the new fuse promptly blew up again, at which point I reinforced the idea of a fish bowl but that didn't work. Greg got back home by that point, so Tim borrowed his TV tuner card to come up with a new solution.


So yeah - that's how we are watching TV right now - on his laptop, through Greg's TV tuner card. We were discussing the possibility of buying some binoculars, so we can get a bigger view of the proceedings on the laptop...

Labels: Graphic Novels, Movies, Nowhere to Love

posted by Amit @ 7:28 PM 0 Comments

V

I tried to update the blog yesterday but was really tired after a hectic first 3 days at the school and simply crashed into bed. It is the last week of the term and as always time flies away at South Seas. The studio shows are done for the term and all of us went to the pub down the road to celebrate (I had boycotted that pub since late 2004 when we had a big incident with a drunk maori guy). It was a good evening.


After that I went and saw 'V for Vendetta' (after getting a mail from David M, who wrote that he approved of it's faitfulness to the source) and it was an awesome movie. It does stay faithful to the spirit of the comic book and is incredibly powerful, especially the scene dealing with the awakening of Evey intercut with awakening of V. The movie is beautifully shot and moves at a brisk pace, even though a lot of it is not action but dialogue. I am now sure that this movie is a mistake by the studio, which did not know how to back out of such a potentially risky topic/subject and ended up putting it out so that they can make money out of it somehow.

Enjoy some random patterns that I managed to capture in-camera (I did not photoshop the images or anything, except for changing the image size to fit on the blog). It is fun experimenting with the camera and trying to do different things than just capture moments. I even gave the photos a name :-)


Things are progressing well with pre-prod for 'Nowhere to Love' and going through more meetings, auditions and basically production process as well. Time is near to start making critical choices. Anyway I better get off my bed and get ready to go to school.

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Graphic Novels, Movies, Nowhere to Love, Party

posted by Amit @ 7:24 AM 0 Comments

Private Parts

There is a lovely article which I came across Chud.com and I thought I would mention it here since I think it is a really relevant article and kind of reflects some of my thinking on how a major motion picture studio let a movie like 'V for Vendetta' be made. You can read the article HERE. I watched an old movie called 'Private Parts' yesterday night and it was funny. It is an enjoyable watch incase you run across it at your video store.

I have finished watching the audition tapes - not once but three times and I am just juggling the choices in my head before I make the short list for the second round. Have more auditions lined up but this time for the role of 'Roger'- which should be interesting. There has been another major development with the movie (a positive one for once) but will mention it once things are clear and sorted out.

Good night,
Amit

Labels: Graphic Novels, Nowhere to Love

posted by Amit @ 9:55 PM 1 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