Updates
It has been a relaxing sunday - sort of - I got to doing something which is almost 5 months overdue - upload more of the pics from my trip to India. See the process is a tad hard for me as I have to short list the photos (don't want to upload a gizillion pics), which capture that location without repeating the moments. And after shortlisting I then have to change their image size and then upload them along with the description for each pic. So in short - it does take time.
I uploaded photos from the part where we were in Hyderabad - the capital of Andhra Pradesh. Most of the pics are from our trip to Golconda Fort. I was sick for most of the trip - I was down with heavy fever, so we did not go out as much as we would have liked to but it was still a memorable stop over. The photos also include the series of photos which made Lance into an 'international monument'. You can view the photos from Hyderabad
HERE.
Since the winters are fast advancing - I thought I would take the opportunity to put up photos from the summer of 2006. I am sure if you read the blog regularly you would have seen the small pics - but
HERE are bigger sized pics all in 1 place.
I also took the opportunity to watch a 1929 russian documentary/movie titled '
The Man with the Movie Camera' and it was an amazing experience. To me it is a true classic and it is visionary in all aspects. It is a marvel both from camera point of view as well as editing point of view. It is a must watch, if you can get your hands on the DVD.
The other movie I watched was '
Knots' - which was an ensemble comedy based in New York. It was quite funny despite some predictable themes. Most of the actors were on their mark but what did not work for the movie was the 'tv' feel - it never felt like a feature film per se but felt more like it could have been a pilot for a TV series or someting.
Now just about ready to hit the bed - time to prepare for a long week ahead.
Ciao,
Amit
Labels: Holiday, India, Movies
The Long March
Benji - one of my good friends, sent me
this link which showed a sample of driving in India and I rolled over laughing. The video is still very sane though - not too much traffic in the video I would say. Traffic in India is chaotic harmony - everyone beeps their horns all the time and everyone just makes up their own rules. In my 25 years in india, I can remember only one occassion where I saw the use of a portable speed mesurement device in use and I think I have probably been fined about Rs.300 {about NZ$ 12} in total over the 10 year period for any traffic offences and comparing it to New Zealand - I have paid about NZ$ 400 in 2 incidents of exceding the speed limits (and trust me I don't drive that fast at all) in just over 3 years - so it just makes me wonder on what the true agenda of traffic police actually is in NZ. One of the things one most commonly hears is that it is a major revenue earner for the government and it just upsets me a little bit that a government can so blatantly earn more money from people. It kind of equates the social welfare system they have here - it is more like paying out free money to people without jobs while earning that money from people who work for it. So who is to loose??? The people who work!!! Now thats a random chain of thought.
The myth of NZ being a safe country has also been busted in
a recent report which shows that NZ is No.2 in the world crime rates (for every 1000 people). It kind of makes you wonder as to how a perception is created and lingers on in people's minds. As to how I came across that stats - I was reading the reader's views in response to a series of articles which dealt with immigration and one of the readers pointed the article out. You should have a look at the series of articles - which provides for a really interesting read. Visit the section
HERE.
I went for a meeting yesterday evening (related to the movie) and there were a fair few snapshots I wanted to take but somehow I did not stop to take them as I was rushing to get to the meeting. I did get a couple of shots on my walk back and here they are. The thing I noticed though is that the city centre looked pretty dead for a Wednesday night...maybe people are just tired after the long holiday weekend. Got more more meetings lined up for tomorrow and it is shaping up to be a really hectic week.
Beauty is in wastage - couldn't see any people in the building but the lights shine bright.
Lonely walk home!!!
I feel a bit like the person walking home alone..maybe I need to get some sleep.
Bye for now,
Amit
Labels: India, Nowhere to Love
Short
A real quick update - realizing that I haven't been able to update in a while now. I am going down to Coromandel again - this time with Richard - one of the other producers for 'Memories'. We are planning to meet up the council guys and later spend time in the town trying to find specific locations for filming.
The week till now has been extremely busy with studio shows at school and then more auditions for the movie. It has been stressful at times but news for the first time in the year always is. The new workflow with server playout has definitely streamlined the editing process a lot.
The reconfigured PCR
Students making NEWS
I got a shock when I accidentally ended up on the commonwealth games website and saw that India is currently No. 4 in overall medal standings. I also got another surprise when one of the students commented on how indians are a deceptive lot - I let the comment pass as a joke but pre-conceived notions that people have always surprises me. Just shows that all of us are discriminatory one way or the other - race, religion, culture or sex.
The next update will be in a couple of days - once I come back from the second coromandel trip.
Till then,
Amit
Labels: India, Nowhere to Love
Sleepy Sunday
I have been a bad boy today..I was supposed to reply to my huge backload of emails but what do I do: I sleep - for most of the day. I have think I will start answering the mails straight away and maybe I will cover some ground.
I have uploaded some more photos from the trip to India- this time specifically the short trip through to Amaravati and Guntur. Amaravati is considered a holy place and four days after we went there - there was this massive buddhist event happening there:
Kalchakra, so the security was no doubt really heavy and there were a lot of buddhist monks roaming around. After Amaravati - I somehow managed to convince everyone to do a brief stopover at Loyola Public School in Naalapadu (a township near Guntur}, since I wanted to check out the school which had a huge impact on my personality. So
here are some pics from that day.
I found a place where they cook some nice won-tons which have meat filling in them.. The reason I liked those are because they tasted like Momos - one of my favorite dishes. Momos are a north east indian delicacy and here they are called Dumplings (I think) at the chinese restaurents. I should check out one of those soon and then make a comparision between them.
Off to answer some mails now.
Amit
Labels: Food, Holiday, India
Small update
I sat down and started compressing and uploading photos from the trip to India...I know it has been long overdue and thought I should start off the process by doing the stuff in smaller batches, so it doesn't seem too much like a task. First batch of photos - from the trip to Vijayawada and Tukuluru. You can view the pics
HERE.
The day of auditions was again interesting and I think I will start viewing the tapes and shortlisting soon. I am feeling tired - somehow the auditions are exciting and energy draining at the same time.
More updates later.
Amit
Labels: Holiday, India
