Half Baked Cookies ...

Goa Times

2012-11-12T04:16:00.000-08:00

And the DVD covers are here! (click on them for better res)

2012-11-12T03:18:00.000-08:00

Revisit before every startup idea

2012-01-22T20:54:00.001-08:00

1. Exactly what problem will this solve? (value proposition)
2. For whom do we solve that problem? (target market)
3. How big is the opportunity? (market size)
4. What alternatives are out there? (competitive landscape)
5. Why are we best suited to pursue this? (our differentiator)
6. Why now? (market window)
7. How will we get this product to market? (go-to-market strategy)
8. How will we measure success/make money from this product? (metrics/revenue strategy)
9. What factors are critical to success? (solution requirements)
10. Given the above, what’s the recommendation? (go or no-go)

Accidentally in love

2012-01-15T09:46:00.000-08:00

Got a new pup - a beagle. When we found out about her, I was totally against getting one as I thought my film is my pet, but when we saw her, I and Saurabh immediately felt that we wanted her. Now, I am not that much of a dog person. Infact I hate lots of condescending dog owners whom I sometimes run into a petshop (btw pet shops are chors - another blog on that). But it has been one week, she is quite a handful but a superduper cute, sometimes naughty but mostly a loving puppy. Every evening I feel that I am really asking too much of myself, working, shooting, handling people and then after giving her a brisk run in my roof I feel dead. But the love she gives me so much compensates for it. It's been a week and gradually a strong, beautiful relationship - of a friend, of a parent is blossoming and I am realizing what an amazing thing is happening in my life.

And see this video of Juno - they say a dog becomes like her owner after a while. Now ain't she smart ;)?

P.S:
Advice for new first time dog owner:
- Be patient - invest time in first 4 months - you and your dog will reap the joys for remaining 15-20 years.
- I adopted marker training: http://leerburg.com/markers.htm - used nope (with sharp sound), yes with a friendly sound and after that rewarding a good behavior . In a week she learned sit, down, come, she understands the gestures for going to her bed, tries to pee and poo on paper (am still not 100% successful).
- You don't need full days but you surely need to give her 10-15 mins in morning and 10-15 mins in eve. I share the duty with my husband. It's advisable to teach her fetch command. That tires her without troubling you. I try to really tire her in the morn before I have to go for long hours of work. This puts her to sleep.
-

The simple pleasures

2011-12-18T07:08:00.000-08:00

Well we all have our own journeys that lead us to making films or doing the job we wanted to do. Mine was simple - the joy of doing so. The obsession in shooting oneself, editing overnight and seeing if its looking right.

And sometimes when you are struggling to make the film, and you start breaking your head over it, meeting 5000 people, getting planning and schedule in place, our favourite Michel Gondry gives a gentle reminder.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/12/michel-gondry-remade-taxi-driver-adorably.html

The video there is good at so many levels. Primarily because it reminds one of the amount of joy a video gives to its creators.

Smooth stop motion - Hello World

2011-10-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

So we spent the afternoon doing a cool stop motion.

The goal was simple - make a cup rotate but make it smooth - it should look like a video and not series of photographs.

And in the process get all the software requirements in place (Remote camera clicking, animatorDV (with webcam - still ND), FCP settings etc).
I had some colorful sheets for BG. They were expensive and all the ideas that we had required them to be cut into pieces which I was vehemently against.
As a solution I found some clay. 3 years ago Zenish had given me some colored clay to play with. I still had it. So we thought we could use those to make letters. I made the W, the doughnut shaped Os and the purple D. Ofcourse it is not hard to guess that the black coffee was made by Zain and the coffee cup was actually Zenish's :).

In programming language - the first program one writes is printing "hello world". So well -this is our hello world in stop motion.

P.S 1: You require the remote clicking to make the animation totally jerk-free. If anyone who has lost their Cannon CD and wants to make use of it's suit use this link's video (cannon doesnot allow u to download from its site, u need to have an original dvd): http://www.nextwavedv.com/canon-eos-utility-download-and-install-for-mac/
Here is the link to the update site at cannon: http://software.canon-europe.com/software/0029171.asp
We couldn't find the animatorDV (nor could I successfully find the webcam).

P.S: Also we made sure we use royalty free music from here: http://publicdomain2ten.com/. The music is by Duke Ellington, “Louisiana”

Algorithm for Clothes Management - how to fit everything in 3 shelves

2011-10-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

Prologue:
Someone once told me that there was a study that said - the way we arrange our data in our computer is exactly the way we arrange our clothes in our cupboard. My arrangements can be described by one word - haphazard.

The Story:

Any average or non average woman knows that it is impossible to fit ones clothes in 3 shelves. Look at the categories of dresses we have - shirts, t-shirts, home clothes, jeans, office pants, sports wear, salwar suits (Indian), sarees, skirts, frocks/dresses, extreme formals, extreme maintenance (shaadi type clothes), micro dresses (in hope that we will be slim enough to wear them someday) socks, scarves/stoles/shawls, belts etc etc.

Also: I hate giving away clothes. I have clothes from 10 years ago that I feel difficult to part with because of emotional reasons. Some bought from my first salary, other bought by my dad and was very expensive at that time, one my brother got from his trip to Bangalore, one saurabh got for me after winning a sodexo pass in a quiz contest, one was a lucky shirt for exams, one my mom bought - very old fashioned and I hated it but she absolutely loved it so well i got emotional..and so on. There is a story behind every cloth. But lately (under the influence of my mother and maybe alcohol) I have given away some of my clothes to a poor man with four daughters - reasoning that they will use them and probably will take good care of them (my clothes sentiments were exactly like Andy's toys in Toy story-3)

Last week we moved into a new place.

So I and Saurabh thought instead of constantly negotiating the closet space (which is almost akin to fighting for armrest space in a movie theatre) - lets divide the closet space exactly by half. I could anyways use the guest bedroom's closet to fit in all my clothes. This was an unfair demarcation because contrary to me, my husband is a man of fewer means. He has three kind of clothes - office clothes, casual clothes, gym clothes all in single digit cardinality. (his computer's are stateless, he has no data files, no pictures, no favourite movies. Hard disk crashing has no emotional impact on him - infact he has no harddisk). For him clothes are just clothes and not an abstract entity like sister's love or wife's tears.

But I went along with it as - I had the whole guest bedroom wardrobe for myself. (I didn't want to put all my clothes in the guest bedroom as I used the master bath and there was 5 min inconvenience in taking clothes from one room to another)

After giving him all the shelves and using up some of mine for other things like bedsheets, towels, socks - my share was around 3 shelves.

Problem:
It was very obvious that I couldn't fit all my clothes in 3 shelves.

But then I realized when I looked at my cupboard (mini-musuem) - that actually 80% of times, I only wore 20% of my clothes. (almost like 80% of time we use 20% of sites, or access 20% of files in our computer). 20% of my clothes could have been fitted in those 3 shelves easily.

But then how to choose that 20% from the variety of choices available to me. How many dresses, how many skirts, how many jeans etc etc.

So I thought I could let my own usage pattern decide that. And I came up with the following algorithm to select the top 20% of my most frequently used clothes.

Algorithm:
1) To begin with - my 3 shelves were empty. I would fetch the clothes from another room.
2) Whenever I wore something. I told my maid - after they dry not to put them in the closet of guest bedroom but in one of the 3 empty shelves of master bedroom.
3) Whenever I didn't want to wear what was available in those 3 shelves I would go and fetch it.
4) In a week's time I realized that I had lesser need to go and fetch my clothes - as I had my comfortable choices of my favorite categories already in those three shelves.
5) Again if the shelves were over flowing - all I had to do was take the bottommost clothes and put it back in the guest cupboard (used this as a close approximation of least frequently used strategy).

This is a simple algorithm we use anyways for memory and cache management of data. In my daily-cloth-retreival task it reduced my 5 mins of trip and crib. That came to 2 hours per month.

And I still have one shelf empty :) !

P.S: I am watching Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (Bollywood film) so I am right now only thinking of first world problems.

Fiction writers -

2011-09-03T05:34:00.000-07:00

"Fiction writers as a species tend to be oglers. They tend to lurk and to stare. The minute fiction writers stop moving, they start lurking, and stare. They are born watchers. They are viewers. They are the ones on the subway about whose nonchalant stare there is something creepy, somehow. Almost predatory. This is because human situations are writers' food. Fiction writers watch other humans sort of the way gapers slow down for car wrecks: they covet a vision of themselves as witnesses.

But fiction writers as a species also tend to be terribly self-conscious. Even by U.S. standards. Devoting lots of productive time to studying closely how people come across to them, fiction writers also spend lots of less productive time wondering nervously how they come across to other people. How they appear, how they seem, whether their shirttail might be hanging out their fly, whether there's maybe lipstick on their teeth, whether the people they're ogling can maybe size them up as somehow creepy, lurkers and starers. "

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/E+unibus+pluram:+television+and+U.S.+fiction.-a013952319

....

2011-07-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

"....For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood or desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate with his capacity for wonder..... "- F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I will make my heroines look like this

2011-05-18T22:49:00.001-07:00

http://www.nowness.com/day/2011/4/30/hyeres-2011-erwin-blumenfeld-films

see the vid

why movies will always cost if we continue to use traditional sources of distribution ?!

2011-04-25T22:51:00.000-07:00

Earlier movie-making was expensive. So people made lesser movies or rather lesser people made movies. Hence the marketing cost was lower as we had lesser issues of differentiating our movies with other's movies. Or lesser work to establish our brand equity to attract eyeballs. Also you needed to be part of the system to make the movies.

Now since the digital technology has become cheaper, and more portable, people can use videos to shoot guerilla take new non-actors and substantially bring down the cost of making a film.
However the cost of making movie has gone low not just for you but for 1000 others. So they all will make movies. So now the problem is finding an avenue to showcase the film.

Now with low cost films, we neednot stick to traditional medium of distribution. So the question is - are we ready for non-traditional mediums of movie distribution ? Online, DVD, TV ? But the original problem of having an initial critical mass is still there.

MATISSE and ME

2011-04-23T23:53:00.000-07:00

When I was 10 years old I copied a painting and stuck (with fevicol) on the walls of our living room - much to everyone's horror. As I grew up, I later found out that I had reproduced one of the million reproductions of Matisse below.

I was later reintroduced to Matisse by Fareeda when I picked up a book that contained all Matisse paintings in the WWI library. I had taken that book and reissued it weeks after weeks looking at his paintings. The library guys later made it a reference book (wtf) and I had all my plans to steal it before I left college. I still haven't been able to buy that book (out of stock in amazon :( ) or for that matter steal it :).

Matisse had family business of textile industry. He grew up amidst bright colors. His earlier work had all the details of the contemporary painter but later he started making detail free clutter free images. Esp. after his tryst with death after a cancer operation, he became bolder with his art forms hardly cared about the critics and developed his inimitable style. He took the post impressionistic style of painting to another level and we still use his paintings, bright colors, color combinations and style in our day to day life.

Ipod and Matisse

Infact good example is ipod ads and various ipod colors themselves. Here on the left is an image of ipod advertisement and on the right is one of the Matisse works (the read dot is his heart).
The olympic logos 2012 and 2016 Rio ones are inspired by matisse paintings.

On left are matisse paintings (circle of Life and the Snail) and on right are olympic logos of 2016 and 2012.

Incidentally Matisse paintings were not well-received by critics. But he found his patron in a wealthy Russian textile magnet who bought most of his paintings. He had told matisse: "These people don't respect you, but the future is all yours".
Lots of contemporary prints, color combinations in textile industry are inspired by Matisse's choice of colors in his paintings.

Colors: For matisse colors were emotions and he felt that colors should be depicted in a harmony. They should be used the way notes are used in music - create a visual orchestra. He was called a "Fauve" - a wild beast as he used extremely bright colors and not used the color from the real world. For him his paintings were his emotional response of a real-life visual. His choice of colors were lavish- brighter and shinier than any colors seen before his time. He always worked with a color wheel - started off with Yellow Blue and moved around the wheel - choosing simple combinations all right opposite each other or combination of 3 that forms isosceles traingle to more complex ones. Anyone who knows basic color theory today knows that these opposite colors (in right proportion) cancel eachother in a way that their net effect on the eyes is of "grey". The grey color is soothing to the eyes and hence eyes can stay on them for longer. Hence all the matisse paintings had that stay. He himself said that sometimes to balance the painting totally he would externally use "white and black" that would balance his colors if they themselves did't balance each other. Matisse also used lots of secondary and tertiary colors apart from primary colors.

Color wheel RGB

One of my fav matisse painting

Patterns: Matisse was well travelled and took influences from various traditional art forms - he was greatly influenced by Russian folk-art forms and Islamic art forms (spending time in Morocco).

He also started having interest in human figures and the space they are set in.

Matisse loved the bright clutter of overtly furnished rooms, patterns in the room created a parallel complete world in each of his paintings.
Also gradually he started forsaking the idea of 3-dimensionality and treated his painting like flattened space replete with decorative objects.

Matisse Scissors

In my house I have two replicas of matisse paintings. Apart from that I have reproduced two of his paintings. One I have given to my brother and other is with me.

Reproduction with Asim

Reproduction with me

Implications in production design:
Matisse paintings have a richness of their own. And they come from choice of colors, color combinations and patterns used within the painting. We can use them as reference while choosing and designing our production design elements. Use tested combinations and gradually learn to start expementing on our own.
The other thing is the "matisse finish" on walls. A block of red wall will always look jarring to the eyes but if the finish is like that of Matisse's walls - it is captured beautifully on camera (for example in above painting - the red of the floor has a different finish - he uses multiple adjoining colors to have that finish).
I sometime call it the "choona finish" that they have in walls.
However to have our films look like Matisse if we need to have massive production design and other controls on the environment we are shooting in. Sometimes this translates into higher budget. So if we are going too indie - we cannot use that 100% control but we can still choose some of the elements like costume colors etc that helps us give our products a "little better than reality" finish (that is if one wants).
Below are some of the frames of the 3 short films I have made and one can clearly see the matisse influence I had. Amongst all our biggest challenge was Uss Paar as we didn't have the control on the color of the station. But we tried to play with yellow(essentially brown) blue.

Shiva is the ultimate yellow blue God

An extra detailing on curtain and the candles adds details to the frame

The red (instead of white) boat on greenish water looks better

The classical red green frame. Added blue to decrease red

The yellow uniform - imagine if it was blue

Notice the matisse finish on the walls and Tina's dress color. Also a block of red just to offset too much green on the frame

We had specific colors for sarees too but couldn't manage them in timehowever a little color in the form of balloons adds the playfullness.

Purple and red hue to make the place look sensual

Inspite of being a painter, his last work was a chapel where he did lots of glasswork and it is in Venice. I went to Venice and didn't know about the chapel and hence didn't visit it. So you know how much angry with myself I am! Here is the glass work - "Tree of life" by matisse.

Matisse was an atheist but he still made the chapel for his nurse who had turned a nun.

He had once famously said - "I believe in God only when I do my work !"

Henri Matisse

Academics versus real life

2011-04-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

I think our educational system stresses a lot on individual success. Pitching each person against another. The whole ranking system rewards individuals. Most of the time even preps for exams are done individually. This orients us differently as compared to what is required at the real world. The real world favors team players more. It is important that team wins. Personal goals are subset of team goals. Except sports period nothing else in school gives basic teaching of working in a group.

Just a thought off my head.

Top moment of the day

2011-04-08T08:43:00.000-07:00

I was contacted by a publisher who wants to add my IIT thesis on computational grids (which was published in an IEEE journal) in his book :)

Addendum:
So my film Uss Paar was shown at Ahmedabad too!! And the great feeling is that so many messages in my facebook inbox after that from the students!!! Some people asking about film and others about "wrestling woods" (they misspelled whistling woods) :).

2046

2011-04-05T09:38:00.000-07:00

I just have huge respect for directors who manage to create mood successfully. For me - WKW will remain the master of mood creators with his original frames and beautiful moments. Grandeur and beauty. The power of cinema. Infact whatever I know of mood creation I have learnt from him. He is my guru. It's a shame they dont cover him in film school classes. Anyone who has seen Reflections (my 16 mm short fiction) would easily tell my WKW influence.

Amongst his various films, I have really enjoyed 2046. Also watching this movie was my first meeting with WKW. And somewhere I feel a strange deep connect with his movies. Lots of my current colleagues don't seem to agree with me when I go absolutely ga-ga over WKW stuff. Since his movies are not very obviously plot driven, lots of people face difficulties in engaging in them. 2046 and "In the Mood for Love" should be seen together to understand them. Infact if I ever do a screening of reference movies with my cinematographer before we dive into shot breakdown - one of WKW's movies is always on the list regardless of the subject :).

I clearly remember 2008/or early 2009 where almost for an entire week, I was in full trance because i had seen 2046. I haven't seen it since then because my inability to get out of it and reengage in the real world was frustrating me. I had locked myself in home and just kept playing this movie all week. (I was also doing the shot breakdown of my film Reflections in that week.) I was just heart broken that I might never be able to make a movie like this and this had pushed me in some sort of depression. Even my zombie husband would wonder what's wrong with me. So I had to shun it.

But today, just as one remembers an old friend, I randomly remembered this movie again.

Here is it's horrible quality trailer that i got on youtube. Still the trailer worth watching. This movie is my ultimate inspiration.

Some Mornings

2011-03-31T20:40:00.001-07:00

I feel I have the energy to fire the whole cosmos !

Why would anyone put money in your film ?

2011-03-31T07:02:00.001-07:00

I have been trying to ask and answer those questions. I have with me - a list of items that need to be brought to any pitching meeting table. But those are the secondary reasons for anyone to shell out the money. What are the primary reasons ?

To get a solution I turned the table - and asked myself - why would I fund - put crores of my hard-earned money on xyz's film ? What do I have in store. My answers were the following two mandatory things:
1) I get a sense of pride associated with the material.
2) I get my money back (atleast! - even if I don't make millions - there is no freaking way I want to lose money)

And essentially in that order. I really had no more reasons. Just these two.

For 1 - The more clarity on the film the better. The ideal case is the person putting money sees the film. But since we are short of money, we can't give that luxury to him/her. So the best is to provide the best possible approximation of the film - idea of the moments, moods, tight scenes, jokes, look and music of the film. Basically find out elements that represents your film well. Provide past work to give confidence that you can execute what you are talking about well.

For 2 - Again we have to use some data mining -find the best and worst movies of similar genre and try to see - if your film is rightly priced for fail safety. This requires work and research on the cost and recovery breakdown of other movies.

And I guess - in all the pitching meetings concentrate in these two.

It's one thing to make the movie, it is another to sell it.

----
Random aside 1: There is a counterfeit 50 rupee note in my wallet. And I can't place where I got it from. Patel stores or Subway. Dunno. But I am stuck with it.

Five things that I like in any movie

2011-03-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

1) Alone unspoken, undiscussed moments - These could be anything- the first thoughts when you wake up in the morning, or eye contact with a stranger, or a forced smile, a person suddenly at loss of words and his initial stammering or a sudden blackout on a crowded train. I like such moments because on such moments both our subconscious and conscious flood us with so many thoughts that even words fail to describe them. I just feel that capturing those moments is the real power of cinema. I instantly connect with the character. Also contrary to popular belief, I had been a quiet person for the most part of my life. And all my life I have had people with whom I had silent relationships- no real conversations - but a deep sense of understnading.

2) Using associative memory: It is for example if for today if I say japan - you think of tsunami and a sense of grief, dignity and seriousness dawn upon you. Care has to be taken that it is not very context specific. I like how lots of directors tap into the collective subconscious, use associative memory - of colors, of objects, of events to guide us emotionally. And I really admire that. I was initially a big fan of symbolism. Now I always evaluate a symbol for its entertainment value and context. The biggest high for any filmmaker is when a viewer "gets it". Using symbols from personal memory mostly come in the way of the viewer enjoying it. I have realized the importance of not having subjectivism or not making things too self-important. Atleast for the kind of mise-en-scenes I have, I play a lot with contrasts. Happy moments suddenly becoming sad moments, sad moments bringing smiles. Lots of my friends do get confused as to why am I shying away from holding onto the emotion. One reason is that a single emotion runs out for me after a while. I feel the need to keep audience glued, on their toes. Prob also because these days I see movies in Gaity, Galaxy with audience reaction. And with girls giggling, popcorn munching, baby crying audience I feel that we have a really big challenge to engage that audience.

3) Chemistry between characters - Chemistry is all that is unspoken - or the manner in which the dialogues are spoken - almost similar to point 1 but also involves interpersonal relationships. You can see a couple and tell them they are a couple. You see two extras walking- they will look like two extras walking unless the director or a smart AD has made efforts to make them look like a couple. Every chemistry has to be build and I am a big fan of any director who manages that because I have faltered on this a couple of times.

4) Multiple forces in a scene - Truffaut says there should be 5 thoughts packed in a given scene at a given time. I have kept the minimum rule to 3 - always 5 can be difficult sometimes. Actually some scenes should have 0 thought - a shot/scene between two intense shots - so that audience can absorb the intensity. Also the best is if these things come naturally and organically to you. When you plant it too much - there is a risk of planting something that might be detected. Worst thing is when someone watching a movie feels that he is reading the final draft. Actually I felt that in 3 idiots when I could see all the plants and pay off. But unlike lot of people I am a big fan of revising the scripts. I am also glad that successful humble film makers in India - like Raj Kumar Hirani - also vouch for it (their scripts going upto 20 drafts). I think revision gives you an opportunity to fit the script in mind space and also gives a clearer idea of rhythm and direction of the script. Also it eliminates cliches, brings richness in scenes, de-sharpens the edges of planted thoughts and infact helps make the script more organic.

5) Give orgasm to audience - I like the idea of giving orgasms to audience. And by that I dont mean a sex scene but just the amalgamation of perfect audio and visual that grabs their attention, shake their body and make them prepared for the film. Actually audio plays a very important role - hence the importance of music and sound design should never ever be under-estimated. I have tried to understand why certain scenes give people that feeling (a seperate blog entry for that). I guess that's because these scene present a new unseen image and so when one comes face to face with absolute creativity - all cells in his/her body resonate with it. Even if we achieve it once in our film, we know we have provided atleast one unique moment they would carry it forever with them. Those scenes are our windows to immortality.

Excerpts from my 3 part article on Stanley Kubrick - Kubrickism part 1- The mind

2011-03-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

It is generally said about Kubrick that all his films deal with such diverse subjects that it is hard to believe that it is made by the same person. After having watched 10 of his 13 movies, almost all more than once, I feel that all his films are manifestations of intense philosophical and psychological realizations of Kubrick resulting from long nursing of his stories and plots.
In this 3 part essay I would try to formulate my synthesis with the forewarning that my experience, understanding of human psyche and of the film as an art form is infinitely small in front of the phenomenon I term “Kubrickism”. The initial part deals with the philosophy and the latter part takes about his crafts and technicalities that enabled him realize the above philosophies and create masterpieces.

The emotions and the unconscious: One the reasons his movies (some made around 50 years ago for American audience) still continue to strike the chord with 20 year old audience sitting in India is his understanding of the faculties of human emotions and the unconscious. He once said that a Beatles song is enjoyed alike by a Harvard Graduate and a truck driver even when they hugely differ in their intellect.

Kubrick constructed his mise-en-scenes such that they produced immediate emotional response but at the same time had unconscious bearing that would be revealed on further contemplation. The scenes had very thoughtful and crafty layering and hence most of his movies stood apart. His movies were quite like the process of individuation proposed by Carl Jung where a bridge was made between the realities of conscious mind and the desires of unconscious mind. He chose stories were the characters were confronted with their unconscious desires coming true.

At the same time he ensured that a conscious autonomy of the scenes were maintained (I found the end of 2001 A Space Odyssey the only place where was lost for some of the audience (including me) who refused to slip into the unconscious world that Kubrick constructed).

Amongst popular Indian filmmakers and film industries there is always a divided opinion about the purpose of cinema. Some says it is a medium that provides escapism where one can forget the daily life and enjoy while others say that cinema should mirror the society to awaken them. I feel both of the schools should watch Kubrick’s movies because he has a way of absorbing you into a fictitious world and still provide insights that are universal and relevant to the society. He has sometimes used unrealistic – past or future or fictitious settings to convey universal emotions that are very relevant to day to day life. It is remarkable how he has used surrealism (unseen places in physicality) to convey something extremely real.

Man is imperfect: And hence all his constructions and inventions are. And this doesn’t limit to computers and machines like HAL (2001 Space Odyssey) but also extend to the constructions of societies and the formation of nations.

If it was not so, we would not be suffering from threats of nuclear war and global warming. At a more molecular level prostitution, swim suit round in Miss Universe contest and WWF would not be existing. These are legalized outlets of the feelings that cannot be totally eliminated in the process of domestication. What exists in the man, exists in the society too.

There are invented virtues like non-violence, loyalty, patriotism that makes our societies function so that a man-made institution or concept (for example marriage, nation, society) and is higher than any individual man. I have found Kubrick in many of his movies questioning that. Kubrick tries to bring these marginalized issues in the forefront and brings it at the loggerheads with a completely domesticated society. For me the most outrageous parts Lolita is Humbert who is a civilized English professor (and enjoys the subtleties of any poem and) is in love with the daughter of the woman he has married, contemplates killing the mother. These feelings exist but are never verbalized. Lots of times Kubrick brings to forefront the desires that exist but not allowed to be voiced in the society.

There is a power structure that exists in the society and majority of the films confirm to it. It provides validation to our belief system. Anjum Rajabali in one of his classes said that we see movies even when we know there is a happy ending because we find reassurance in the moral values imparted to us where good happens to good people and bad happens to bad people. Similarly there are exalted concepts like police, soldier, religion, nation and our faith on them has to be constantly reinstated. Kubrick tries to challenge this faith and these concepts.

Dichotomy/dual nature of man: So what is a better choice: die trying to fight slavery or live as a slave(Spartacus), stay apparently faithful and mentally stray or stray, (Eyes Wide Shit), fight and kill or advocate for peace (Full Metal Jacket). Man is guided both by instinct and intellect. I feel that instinct deals with an event in isolation while the intellect deals with the context of the milieu one is in. Kubrick places his characters in a situation where they are trying to walk the thin line between the two, sometimes stepping here, sometimes stepping there. He focuses their innate human frailties.

Kubrickism - part 2 - architecture

2011-03-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

The craft
Kubrick’s films were known for their bold, flawless, impeccable scenes. Below are certain things that stood out.

Architecture: Kubrick used architecture in such a way that elements like window, columns, corridors and staircases acquired symbolic and narrative functions in his movie.

Following is the table that talks about some of his architectural pre-occupations. Color would be dealt separately.

Emotion	Movies	Architecture	Function
Battle place, military	Full Metal Jacket, Paths of Glory, War scenes of Barry Lyndon, maze in The Shining	Straight lines - columns, uniform, simple functional architecture almost like drawn with scale, no decoration.	Military has been associated with precision. Any space is actually container of action and there is no room for frills.
Large groups of men as architectural element	Full Metal Jacket, Spartacus, Paths of Glory, The killer	Long shots of large amount of men arranged in various shapes (like in Triumph of the Will documentary of Hitler)	In Spartacus, he has used large collection of humans (soldiers) as an architectural element. Similarly in Paths of Glory, in the execution scene he has used large amount of men. Similarly in Full Metal Jacket, all men are arranged like columns when inside the room and as group when on the field. In the climax scenes of The Killer (low budget film), in the fighting scene with axe, Kubrick used lots of mannequins and their body parts to add to the drama.
Levels, progression, Grandeur	Lolita, The Shining, Barry Lyndon, Eyes Wide Shut	The large staircases and the direction in which the protagonists climb them has been used very effectively by Kubrick.	In Lolita – the first time she is shown climbing is the first time we see Humbert’s and her interaction, In The Shining the first time they climb is when Jack’s wife understands Jack going crazy. Staircase is also used to effectively show the grandeur of the architecture (like Raj Kapoor).
Going from one space to another	All movies	Long corridors	Corridors have no function. One cannot live in there or sit in there. The function is of connecting different spaces . Kubrick uses thin corridors effectively, almost like a tunnel which puts audience in a position of discovering what should be at the end of the tunnel. The instinct to discover it, claimed by lots of psychologist is similar to the instinct of getting born - through a tunnel.
Material used for the architecture	The Shining, Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, 2001 A space Odyssey	Each material lends itself to a different feel. Kubrick tries to exploit it by using sound design.	The Shining: Wooden floor (and carpets) and walls (with a reverb when the ball is hit). The maze is made up of green plants and not concrete. The clockwork orange: The writer has clear wooden floor, the cat lady has carpet, Alex’s own home has a toy/plastic feel to it. 2001 A Space Odyssey: It has spic and span white floors of undecipherable material, in the end, the floors have light emanating from them. Barry Lyndon: When the kid brother wears the elder brother’s shoes, he clomps on the wooden floor for it to sound more irritating and obstrusive.

Here I want to talk about certain movies in particular and evaluate the key points in architecture.

2001 A Space Odyssey : Any fantasy movie should have that illusion of reality maintained and any break or error will totally spoil the effect of the movie. It will break the illusion. Kubrick achieves this in constructing immaculate production design. He also tries to bend our mind by showing architectures one wouldn’t envision with conscious mind but can have unconscious effect on us. Some key aspects of these are:

Circular corridors that defy gravity – To see the airhostess or the pilot go all around in any direction is a feature of a gravity-free environment. But it could be a square one too. He uses circular structure that lends itself to lots of subconscious and mythological impact. Circle also means endlessness, rounded/elliptical structures are more natural in terms of caves and more organic. Perfect squares are too manmade a structure. Eastern philosophies have the circular concept of time (kaal-chakra) where we eternally go round in time. I am not sure how aware Kubrick was (being a profoundly well-read person, I am inclined to believe so), but it did have that particular effect on me. Also circular corridors lend themselves to smooth passage, where you cannot distinguish one spot from another.

Shape of the spaceship similar to body’s vertebrae: Never before and never later has someone shown design of a spaceship with an immediately recognizable structure. Currently science is trying to take inspiration from human and animal bodies (Eagles for fighter planes, neural networks for artificial intelligence), it is likely that Kubrick extrapolated that to give spaceship the design of human body. But at the same time, giving it relatable structure draws me more to it.

HAL designed as one-eyed monster present in Homer’s odyssey.

Speed of the spaceship: The doesn’t zoom past. It moves at a relaxed pace.

The Shining

Maze : The maze is a structure also not frequently seen. It is an inhabitable piece of architecture. Once the person is in it, he wants to get out. There is this fear of being lost forever – not knowing whether every turn is leading one closer or farther away from the exit. This architecture attacks our primal instincts of security, of having the need to fathom our surroundings, of breaking away from any sense of claustrophobia. Kubrick, tries to compare this maze with the hotel (using various dissolves when the maze is first shown) and tries to bring parallelism between the hotel as a maze (mental) and the outside garden maze as a physical maze. In the climax shots Jack tries to follow his son in this maze while his wife is hallucinating in the hotel’s man-made maze.
The hotel: The hotel itself with its long corridors and great sound design employed in mundane acts (ball hitting), cycle over the wooden floor is akin to a maze but is most importantly presented as an unfathomable structure. We are also given a tour (when the manager takes Jack around), but still we do not understand the map of entire hotel. Also he chose 4:3 aspect ratio for his movie that made those columns of the hotel room more prominent.
Element of snow as architecture: When it snows, one wants to be indoors and safe. But what if there is a killer inside and vast expanse of snow outside. Kubrick effectively plays with that tension. Foot prints on the snow is used by Danny at the end to confuse Jack.

Lolita

Dream world: The opening shot is shown more as a mental space. There are times when we dream, a person we went to school with is with the person we met randomly on the train. The space time limitations are broken. When Humbert comes to kill Quilty the production design has these elements – packing and unpacking, table tennis in the living room, same paintings in more than one locations.

Clockwork Orange

The decaying society: The milkbar itself has traces of underwater decadence. The locality of Alex and the paintings on his wall also imparts that feeling.
Prison as uniform with shelfs stacked with boxes and series of bathtub and with a line drawn for prisoners
Cats as architectural element
Paintings in cat lady’s house to inform about the upper class orientation towards art
Hospital where he gets his Ludvico treatment is more like a cold military setting. The setting of the actual treatment is quite similar to Plato’s cave (http://www.thatmarcusfamily.org/philosophy/Course_Websites/Phil_Math/Photos/Cave.jpg).

Kubrickism Part 3: Sound design and other elements

2011-03-26T08:01:00.000-07:00

Sound design to manipulate emotions:

Kubrick is one of the pioneers in sound design from which lots of post modern cinema like of Tarentino’s takes inspiration from. He not only made intelligent use of digetic sound to convey various meanings but also very interesting used non-digetic sound and pioneered the use of music.

Use of digetic sound: Kubrick picked and chose the relevant digetic sounds to highlight the narrative. I mentioned above in case of showing the expanse and material of the architecture how he cleverly used the sound design in The Shining. In other places he used it to create mood – like the suicide of Bomer Pyle in Full Metal Jacket where one hear a periodic metallic sound, the sound of shields cutting the air in Spartacus. Infact the tune of the songs sung by the prisoners in Full Metal Jacket resonated in my ears for the following two days, such was the impact of the song without music and sung in the same tune.

In Spartacus, in the battle scene, the cuts are around the sound of trumpet and the drums. Something like this is later seen in Lord of the Rings.

In 2001 A space Odyssey, he used the sound of the astronaut breathing inside the helmet to highlight the point of him being suffocated to death later when the tube of oxygen supply tune is broken. Note that the sound effect contains no sound except him breathing. Similarly in Full Metal Jacket when the men are charging towards the sniper, the sound is only of their footsteps, all the ambience sound was brought down to zero. Another example is in Clockwork Orange where we hear the sound of the cat lady hitting Alex but not Alex hitting the cat lady.

Use of non-digetic sound effects: In Paths of Glory, one noticed the sound of Lion’s roar when the hero walks in through the trench, and the sound of military march when the General walks in, the scary piano keys in Eyes Wide Shut when Tom Cruise is caught during the orgy scene and is in the verge of being caught later. The sound design of the shining leading to a high point and then cutting to a slide showing Tuesday, not giving a moment of relief.

Pioneering use of music: In later movies, Kubrick increasingly became mood centric rather than plot centric. He felt that a movie should be succession of mood and minimized the use of dialogues for it to have more universal appeal. He started believing that movie is more a medium of visual story-telling and less dialogue based. In here I will point out two unparalled use of sound till that date.

The first is in ClockWork Orange where he manipulates us to see violence from Alex point of you. Since it is an enjoyable experience for him, it should be an enjoyable experience for us too. So the violence happens in slow-motion with music going on in the background. Ofcourse lots of people have now taken inspiration from it but this was the first time something like this was done. Using almost contrasting soothing music to show violence.

The second is in 2001 A Space Odyssey where the space ships were shown. Lots of Hollywood flicks shows it zooming right across but no one celebrates it with music, the way Kubrick does. The spaceship experience with that music feels like a mundane experience.

Language and accent as product of the environment and narrative device

In every Kubrick’s movie, the language/accent with which the characters spoke was product of the environment they were in. It lent itself to the authenticity of the characters. Following are the examples:

Full metal jacket – the abusive, firm language of the instructor
Clockwork orange – the invented language of Alex and his gang
2001, A Space Odyssey - The precise Brit accent of HAL computer
Lolita – Humbert was from European (Paris) and from his accent itself he was different from the Americans. It gave him a distinct characteristic and set him apart from everyone else.

Accuracy of details

Accuracy of small details helped in building up the reliability. As mentioned earlier Kubrick nursed ideas for long periods. Right from the various elements put in the military packet in Dr. Strangelove, food in 2001 A Space Odessey, pieces of brains being blown out in Full Metal Jacket . His attention and thoughts given to every detail was exemplary. Because of this, his story telling was more realistic, and less stereotype.

The attention was not just limited to the production design element but also gestures like Humbert applying nail polish on the foot of Lolita after placing cotton to separate the fingers. These new images that we saw were the ones that stayed with us long after the movie was seen. These details added the repeatability of the movie.

His characters were nuanced, none completely black and completely white. A little unpredictable.

Even at the script level, there were layers talking about various things, like violence as integral part of infantile nature of man in Clockwork Orange, the history of violence (esp against Red Indians) in The Shining, having a tender love for the person whom you are betraying in Eyes Wide Shut. These details did not exhaust the movie in the first viewing. Every viewing infact provided something new. Also we knew that apart from the entertainment the movie provided, there were treasures tucked in the movie which kept bringing us back to the movie.

This gave his movie his unique fingerprint and repeatability and an aftertaste that lingered on.

Use of colors: Every color has a psychological impact on us. It is difficult to state but is certainly felt. The colors like bright red unsettles us and the colors like blue gives us some calmness. Kubrick plays a lot with those colors and their use is clearly seen in all his movies. I particularly like The Shining where he used warm red tones and well-lighted corridors. A departure from lots of horror movies where the ghosts are found in the dark. In lot of places he used warm and cold lights together in the same frame – e.g. bathroom scene of eyes wide shut.

Kubrick used a narrator in most of his movies, in Clockwork Orange, it was Alex himself and in some like Barry Lyndon it was a third narrator. There are various other features of Kubrick’s work like use of bold shots – he never did anything small, great casting (The Shining is a good example), and maintaining a narrative tension – in none of his movies at no point one felt that there is nothing to be discovered.
Some might debate that Kubrick’s movies though flawless left them cold, really didn’t move them emotionally. Kubrick really never gave a happy chocolate ending, except for Paths of Glory where the soldiers hummed to the tune. Lot many times he left audience with an unsettled feeling. For me “Eyes Wide Shut” had the most disappointing ending in that Nicole Kidman says “Fuck”. Interestingly, this movie was released after Kubrick’s death and that remains the last word we heard from him.

Francois Truffaut - my inspiration and my essay on him

2011-03-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

Francois Truffaut was a film critic and director with his directorial career spanning from 1954-1983. He was one of the torch-bearers of French New Wave. He derived his film making styles from the Italian neo-realism but he used the neo-realist techniques to film personal stories and stories about human relationships.
I feel that the most significant characteristic of Truffaut films was the way he captured moments. The moments could be of male bonding, or a couple who are experiencing rumbling of first love, or of children enjoying a puppet show. Truffaut himself believed that the beauty of final film lies not in amount of work done on set or the money spent but lies in the chemistry achieved between the actors. And most of his scenes brimmed with tender moments of chemistry between the key artists.
In this article, I attempt to find out the various elements that Truffaut put in to achieve that chemistry. Since Truffaut’s movies are a personal work of art, discussions about his films will also include Truffaut himself.
When we enter a group of people having conversation at a party, it takes us a few minutes to settle and get an idea of what they are talking about. Initially we feel that we are invading someone’s privacy. But gradually we get to know their complex characters. This is how Truffaut treats his audience when he is filming scenes between people. We feel like voyeurs initially and then we become part of the characters. A lot of this can be seen in Jules And Jim when all three character are there together and also Two English Women when the girls sandwich the boy and do see-saw.

Every scene of Truffaut is rich and multi-dimensional. This is because in every scene he not only brought in one element but multiple elements. His motto was to construct a scene around multiple ideas. This made the scene more interesting. Truffaut collected ideas. In the sense that he collected newspapers cuttings and kept them in a film. He was so meticulous in the study of his films that he maintained files of films and directors. He used the things he liked within various scenes. For example – Soft Skin is inspired from a newspaper cutting. Various characters in his movies were modeled around interesting people he met or himself or childhood friend. This made foundation of the characters very strong.
Earlier films of Truffaut like 400 films, Les Minstons were essentially autobiographical and hence felt extremely honest as there were no holes left out in their telling. For developing the scripts he deliberately chose writers (As he didn’t want them to be total autobiographical). His writers were mostly the people who had deep understanding of the theme being dealt with and he refused to take industry script writers. Taking authors well-versed with the subject insures the movie from any false representation of reality.
Truffaut was a great admirer of form. Though he employed lots of existing film making techniques, he never invented one. He was not keen on it. He delved more on the emotions. The emotions used in his movies were universal since the relationships he created on the screen were universal and honest. He dealt with everyday relationships of child and his parents and teachers and of man and woman that stimulated reflections in relationships that affect us. That is the reason why Truffaut’s movies stay with us as they make us think about our own life stories.

Truffaut believed in building real characters and his characterization formed a very strong base in all his movies. Even when there were large number of characters, like in “Day for Night”. He gave each of them a clear role and clear motivation - like the assistant producer’s wife who waits for him and eventually shouts at everyone for having affairs. Truffaut laid a huge stress on working with actors. He devised ways (like scriptless acting for Antonio in the psychiatrist scene of 400 blows) or giving physical movement to the characters. Infact Truffaut felt that an actor is good and comfortable when he is given physical movements and his movies are replete with characters going from one place to another. He felt that when there is movement then the audience is engaged. Truffaut was wary of audience getting bored (he would feel discomforted if the audience got bored in other people’s movies also). Also movement symbolized harmony and things moving. Characters moving from one place to another especially in the open space gave lots of space and fluidity to his movies.

Truffaut’s movies have lyrical quality to them. They have a mix of happiness and lingering sadness. The happiness is never felt in extreme and very rarely we see a character have a hearty laugh that seems long lasting. Even the humour in his movies are suttle. This is seen in all his movies right from 400 blows to Jules and Jim to Stolen Kisses. Truffaut effectively uses music to create that haunting mood of sadness. Sadness seems more permanent in life than happiness.

Truffaut had said very beautifully: “Happiness is hard to recount. It is used up before one has perceived it”. In all his movies the principal characters are looking for happiness but never get it permanently. Infact no moment in life is permanent. This is best shown in the movie Stolen Kisses were the character Antonio keeps going from one job to another, one relationship to other – back and forth. He says a dichotomy exists between provisional and permanence and they never seem to co-exist in life. And almost all of the movies of Truffaut I have seen, there is none that has a “happily everafter” ending. Life is unstable. Death is stable, permanent.
Truffaut, maybe because he saw death of his grandmother with whom he lived till the age of 10 in his childhood, feels death as an integral part of life. Death is integral to all his stories. Sometimes like in Jules and Jim, Soft Skin, Two English Women, they come as solution or salvation of the characters. Death seemed to be part of most of his scripts but he almost all the time avoided the gory violence and blood.

Truffaut used lots of motifs across his movie like fire (400 blows, Farenheit 451), caresses, sudden and unexpected slaps, protagonist looking through or talking through a window, women legs (As discussed earlier) and the character in the movie enjoying watching cinema in theatre. Truffaut struggled a lot with the endings of his movies and considered them to be the most challenging part during the writing. Several of his films are characterized by sudden endings.

Truffaut and childhood: Truffaut didn’t have a normal childhood. He felt that adolescence should be compensated for with the things that were not present in the childhood. He craved to be part of a family, he craved to remain innocent, vulnerable, child-like. Infact in all his auto-biographical movies he has strived for the above things. He has shown that character always looking for an anchor and struggling against a authority.

Truffaut and women: In his various movies, his women are identical regardless of the character they play. He doesn’t even spare the character of a mother who is shown perceived as being sensuous by her child (400 blows). Infact Truffaut claims that relationship of a man with woman is same as relationship of a man with his mother. Women for Truffaut are headstrong individuals around whom the life revolves. The women are both angelic and selfish. They repel and attract simultaneously. The best illustration is in Stolen Kisses where the shoe owner’s wife looks angelic and unattainable initially and later on she is degraded to someone offering herself to Antonio. All the women are shown having both these elements in varying proportions. The women are like river, cannot be controlled. But most of the times they are shown directionless with no clear intent. Right from Jean Morreau’s character in Jules and Jim to the two sisters in “Two English Girls”, the women are shown fickle when it comes to choosing their object of affection. Loyalty is a virtue that does not rest in women.
At the same time, Truffaut didn’t see loyalty as a virtue. He never upheld it or advocated for it. However, he always showed that disloyalty or moral confusions lead to doom, not because of the moral dilemmas involved but because of the emotional entanglement they lead to.
The underlying theme with women in all Truffaut’s movie was the compelling need to love but much above it, the compelling need to be loved.
Truffaut was fascinated by women. Since he felt that the world circled around women and so did his characters and movies. However, he could never fathom women and most of his movies deal with the male protagonist fumbling in their understanding of love and even understanding of women. “Are women magic?” – most of his characters would ask. He didn’t see any permanence in any relationship with women (though he has shown lots of permanence in male bonding) and if any relationship did culminate into marriage, Truffaut has shown boredom and later adultery seeping into the marriage.
Nonetheless, Truffaut has shown beautiful love making scenes. Love for him meant passion. A feeling that makes a man totally lose control. This also means that these intense moments are temporary but their temporariness makes one enliven it even more rather than refute it. The love making scenes that are shown are beautifully choreographed, replete with caressing of face with hands. Truffaut considered women’s legs as the most beautiful part of her body. Like in “Man who Loved a Woman” , Morane says that “The legs of women are points of compass that bestride the terrestrial globe in all directions, giving it its equilibrium and harmony”.
Truffaut picturizes his women with graceful smooth movements and provide them certain lightness, by making them float on a bicycle. He chose camera stylistics also accordingly to give them a fleeting angelic movement.

Truffaut lived and breathed cinema. He felt that he grew through the movies he made. At the same time his movies were huge expression of himself. Truffaut and his movies hence are an integral part of eachother.

Martin Scorsese - my essay on his early influences and stylistics

2011-03-25T08:09:00.000-07:00

"I can't really envision a time when I'm not shooting something."
- Martin Scorsese 

Martin Scorsese is one of the most exciting and entertaining directors of Hollywood films. His intricate scenes, documentary like but yet stylized and personalized and various techniques used to communicate the psyche of the individual are some of the things that set him apart.
Early Days
"I grew up within Italian-American neighborhoods, everybody was coming into the house all the time, kids running around, that sort of stuff, so when I finally got into my own area, so to speak, to make films, I still carried on. " - Martin Scorsese

Being an Asthama patient, Scorsese was left indoors most of the time. This led him to do two things:
1) Watch movies in theatre
2) Observe people from his home from an unstable Italian neighbourhood.

He was also part of various social gatherings happening around his house and we can see that in every movie, the social gatherings- the food, the people attending them are very elaborately shot. Scorsese wanted to be a priest before he wanted to be a director but decided to not be one. We can see the presence of the church as an integral part in most of his movies. 
Sacred and sinful images co-exist even blend together in his movies. 


Cinematic Influences during growing up years (Western classics):
Scorsese has inspiring enthusiasm and his love for films started early. At the age of 8 he got himself an 8 mm camera and made a movie with his friends (see pic attached of the credits). Doing this enabled him to watch movies, more as a student than as a mere audience. At the age of 14-15 he became aware of the vision behind the camera. It is interesting to see how some of the Western films watched during childhood and certain aspects of these films find their way in Scorsese's future work. A list of the films and Scorsese's learnings from those films is enlisted below.

1) Duel in the sun - He got excited by the visuals and music in the film. A few techniques used like dissolves to the sun can be seen in his later films most notably Age of Innocence.
2) Land of the Pharoah - This was a movie about the death and he got enchanted by the idea of a story that leads to doom of people.
3) East of Eden - He liked the acting of James Dean and felt like this is how real characters talk. In most of his films, dialogues are mostly conversational almost as if we are evesdropping into those characters life just like in East of Eden. 
4) Citizen Kane - This movie made him aware of what goes behind the camera as he noticed the change in camera angles, use of deep focus, use of sound track, overlapping dialogue and various technical tricks
5) Tales of Hoffman - This movie made him aware of the use of music. The movie had a  sword fight without any digetic sound effects but only music. He used this technique a lot ( for example in  GoodFellas when Robert De Niro is sizing up pple in the bar or during the sequence of deadbodies being uncovered)
6) Public Enemy - This movie influenced his style of using music the most. This movie had a sequence when the protagonist's brother starts playing music for the arrival of the brother. Instead of the brother his deadbody arrived. This made an ironic comment on the situation. Scorsese observed that in his neighbourhood too, there could be music playing at a pizza parlour and some guy is getting roughed up. So this seemed more natural way of using music to him.
7) The searches - Scorsese went with his friends to watch this movie where John Wayne played a negative character. He and his friends identified with him inspite of being angry with him. To Scorsese, he felt like a real character - more fallible. He saw the picture again and again and found more meaning and more levels.

World Cinema Influences
1) Eisenstein : The idea of juxaposition of images, to create a new meaning and the idea of the audience synthesizing the movie fascinated Scorsese. For example in the movie Taxi Driver, the scene where Robert De Niro is adding some powder to a glass of water and tiny bubbles are  being formed, or the series of montages in the movie Kundun, where we see the shot selection to be based on the memory of a young boy.

2) Italian Neorealism : Use of real locations and breaking the boudaries of the studio, documentary like but intensely personalized film making has been prominent features of all Scorsese's movies.

3) Fellini's 8 1/2: A film about artistic dillemas - was the singlemost remarkable movie for Scorsese. The scenes had a dream like, floating quality to them that stayed with Scorsese. In 8 1/2 the camera is always in motion and the images are always fluid, almost pouring into one one another. To Scorsese, the shots seemed natural and integral to the movie, looking immensely simple on screen but were extremly difficult to execute. Fellini's relationship with women - who are elusive, and uncontrollable resonated with Scorsese's idea of women. Scorsese was deeply affected by this brutally personal film by Fellini.

4) Jules and Jim: Truffaut's Jules and Jim had an opening shot that directly dives into the core of the movie. Scorsese was impressed by this approach of getting right into the subject without dilly dallying and employed this techniques in the majority of his movies. Jules and Jim also used freeze frame to underline a point about the character and Scorsese used that a lot in GoodFellas to underline the key moments of growing up years of the protagonist.

Stylistics
1) Opening Mise-en-scene:
The first scene of every movie by Scorsese inevitably fulfils the following two purpose:
 a) Sets the mood of the movie
 b) Tells us what the movie is going to be about.
For example - the opening long take of Raging Bull, has Jack La Motta standing in the ring to fight. We instantly know that the movie is about boxing. That shot is also slow, lyrical, so we know that the movie will deal with poignant side of the boxer's life also.
Another example is Last Temptation of Christ: It starts with a voice over of Christ being tormented and the images of him struggling alone with this thought and struggling physically on the floor. We know that the movie will be about the struggle of Jesus trapped inside a human body and mind.
Some other examples: Age of Innocence- Flowers made up of fabric in the backdrop of handwritten words (with changing font colors) and the accompanying music, Casino- Blowing up of the car, GoodFellas- Killing a half dead person kept in the rear of the car etc.


2) Characters:
The characters of Scorsese films are real. We can see glimpses of Scorsese's personality and growing up influences in his characterisation.The characters are lovable, real and talkative. There is an inherent dichotomy that exists in all his protagonists that make us debate whether what they are doing is right or wrong and in the end we feel that what they are doing is natural and probably we could be doing that in that situation. For example his protagonists in Departed(questions about loyalty) , GoodFellas (decision to sell drugs), Casino (Robert De Niro's marrying Sharon Stone). There is no celebration of heroism but celebration of realism in his movies. Even in "Last Temptation of Christ", Jesus is a real person throughout the movie. 

Scorsese uses voiceover to dwell deep onto the psyche of the characters and tries to strike a fine balance between the motivation of character defined by the plot and the motivations defined by the characterisation itself. There is a sequence in GoodFellas, where the protagonist is being followed by helicopter and he is eluding that and trying to avoid being caught. At the same time he is cooking family dinner and is worried about the sauce being stirred and sticking the bottom of the pan. Sequences like these makes the character more real and identfiable.


3) Camera Movement:
The camera movement of Scorsese's movies are mostly fluid and consist of a good amount of long takes (even though he is doesn't shy away from cuts and uses them when appropriate). The camera is used a lot for showing point of view and becomes a personality of its own. For example usage of point of view for introduction of other gang members in a party. Scorsese is brilliant in picturizing large disorganised social gatherings with a long take and brings his camera right in the middle on the gathering as if we are part of it and satisfies our natural instincts of looking at the food, eves dropping into an intersting conversation. Choregraphing and shooting that situation is a remarkable quality.

There is a lyrical quality to his long takes and are almost like brilliant brush strokes. The most memorable shots are the first party sequence in Age of Innocence where the camera goes around revealing the paintings in the room and introducing the character. It slows down on the characters being talked about. Again, introduction of Sharon Stone and Robert De Niro's reaction to her has camera being a conspicuous character in the context of the scene. 
Also Scorsese combines lots of track in and zoom in to underline the emotion/tension in the scene (After Hours, Last Temptation of Christ, Cape Fear), he uses lots of long takes with steadycams to maintain the flow of the scene for example in second date (long take sequence) in the restaurant of GoodFellas. 
As music is inherent part of Scorsese's movies, some of his camera movements are planned according to the background tract that would be playing (example - in GoodFellas (finding of the dead bodies) - the sound track was playing during principle photography as well so that camera movement could be planned accordingly).

  
4) Editing pattern:
Scorsese in lots of movies uses parallel sequences so that the words spoken accompany the images (example Departed sequence - Dicaprio's confession to the psychatrist "you heart rate wis jacked"), his one scene flows into other and for this he uses lots of sound bridges. One of the most brilliant of these is in Casino, when Sharon Stone gets married and the visuals of marriage sequence is juxtaposed with te conversation of Sharon Stone and her boyfriend on phone immediately after marriage.
In Age of Innocence, there are lots of dissolves to various colors - red, magenta - to associate the thought of the lover with certain color. There are lots of editing experiments in Scorsese's movie (like disssolve within a shot).

5) Use of Music:
Scorsese is a connoiseaur of music. His various scenes are rich in music. Most of the music is not the original sound track but are tracks from vaious albums that could be playing around the time the events in the movies are happening. The songs make a comment on the scene, mostly ironic (as mentioned in Earlier Cinematic Influences) but sometimes emphasize the mood of the movie (baby baby track in casino). He uses music to create the mood of the film (Last Temptation of Christ) and also to establish the movie in a certain space and time and sets its social context. The music connects to the psychology of the character it is played on.  


6) Overall Mise-en-scene construction: 
Scorsese works hard on mise-en-construction - shot division, story boarding, choice of colors in the frame, angle of shot, relative height of characters, choice of music and editing pattern etc. His mise-en-scenes ar consistent with the look of the film too. Example in Last Temptation of Christ, he chose earthy palette - brown was the predominant color throughout. Even the clothes were muddy are black, grey or brown, there were no trees shown inspite all the shots being outdoors. 
For his gangster movies his mise-en-scenes are generally intricate and provide the social fabric on which the film is resting. The shots are mostly midshotsto tell that the people live in a crowded environment with no personal space.
For Taxi Driver, to show the world seen by Robest De Niro (protagonist) feels like an outsider observing the world. The blurriness of streets (point of view of Travis) is underlines by the blurry, skewed thoughts of Travis. His lonliness is underlined even when he is with his friends and the fireds occupy one side of the table and he alone is on another side of the table. Scorsese managed to create a dream like quality. The most impressive is "you talking to me sequence" with jump cuts. The last shoot out scene is graphic but also dream like.

What is the Best way of conducting an actor's workshop ?

2011-03-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

I really don't know. Any tips would be useful.

My current understanding:
- Have a few readings with the entire cast together.
- Tell the actors that these characters are real people. Don't use them to get ahead in their life. The characters own you.
- Give them character sketches, background. Let each of them work on the character - comeup with their own version of character sketch, mannerism, outfits (this industry is anyways filled with really dumb costume designers). This I thought was very important. I should let them tell me how the character will talk etc.
- Have workshops where the existing script friends are made to do stuff together - go for trek together so that their warmth and chemistry comes out naturally. Show movies with exemplary acting. Fuel their ambition.
- Have workshops with every scene and stake holders of the scene - where you discuss the text and subtext of dialogues, mannerism.
- Have scene wise rehearsals.

We actually need the actors for 2-3 months to conduct this kind of workshop. That is why I prefer non-established actors. Established actors don't have time. They feel they can do it better without rehearsals - spontaneity kharaab ho jayegi. Spontaneity should be seen on screen, but it is mostly used as an excuse for slacking. Unprepared actors just bring no depth to performance - spontaneous or not spontaneous.

I need to brainstorm the structure of acting workshop more. Have a better time table and have another conductor besides me. Coz I know if I have nailed the casting and the acting. I have nailed this film.

160 pages

2011-03-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Done. Breathe in. Breathe out. Yup.

Now remove 40 pages out of it. End of inspiration phase. Begin of perspiration phase.

P.S: There is an great high in doing page down page down on the 160 pages of the script one has written. Maybe code writers would understand what I mean.

Thanks to my co-writer for some wonderfully crafted character sketches. They are so well-written - they should be published. Quoting an excerpt of one of the character-sketches:

"While they grew up, they knew they were natural leaders. People noticed a light in their eyes, noticed them when they entered any room. They come into the world finished and carved statues, and all the world has to do is blow off the marble-dust off them. "

Throat infection for last 5 days

2011-03-18T21:54:00.000-07:00

Still too bored to visit the doctor. haven't been to gym the whole week. Wrote just 6 pages. (btw we are just 6 pages away from our first draft of polished finished script)

Plus have been absent-minded a bit. Yest we were going out for dinner and I accidentally locked my husband inside the house and was waiting for him near the gate. Later Saurabh came out saying "Tu kaise mereko lock kar dee ghar per". Oops.

Biggest learning of the week - yes - string theory - crash courses are no substitute for reading all those books and listening to all those lectures on 11 dimensions (i listen to some though) but it was good to get it from Saurabh. One gets a better perspective of life. Also at somepoint because I am writing the last few scenes of my film - having that perspective aids the movie a lot. It helps me give a good aftertaste.

Another big learning of the week - a japanese psycho movie Confessions. I bow to the director, cinematographer, art director and the editor. It will be ages before I can give a treatment like that to any film. The great first 30 mins I have seen of any film and the scene was inside a classroom. Imagine 30 mins scene inside a classroom and you are still getting one visual delight after another. Hats off. Warning: don't see it's trailer. It's the worst giveaway trailer ever. Saurabh saw it and now I hope he still likes the film.

Another emotional moment - was seeing the birthday video. I saw in the long video that I was cutting the cake and giving it to my friends. Throughout the video far away in the background, behind the crowd of people (because of lighting or bright yellow t-shirt) I saw my husband standing and looking at me... He was smiling with my every smile - not once looking away.
In between he asked me: "Kaunsa cake hai". He was too far away to see the cake or make himself heard. Hmm :'(

Entering a new decade

2011-03-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

Turned 30 today. And I feel like a woman :).

Nice one

2011-03-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

http://www.themillions.com/2011/03/zooming-out-how-writers-create-our-visual-grammar.html

Gulmohar was shown to a bunch of freshmen in WWI today. They received it well and asked the right set of questions. So felt good about my short film.
However one senior person was seeing my film later in the day and I felt a little nervous - infact quite nervous. I always think about Fareeda in those times. "We love you for what you are and not what your movies are." Maybe at some level all artists do become insecure about their work to certain people. I am not nervous when strangers see but really nervous when people I know see my film. Infact I look at their reaction from the corner of my eye.
Infact when i show my film to a stranger i feel as if I am showing them something external to me but when I show my movie to a known person I really feel I am baring my mind to them and exposing something really soft and fragile part of me which makes me wince. I don't know why I feel that way.

The Trade of Bollywood

2011-03-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

I attended a talk by trade analyst(Komal Nahata) and he had some interesting info and heuristics to share mainly around the lines of film distribution.
The film once made by the "producers" has to be distributed by the "distributors" to various "exhibitors" (cinema owners).
The whole of India is divided into the following territories:
1) Bombay Territory: Parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka
2) Delhi UP
3) East Punjab (this I think also includes J&K and all the other northern states)
4) Eastern Territory - West Bengal, Orissa and the eastern states
5) CP Berar: part Maharashtra part MP
6) CI (central india): Rest of MP
7) Rajasthan
8) South: Nizam, Marathwada, Mysore, TN, Kerela, Andhra
9) Overseas : Further it has UK, US etc.

Also various things work for various territories:
North India - Action, Sunny Deol
East- Emotion
Maharashtra - Entertainment - comedy
South - Class cinema, Also musicals
Overseas - Romance, Indian values not action film (Also stars work in the order SRK, Amir, Akshay (UK's fav), Hrithik, Salman, Saif and Anil

Also it seems the target audience of a class movie is 30% (15% students, 15% upper multiplex going class).

Also one should know that when one talks about Gross collection of a film, he is talking about ticket counter sales. The Net collection of a film is Gross minus Entertainment Tax. And the Distributor share is Net minus exhibitor share.

----

He actually didn't mention about Distribution Fee which I had found from some of the distributors on my visit to Naaz (the distribution center of films). Sometimes when you are totally indie- new actors, no production house backing, the distributor charge you a 15% fee for distributing and if the movie makes money (it is rare for movies distributed such ways to make money) then the profit goes directly to you. In India actually it is mandatory to have atleast one theatrical release before the movie can be sold to various satellites. I think this rule might just have been to put a check on the threat that theatres can become an optional medium if not protected.
I also feel that with ticket costs being so high, the audience also looks for risk minimization when they goto see a film. Hence though the distributors think that increasing money of ticket might lead to more money in their pocket, it also sets a vicious circle. To lure a happy layman to pay the high ticket cost, one needs to advertise the movie more and hence it leads to increased publicity cost. Also it puts a pressure on star system where stars provide a certain brand to the film and guarantee a certain turnout. And hence now the stars start charging a premium. In any industry, the person who has control over the bottleneck issue will always be paid a premium. Hence not the writers, or the directors (barring a few), but it's the actors who guarantee a certain amount of ticket sales and hence they are treated like humpty dumpties. Unfortunately, everybody feels we could have done better than to land in such a situation. I really hope that with the advent of technology, this whole thing is revised, and there is always a pipeline for indie filmmakers to have their film out there and share it with people.
The day film making becomes as easy and ubiquitous as writing, painting (i know a lot of people worry about quality control ("cheap film means bad films") - I don't) - I will throw a separate party to everyone who could attend. And it is good to know we are getting there.

Information Asymmetry

2011-03-05T05:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I met a really distant cousin (along with a close cousin) when I was out shopping with my m-in-law.
The distant cousin was an IAS aspirant has given 2 attempts already. I really had good appreciation for him - but after a while I started sensing a sort of irreverence with my choice of profession. He was like "your study is not really study" and "your work is not really work." He actually thought I took an early retirement because of burn out.
It's always with everyone - all my relatives have to mention iit kanpur-microsoft thing before talking about the fact that i am a film maker. That's why my hats off to Udai singh or other "boys" who take the switch because the "relatives" of our societies will never spare a non-earning man.
Well in my attempt to give my cousin a befitting reply, I told them that if one enjoys what one learns and does - it never seems work. But it was a smart reply not a convincing one. Also when I told them that film making requires a good study of psychology of people, a philosophical stand and keen observation of day to day life - they seemed even less amused.
What psychology and philosophy do you study? What books do you really read? Will you make a art movie ?
And after a point, I really stopped arguing with them because they were not open to listen - as compared to some of my friends who showed super keenness in understanding how a movie is made, how edit points are chosen etc etc.
One never questions the work of a software engineer. Or effectiveness of a general physician. Not everyone can be one. But people at large assume that one can anyday choose to be a painter, guitarist, writer (everybody in this world thinks they can be a writer) or a moviemaker.

But how much can I blame them myself? One of the things that the film school did to me was provide me a correction of my own sense of capabilities. I joined thinking that I will make the best movies ever made. Now I know the gap I had to cover, the nuances I needed to capture and inspite that unpredictability of the outcome of one's work is something I have to live with. Hard work and intelligence both are not enough to make a good film..The truth is to do sustainable well in any profession one needs to be disciplined, work hard and needs to be humble enough to want to learn from others.

Every person thinks that he/she can replicate a work of art and not just replicate but always improve. Basically there is no visible information asymmetry between an artist and a layman. And hence an artist can never be regarded higher than a doctor (who might be a really bad doctor - more harmful than the next door serial killer - but he is a doctor nevertheless).

And that's the truth we all have to accept at some point and generally smile when we meet our relatives.

My Cousin Vinny

2011-03-04T20:25:00.000-08:00

Delhi gets a channel -Movies Now- and early this morning I and Saurabh (apart from gorging on aloo parathas carrot halwa) settled on watching My Cousin Vinny. I remember Paramesh in Seattle showed that film to me for the first time some 5-6 years ago and since then this movie has become one of my comfort movies. It never fails to bring a chuckle.

Some good ads coming on TV - i like the vodofone superman, the blackberry messenger esp the last long shot of the beds when the students are communicating and ofcourse the levis curve jeans ads.

Gone to delhi

2011-03-03T07:07:00.000-08:00

Till Sun night. Will gorge on the street food. Unfortunately I think I am developing a throat infection plus a panic attack w.r.t my script.

Update: Yes I am gorging on food and yes I am relaxed w.r.t script. And yes I got a supercool hairstyle. And yes I forgot my toothbrush again!

What would you do ?

2011-03-02T00:57:00.001-08:00

Read this on reddit today: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/fvk4o/a_customer_died_at_my_register_today_and_i_am/

Read the first reply and also one from pickoneforme.

And do see this - barcode for every movie: moviebarcode.tumblr.com

Boogie Nights script

2011-02-27T04:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Boogie-Nights.html

Has some gems esp. when it comes to dialogues between two people.

Also was watching cricket and saw this vodafone 3G ad and totally loved it :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GFr_GSjYPI

Last week made the most exotic food i think I ever made

2011-02-25T22:41:00.000-08:00

In our weekly grocery shopping at Nature's Basket we saw some salmon pieces. And we thought we could experiment and try making Salmon steak at home. We also got some asparagus (really cheap - 50 odd bucks for all that) and baby potatoes (and for some reason saurabh calls them sweet potatoes and confuses the hell out of everybody) and we made this dish as a team effort. Actually I wanted to make it with mash potatoes but we only had baby potatoes in my house.
I later realized that we were out of garlic and I had to borrow garlic from my neighbors and this is my only interaction with them in last 2 years.

So here are some pics of the food -Salmon Steak (with butter garlic dressing), roasted baby potatoes and stir fried asparagus:

Best use of extras

2011-02-24T20:10:00.001-08:00

Wattsi shared this chinese vid. I think the chinese know how to make the best use of their extras:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfE0jgMUQrc

The struggles of making "just a student short film"

2011-02-24T05:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday found out through an sms that my diploma film got Express award for best film. It felt nice. It was not publicized much (and my friends always criticize me for not publicizing my stuff and doing bad networking and I guess both are extremely imp in this field!). But yes it is my first film festival win so thought of bookmarking it!

Anyways like lots of my classmates I should also have a good poster of my film and like a few of them have a facebook page with all the film festival selections of Uss Paar:

- River to River Florence Film Festival, Italy
- Kalpanirjhar film festival, Calcutta
- Article 19 - Won the BEST Short Film Award
- Bhubaneshwar International short film fest
- Xaverian Film Academy ( X.F.A )

These are all small fests - but it is always nice to start small - kinda sets a trajectory. But my first love my short fiction Reflections haven't gotten anywhere. It's sad coz I really think Reflections is my best work till date.

We had worked really very hard for Uss Paar. Infact after the shoot I realized that I was not able to walk normally and when I came back from outdoor and took off my shoes I saw my legs as below. (pls click for clearer view)

Here are some musings of the day of the shoot : http://atkifilm.blogspot.com/2010/04/pruduction-day-musings.html
And here are some musings of "some" of the hiccups before the shoot: http://atkifilm.blogspot.com/2010/04/diploma.html

Reading it refreshes a lot of memories. One was being(ironically) caught by a railway TT coz the ticket was in Dev's pocket and he had left for Goregaon. And I had to pay 500 bucks to bail myself out (And thank God I was carrying that much money - as again I am very bad with cash management). And yes that 4 am cold shower was just so shockingly awesome too.

Advancing on Chaos and Dark ...

2011-02-22T07:32:00.000-08:00

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance, that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
The power which resides in him is new in nature and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.....

But we half express ourselves and are ashamed of that divine idea that each of us represents."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson (from his essay Self-reliance)

50 greatest opening title sequence of all times

2011-02-22T07:18:00.001-08:00

http://www.ifc.com/news/2011/02/the-50-greatest-opening-title.php?utm_source=twitter

Random thoughts ...importance of supporting actors in your films

2011-02-18T23:55:00.000-08:00

Nothing compensates for a lack of good performance and nothing brings to table more than a good performance...

Perhaps perhaps perhaps

2011-02-18T20:29:00.001-08:00

So I have songs from various countries in my music player and I love putting them in various bins - depending on the mood they create. One of the songs that just stayed with me for a while is Quizas Quizas Quizas.

Probably because this song replays the melancholic images of "In the Mood for Love" for me. But also when I listen to it in my car - I imagine a really teasing dance between two people on a midnight french street. So I thought I should research a bit more about this song. And found out that it was sung by Nat King Cole in 1958 (here is the youtube link): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjVfiZM09YA

I also found out the song has a history. It is a 1947 song written by Cuban songwriter Osvaldo Farres. I have not been able to find the original video of the 1947 hit song.

But I found a delightfully slow version by Ibrahim Ferrer & Omara Portuondo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSEiyF64z3o

And as I was researching more - listening to various version of the songs - I really enjoyed the beauty and the personal touch Nat King Cole lent to the song. For comparison listen to this version and you would know the importance of a voice selection while composing a song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjhjw6u5TqQ

Here is a verbatim translation of the spanish song for you
Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps"

I am always asking you
When, how and where
You always tell me
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

The days pass this way
And I am despairing
And you, you always answer
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

You are wasting time
Thinking, thinking
That which you want most
Until when? Until when?

The days pass this way
And I am despairing
And you, you always answer
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

You are wasting time
Thinking, thinking
That which you want most
Until when? Until when?

The days pass this way
And I am despairing
And you, you always answer
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

Though the truth is that one need not know the lyrics to enjoy the song.

The Social Network

2011-02-16T06:23:00.001-08:00

Social Network was a good movie that came out in 2010. It is not like best of the best type of movies but as compared to other movies that came out from Hollywood last year it stands tall. Also it is one of the really well-received films.

What stands out about that movie is perfection. Perfection in script and execution. A 2.5 hours movie going at 1000 miles per hour. The experience of the craftsmen involved really showed.

After I saw the film, I read notes of the script writer and read the script and then I saw the film again. So I know the movie like the back of my hand. You also realize that everything that was mentioned in the first scene, drives the rest of the movie. It is more about "invisible" class difference and deals with the illusion of democracy that a capitalistic society sometimes exhibit. It has quite a little material about Facebook the site itself. An interesting point to note is that - Mark Zucerberg was a socio-path and Facebook is a socio-path's idea of the society.

Recently Zain posted the 93 minute making of the film. 93 min is a long time for the making of any film - but it is prob the first making that I saw that actually made you go through the process of rehearsals, selection of costume, look of characters. It was also a great way to understand the forces that operate when a group of people come together to make a film.

So here are some of the resources for "The Social Network" enthusiast:
The script:http://wiscreenwritersforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Social-Network-The-by-Aaron-Sorkin-May-28-2009.pdf

Aaron's (scriptwriter's) interview: http://www.wmagazine.com/celebrities/2010/10/facebook_film?currentPage=1

The making of Social Network: http://www.slashfilm.com/watch-social-network-movie-facebook-93minute-scenes-documentary/

Just a quote that I liked

2011-02-11T22:26:00.001-08:00

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars." - Jack Kerouac

So I wonder

2011-02-11T20:59:00.000-08:00

If people who deactivate their social networking accounts exhibit more suicidal tendencies than others. Atleast Saurabh worries so.

But well I deleted my twitter account. Here is a summary of the useful content of my old twitter account:

Some quotes:
"Those are not stars in the sky- those are your brain cells" - Biutiful.
"It is stunning how much we gather back after death. Effortlessly the
net pulls to shore what it needs." -Zain (from his story "Foreword")
"I'm aware what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they
abandon dignity." - Hans Landa - Incredible Basterds
"Private behavior will be a relic of an era gone by" - The Social Network.
"Sometimes reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. " - Adaptation.
"Information underrepresents reality”
"There is always another death to die, beyond the death you know." - rumi
“The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not
our ability to explain why it is good.” —Stanley Kubrick
"there is a certain deliciousness in the oblivion."
"When two rivers cross they borrow eachothers water."
"Sometimes talking is interference and sometimes not talking is interference"

Links of posters:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/02/vintage-posters/?pid=1391&viewall=true
http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2011/01/15/look-out-soviet-bloody-posters/
http://www.reelizer.com/
http://www.slate.com/id/2279923/pagenum/all/#p2
http://www.ferdyonfilms.com/?p=8013
http://observersroom.designobserver.com/rickpoynor/entry.html?entry=24218
Some good movie posters of 2010: http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/2708

Talks:
Are you a cyborg: http://bit.ly/ff1voN
www.harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination
Your brain on improv. An amazing look at creativity and the mind http://on.ted.com/8oVd #TEDxMidAtlantic
http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html
why i never manage to lose those 10 kilos!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGt3-fxOvug&feature=player_embedded
john cleese on creativity and i agree 100%

Youtube vids:
Poem by the NRI lady: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9W1j5NCy9s&feature=player_embedded
Powers of 10 - to just get some perspective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpn8MANhdLU Watch the beautiful
cinematic kisses at the end of the video. Also nice shots of
depression.
I guess this band is too smart to know that they need to act dumb to
be popular:http://bit.ly/dfbWts Too cool though esp the peepin old
man.
http://filmmakeriq.com/2010/11/a-seminar-with-steven-spielberg-from-1978/
Slomo videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsdDyJJPDeA

Trivias:
Life etc: http://www.miltonglaser.com/pages/milton/essays/es3.html
Working with actors- point: 6,9,10 are good.
http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/issues/spring2002/features/inner_monologue.php
How Mike Leigh extracts such wonderful performance from his actors
-http://ind.pn/aseL2X
Good cab services in mumbai: http://www.olacabs.com/ Check their About
us :http://www.olacabs.com/info/about_us
241543903 - is the tag for all pics that people have taken while trying to insert their head in the freezer.
Good paper on how emotional responses are created by make-believe fiction: http://bit.ly/9lRgPz - "real is good but interesting is better"
"There is no co-relation between the strength of a given experience and the reality status of the object of experience."http://bit.ly/9lRgPz
Well dunno where I had my growth spurt: http://bit.ly/d1qS4u
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2010/feature-articles/“films-are-vulgar-and-this-vulgarity-i-love-it”-an-interview-with-arnaud-desplechin/
http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/report_udaan-changed-his-life-forever-rajat-barmecha_1440506
-they misspelt my name but its ok i guess

Some of the links to the scripts I read and liked:
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Boogie-Nights.html
Social Network: http://bit.ly/aISsDI
various drafts and the shooting script of Udaan : http://bit.ly/dOUrKB
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Inglourious-Basterds.html

That was all the useful content that was there - rest was personal fluff and imaginary outings.
Will promise to keep the content in the bins above updated.

P.S:

Best tweet: My macbook runs computer se bhi tez :).

Best useful tweet: Save paper - print 4 script pages on one paper. Print on both sides and as left edged booklet. Added bonus- It is less spread out and more readable.

Spending time with Borges again after a long time ...

2011-02-09T07:50:00.000-08:00

"I want to tear down the exceptional preeminence now generally awarded to self, and I pledge to be spurred on by concrete certainty, and not the caprice of an idealogical ambush or a dazzling intellectual prank. I propose to prove that personality is a mirage maintained by conceit and custom, without metaphysical foundation or visceral reality .. There is no whole self - any person who defines personal identity as a the private possession of some depository of memories is mistaken." - Borges.

Childhood Crush

2011-01-04T20:13:00.000-08:00

Arati: Saurabh my childhood crush has moved to Mumbai!
Saurabh: Jaa mill kar aaa.

-----------
Arati in childhood version - pink dress, matching pink shoes with white socks, pink watch and a pink bow in her hair.
Knock knock.
A giant shirtless, large hairy-stomached, naturally balding guy opens the door.
Arati: Hey I am Arati. I came to meet you. You are my childhood crush.
Childhood Crush: Duh
Arati: {blink} {blink} {uncomfortable silence} {blink}
Arati: Here I got Amul fruit and nut chocolate for you. It's my favorite chocolate. I don't even share it with my brother until he starts crying. It's very tasty.
Childhood Crush: (taking the chocolate - looking at it) They still make it. Gee ....Thanks Arti.
Arati: (smiles) {blink} {blink}
Arati: Ok bye.
----------------
Back to disheveled hair, torn jeans, spot-ridden shirts and mismatched slippers with an half-dead cockroach stuck on one of its sole.

Arati: Saurabh mein apne childhood crush se mill kar aa gayee
Saurabh: Achcha ... Ab khaana khaa le.

Showreel

2010-12-07T15:43:00.000-08:00

Trying to upload showreel to www.youtube.com/aratikadav.

Gulmohar (35 mm) 10 min film trailer feedback

2010-12-04T19:21:00.001-08:00

Please scroll down and fill the questionnaire - it is not a public form so feel free to write what you want. Your identity will be protected. You can use fake names and email ids. Just give real feedback.

Name:
First thoughts on seeing the trailer - what feeling did it generate? Describe.
Will you watch this film ?	Yes No
What are your expectations from the movie? What do you understand about the main character and his feelings? Describe.
Why will you watch this movie ? What do you think is the story of the film?
If the prev question is negative then why will you NOT make efforts to watch this movie?
What all did you not like about the trailer - fonts, pacing ?
What all did you like about the trailer ?
Did we just waste your time by asking redundant questions :) ?	Yes No
Still any Suggestions ? If you have seen the film - do you think the trailer does justice to it?
Email Address:
Your email address will not be used for spamming or sending emails from Nigeria. I appreciate your time on this bright sunday morning. Thanks from the bottom of my heart.

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Edit

2010-11-08T01:34:00.000-08:00

Really useful mail from kavan on editing:

Kubrick was quoted as saying: "I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of film making. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit."[3]
Edward Dmytryk stipulates seven "rules of cutting" that a good editor should follow:[4]
"Rule 1: Never make a cut without a positive reason."
"Rule 2: When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short."[5]
"Rule 3: Whenever possible cut 'in movement'."[6]
"Rule 4: The 'fresh' is preferable to the 'stale'."[7]
"Rule 5: All scenes should begin and end with continuing action."[8]
"Rule 6: Cut for proper values rather than proper 'matches'."[9]
"Rule 7: Substance first—then form."[10]
According to Walter Murch, when it comes to film editing, there are six main criteria for evaluating a cut or deciding where to cut. They are (in order of importance, most important first, with notional percentage values.):
Emotion (51%) — Does the cut reflect what the editor believes the audience should be feeling at that moment?
Story (23%) — Does the cut advance the story?
Rhythm (10%) — Does the cut occur "at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and 'right'" (Murch, 18)?
Eye-trace (7%) — Does the cut pay respect to "the location and movement of the audience's focus of interest within the frame" (Murch, 18)?
Two-dimensional plane of the screen (5%) — Does the cut respect the 180 degree rule?
Three-dimensional space of action (4%) — Is the cut true to the physical/spatial relationships within the diegesis?
Murch assigned the notional percentage values to each of the criteria. "Emotion, at the top of the list, is the thing that you should try to preserve at all costs. If you find you have to sacrifice certain of those six things to make a cut, sacrifice your way up, item by item, from the bottom."-Murch

Some of the good short films available on the net

2010-11-03T23:34:00.000-07:00

Well since I have made 3 short films now, I have done considerable research on the short films available on the net that I have liked. This is like a central database. I might have forgotten a few but will keep updating.The list is in no particular order (the order in which they appear on my mind)

1) Miracle Fish
I really liked this oscar nominated film coz of the story. It took me by surprise at the end. It has a great staying power in your mind - good aftertaste.

2) Signs
Nothing profound but amazingly simple - amazing repeat value. Really well structured.

3) Spin
How a good story can be told in 8 minutes. Really good acting.

4) Father and Daughter
This is actually animated film but by far my favourite. Very very profound.

5) Ten minutes
Watch this movie for one of the best long takes. See the play of tension and ifyour heart doesn't hurt at the end of 10 minutes then you are the iron man.

6) Harvey Krumpet
This is a 22 minute animated film - I really like the nuances here - and the book of fakts :)

7) The black rider
The people who have watched dev-d would be disappointed. Anurag used its concept but it the build up in this 10 min film is too good. And the old lady though racist is really sweet.

8)Instead of Abracadabra:
3 part short film - really amazing acting - really great nuances

9) The New Boy

10) The new Tenant

11)

To ber continued... got to go.

Some nights

2010-10-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Some nights the world dies,
And I see myself as a spec,
Sitting alone, lighted by a tiny lamp.
And as I call out to the world -
All I hear back is my echo.

And some nights I am surrounded by people,
Eating drinking making merry,
And with them I go go from one dance floor to another.
And as I hurry along I feel,
Life leaving me after every dance.

Some nights - normal nights -I try to remember -
The most beautiful memory of my life
And then wonder why
It doesn't come with smile anymore
And everytime I touch it with my finger,
I find
Dust settled all over it's floor.

And then there are some nights like tonight
when I wake up
And find the world quiet and violet
I look out of my window for a while
And try to make sense -
Of the velvet darkness outside
And as I wait... suddenly I see
At the far away distance -

My first morning light.

saurabh

2010-08-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

saurabh logged into facebook after ages today - only to share the trailor of my movie uss paar.. sigh...i am touched...

Well I like the trailer. I see it every morning :).

Epilogue

2010-08-10T22:55:00.000-07:00

Dorze: How are you now

Nima:

Dorze:

Nima's identity

2010-08-10T22:54:00.000-07:00

Bua: Why din't you like it when she called you a milkman.
Nima: I am not a milkman.

Visiting 2005

2010-07-31T07:09:00.000-07:00

One of the memories in my old blog - thinking what i was thinking then - http://iitk2us.blogspot.com/2005/12/suffering-quotient.html

so it is interesting

2010-07-29T10:25:00.000-07:00

the concept of surprise dinner outings...

Yeshe to Nima

2010-07-27T09:36:00.001-07:00

I do wish love was comfortable ...

The mermaid dream

2010-07-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

Will it be just like the dreams
Where one becomes the water..
And laughs and plays and jumps...

Or will it be masked by the crude reality
Where the bodies restrict our flows
And the souls limit our depth ...

Or will it be some third thing
Not the dreams nor the real thing
Somewhere in between
Maybe I would be tied to a rope
The invisible one
And I will float all over
Discovering the possibilities in that radius....like
Touching the blue star fish
Collecting the pearls....
And once I have the pearls in my hands ...
I would let them slip
From between my fingers
To the bottom of the ocean
And not care ...
And then may be one day I would tickle the yellow stone
And it would silently laugh
But won't admit
The Embarassment of discovering how to laugh.

(unfinished)

phuket

2010-07-11T03:45:00.001-07:00

here i come !!!

was talking about that thing of life

2010-07-08T10:10:00.000-07:00

with bro ...why are the most unattainable things the most coveted ?

memories

2010-07-06T19:45:00.000-07:00

Nima: Who was she ?

Yeshe: ......Some memories are like bubbles... better leave them untouched.

Random day dreams...

2010-07-05T19:56:00.000-07:00

"So you look familiar ...have we met earlier ?"

Imaginary answer: "No we haven't met. Not in the past. But may be you don't know me from the past... you know me from the future. Maybe we would meet again and again in a way that would make this familiarity of today justifiable...maybe we would fall in love - the real eternal kind...
.. Or maybe we would never meet in the future and instead spend random moments of our lives wondering why we found ourselves familiar today or ...again...
...maybe we have never met in the past and we will never meet in the future and no thought of eachother will ever cross our mind and then that would make this moment of our interaction so potent that it would require contemplation of all our past and future lives.........hmmmm.....or maybe we are not meeting even now...and it is just my dream..."

Real answer: "No"

-Arati

AD giri

2010-07-05T19:46:00.000-07:00

Quote by one of my friends (who has subscribed to this blog):
"I dont think a single person joined WWI because they dreamed of one day
becoming an AD, or that they would get one day get to stick thermocol
balls on Shreyas Talpade."

To Yeshe

2010-07-01T21:51:00.001-07:00

Yeshe when everything will be gone, what is it that you will hold on to?

Memories

2010-07-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Cocktails, Fast cars, High heels.
Orange cone, White softy ...

Faint Smile.

First look of my movie

2010-07-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

What do you think of the design - Zenish Mehta did it for us!

india shopping

2010-06-27T21:31:00.001-07:00

Now that i am in india - the onus of india shopping rests solely on my bro's shoulders. And this time apart from giving him a list of cereals and health foods i asked im to et anything interesting for me. And i think after a week's contemplation he answered:

i am not getting anything for u apart from wat u asked
i dont understand women's section
instead of stuff for u
i got another thing for saurabh - a nice tie
now u ask him to buy stuff for u

I could surely sense the frustration.

Direction and writing

2010-06-19T21:37:00.000-07:00

After doing a course in direction and having struggled to create my unique moments/scripts I have realized that direction or conceiving shots is not that difficult- working with actors too - I mean it is difficult and requires efforts - sometimes a lot of efforts but it is not torturous to your soul. One can carry that out provided one doesnt complicate things. What is difficult and torturous is writing - writing uniquely. And I am experiencing it now.

Rain in Mumbai

2010-06-13T23:13:00.001-07:00

And music in car.

Indo chinese

2010-06-12T06:13:00.000-07:00

In the era and place where I grew up (nagpur in the 90s) there was just chinese. Only when I - years later - went to US and visited a real chinese restaurant - named Chengdu (not really an appetizing name on the first thought but it is named after a chinese city told my mandarian friends), there on having lots nad lots of steamed vegetables alongside pigs ears and chicken feat (not kidding really - i saw them), I realized that the chinese we eat is a improvised version to suite the spicy, oily indian palatte.Infact there was no manchurian there.
I remember two years later an Indian opened an Indo chinese restaurant - Inchin's we would call it and even on a snowy weekday Desi would be queued up to eat it.

Infact it is the BCCI near town side in mumbai where a chef improvised on chinese and made it more appetizing to Indian tastes. The recipes he made are actually displayed there. Maybe next time I should click the pictures.

What I love about the improvisation, apart from the great taste is though they improvised and made it spicy, they never added the indian spices like bay leaves or haldi or dhaniya powders. So though the chef improvised he had some basic moral code of conduct of not massacring it totally. That is the part I like :). Somehow.

..

2010-05-29T09:19:00.001-07:00

"I almost wish - I hadn't
gone down the rabbit hole
-and yet - and yet
it is rather curious - you know
this sort of life!"

-Alice

Mail I sent to my bro- something around 6-7 years ago

2010-05-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

World is basicaly interconnection of people. They are the ones who create the dynamics around you, influence you, get influenced by you.
I know by very nature you are very sesitive. I however want you to be strong , get least bothered by people who affect you in negative ways, without feeling the need to bash them up or give them some ulta jawaab. Remember being quiet is the best answer sometimes you can give to people. Also God always gives you chance to even the scores.
Having said this, I want you to say that never compromise on your ambitions, principles, ability to judge right and wrong. If you feel that by not doing or havingn xyz you are being uncool thoguh doing it wont give you ny significant pleasure then remember that that's how only college kids evaluate themselves and people. Be proud for being what you are. And you are really wonderful with that great sense of humour. Keep your yourself intact and just evolve from there.

Best weekend and best movie

2010-05-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

Best weekend code:
while (1)
(
;
}

This weekend I and saurabh were at home and literally did nothing. Ofcourse we did goto gym, a small dinner outing tonight, and cooked at home etc but primarily we just did nothing watched movies. talked read books. And this weekend was better than any vacation anywhere else in the world.

----------------------
Last week I saw the movie "The science of sleep" and am still not over it. I identify so much with the main guy. Loved the movie - loved everything about it. One of the best movies I have ever seen! Check the trailer out:

Short film ideas - my analysis

2010-05-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

Related Post on list of good short films available on net: http://aratikadav123.blogspot.com/2010/11/some-of-good-short-films-available-on.html

----

Brilliant(and not emotional) short film ideas - contrary to popular belief - are not a flash of brilliance. They are infact two flashes of brilliance. The first flash comes to you - that is the setting - the set up. For the second flash which is the payoff or the end part - you have to torture yourself to death, fight with everyone, yourself, spend days looking at the fan, walk around your house, almost become a lunatic, give up, contemplate suicide and then it comes to you (but there is no guarantee, you might actually end up committing suicide). The pay off that you have come up is then something that only you could come up with and no one in the world while watching the film can predict.

Anyways the above statement is keeping in mind that you are an average human being. And you don't smoke weed. Not super intelligent or eccentric or anything. And that there would be people in audience who could be super intelligent or eccentric and you wish to keep them engaged till the last frame of your movie.

The satisfaction of film making is directly proportional to the torture at the scripting stage. And the learning too.

The truth is unless you have tried you wouldn't know what you are made of.

wisdom

2010-05-12T20:09:00.001-07:00

everybody has moments they are ashamed of... :)

what a day :(

2010-05-10T09:55:00.000-07:00

Came up with 3 cool ideas for my next short film for ww and saurabh rejected them midway during narration :(.

Too many plans

2010-05-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

Spoils Saurabh's weekend. My kid editor who is not feeling well is still staying with us till monday I guess. Then Swati - my sweetest friend from iit - who now works in intel and whose hubby now has joining P&G in mumbai is coming to have dinner at my place. Since I with my sprained ankle couldn't handle all this I called my mother too. Well, Swarna - my school and engg friend is visiting from Nagpur so she is also coming. Also my two cousins who are both doctor are in mumbai so they will come on sunday.

Saurabh who was shocked at the sudden development of weekend has left for bangalore for some work - he will come back tonight nonetheless. So much so for his plans of lying on the couch and watching friends and reading Richard Dawkins :(.

3 D photography link central data base

2010-05-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

Actually I read lots of stuff about 3 D but these two are simplest to begin with.

Basic: http://graphicssoft.about.com/library/uc/oransen/uc_stereo.htm,
http://www.thinkdigit.com/Digital-Cameras/How-to--Make-anaglyphic-photographs_2861.html

I will share my notes as I work more.

Also the software that I use is
http://www.stereoeye.jp/software/index_e.html I thought it was simple and the best software on the net. Ah! How I love japanese food and software. I am friends with this guy on facebook now. Really cool japanese dude.

The above links were for photographs. For me the biggest struggle was to know how to place the two cameras and all mathematics and everything aside to determine the distance and angle between the two cameras, I felt that simple common sense worked best. Basically try to notice how you see. If I look at an object at the centre of my forehead, my left eye is looking towards right and right eye is looking a little towards left to concentrate on the object in between. So place your cameras accordingly. If I am looking at a far ahead object, my eyes are parallel to each other. I use my own common sense to determine the distance. Few things require practice and self-inference - i need to try to formulate them.

Well now I think I should move on to some videos as well. Maybe begin with a stop motion claymation. Also some prior research on how to shoot movies in 3D. It is a little more complicated esp when the objects move towards and away from the frame and am still trying to grasp it:

http://www.the3drevolution.com/3dscreen.html
http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-shoot-edit-3d-movie-271382/

how to upload youtube videos on 3D: http://informationmadness.com/cms/technology/tech-tips/1582-how-to-shoot-3d-video-using-two-cameras.html

A 3 min video - http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-shoot-edit-3d-movie-271382/

Still trying to fathom this.

Side effects of 3D experiments

2010-05-01T09:38:00.001-07:00

Found on a website - also now i know it is true:

Warning: If you look at anaglyphs(3D pics) for too long, everything will appear in 3D (even a flat blank sheet of paper) when removing the bicoloured glasses from your nose. It is scary but not dangerous. Colour vision comes back to normal after a while.

Wait

2010-05-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

Eyes
Still trees
Concrete.

Large number of people found murdered

2010-04-30T10:57:00.000-07:00

And after a while when the detectives could not find out who the serial killer was they sent a smart detective. The smart detective tried to find out the profile and daily routine of the people who had died. One a music composer, one a ordinary student, one some old teacher. The smart detective noted everything about the dead people and fed it into a computer. The computer was this world's best data mining computer. It processed all the data for 77 hours and found out ONE common thing about all the dead people. They all had seen my unfinished movie without sound and music.

Grrrr!

3 D photography

2010-04-29T05:23:00.000-07:00

So I was in a way aimless once the diploma shoot was over. After I spent good amount of time torturing my editor and before pouncing on my sound and music guy I thought it is about time I indulge in something new. So I actually started writing 2 new scripts. But after a day or two, though the script was clear in my head I was mentally and emotionally unprepared to dive into it. After all I hadn't recovered from both my short fiction and diploma writing experience that had really drained me.
So well I thought of indulging into something fun. It began with howto write credit titles for my movie. Since Zenish was kind enough to introduce me to chalkboard animation I thought I could go with that. Since I wanted a good finish (diploma hai bhai) I thought I would ask Zenish himself to do it. And then while discussing the credits with him, I remembered how I initially wanted my diploma to be in 3D and how it never materialized because of lack of time for technical expertise and unavailability of my cinematographer.
And finally last few days I have been researching about 3D. To begin with I wanted to get my fundas straight with anaglyphs. And now that I got it straight, again thanks to zenish from whom i got a spare 3D goggles, I have started trying to atleast have still images with 3D.
After multiple experiments and trials and errors and visiting websites each with a remarkably different theory, I think after 2 days I am getting a little bit hang of it. I am still learning so maybe in next blogpost I will tell how to easily create 3D pics for dummies or something.
Meanwhile with my experiment, my house again transformed into a studio with sketch pen marks on the floors and my camera stand and various inanimate objects as models (something that my maid doesn't approves of :( ). The toughest was to shoot myself as 3D and I havent been succesful and I already made 8 tries. I guess I will do it tomorrow as I got to go and meet someone and help him write his horror script. It is shaping well and I hope he gets to make it soon.

Anyways here is my list of 3D pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/aratikadav/3D#
and here are my fav two 3D pics:

Ok I uploaded 3 but who is complaining.

Not always a good idea

2010-04-14T19:54:00.001-07:00

to apply technological solutions to sociological problems.

Unspoken life

2010-03-27T04:44:00.000-07:00

Just you and me
And the fleeting moment
known to
Just you and me.

China house

2010-03-27T04:20:00.001-07:00

Had lunch at china house and also dessert and masala chai in their(hyatt's) coffee shop later..with saurabh and swarna...yumm food .. for a long time two of them talked about equities and investment banking, while i was busy trying to establish an eye contact with the crab that i thought i was set to eat...saurabh ordered a lamb dish - really spicy gravy but amazing taste..i could see his eyes shine at the sight...good to unwind after a long time and not worry about long lunches..good to see saurabh eyes shine after a long time..even if it is at the sight of a dead lamb.. ..my only worry was the calorie count - the whole world (and i am getting calls from across the globe about it) is telling me that i have gained weight (after seeing my shoot pics or my current avataar)... i know i know - i neglected and i am 29 years old now gosh - you expect me to have a 19 year old's figure or what...anyways - i have now joined gym - 7-8 am in the morning with a trainer who is menacing...at this age you have to work twice as hard to look half as good...

asim says gym is only 20% - food is 80% so now i will try to control my food . asim followed that and reduced 10 kilos in 3-4 months..he looks good now..anyways i have thought of controlling my food also- i decided that in the morning and then we went to this china house to eat lunch- what a bummer..anyways...i am worrying about my weight - means i am now in ground state of my being...

Monogamy, polygamy and various trends

2010-03-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

Was discussing the book "The selfish gene" with saurabh and we felt that it is in human nature to try to spread out as much as possible. And we tried to fathom how society became monogamous - contrary to basic human instincts.

So well earlier we were all hunters and life was risky. The more the number of people in the tribe the more powerful it would be and hence everyone was free for all. And the society was polygamous and polyandrous.

But then we became agriculture based. In early days - the size of land was not a constraint but the number of people working for it was. So the religion in those times expected woman to rear children. So women would start having kids since the age of 15. And they got dedicated to one man and settled with him - rearing his children. The polyandry bit was dropped and society became polygamous. However increasingly the agriculture income was not sufficient enough to support multiple wives and her kids so some religions like hinduism and christianity started having monogamous family. Though majority of religions still endorsed polygamy. But however, till our parents and our gen we have became monogamous.

Well now again both men and women are economically independent and need not really rear children. This is another extreme of from where we started. But the need to not having children or being loyal (for the sake of economic needs) is turning the society back to polygamous and polyandrous - a little unofficially.

so

2010-02-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

why do i have to die everytime before i produce the script!!!

And the most acceptable thing in the world

2010-02-04T21:12:00.000-08:00

which i find really outrageous is to see real soldiers - real people with real families - die for an abstract concept called nation.

Genetically modified food

2010-01-30T23:34:00.001-08:00

I don't wanna eat genetically modified food :(.

Life etc

2010-01-22T06:09:00.000-08:00

Our own judgment of what is good for us and what is not is mostly flawed.

Wiped out in 3 years

2010-01-06T20:29:00.000-08:00

So I always believed I was fairly popular in my engg college days. What will all that enthusiasm of IEEE comittees, Student Development Forum, DAnce competition and personality contests!

I met my brother's friend who was 3 years junior to me. When he was in first year, I was in final year. And I was too happy to meet a junior. I didn't know him but you are really not supposed to know someone so junior. But the first thing he asked on seeing me was:"So which college did you study in?"
We existed in same space and were part of the same committees and he had no idea who I was. I was so completely wiped out of memory of my college. That too in just 3 years :(.

remembering a roadside salesman of delhi

2009-12-28T23:35:00.000-08:00

salesman: "madam peticoat ka nada chahiye?"
me : "nahee"
salesman: "madam dekh to lijiye"
me : "nahee"
salesman: "madam A1 quality ka hai"
me : "arre bhaiyya nahee chahiye"

salesman: "mmmm... accha to phir pendrive chahiye???"

Best Friends

2009-12-19T09:11:00.000-08:00

When I was in school around 4th std, my father moved to another town. There in the new class everybody had a best friend. I did not. A girl walked to me and said I don't have a best friend. Lets be best friends. I was happy and exclaimed "Yes". In the next few years of school, we hardly spoke to each other. i don't even remember her name now.

-----
I have my friend vaidehi whom I know since 10th. We have done so many activities together, bought similar looking bags and chappals and what not. She holds more secrets about me than this blog. When I went to US, she and kamra flew down to help me get settled and are the first ones to make me smoke and taste wine. Later, I moved back to India. Last year she had a baby. I hardly spoke to her. just scrapped on orkut/facebook.

She is visiting India and she called me. I knew it was her number coz she had scrapped that to me on facebook and I had it stored. I was watching Avatar movie then. It was the interval time. The conversation (after 3-4 years)
Vaidehi: Hi Arati kya kar rahee hai (Hi Arati Wassup)
I recognized the voice immediately. It brought a smile to my face.
Arati: Arre Vaidehi, mein picture mein hun abhi (I am in the movie)
Vaidehi: Achcha phir tu khatam kar phir baat kartein hai (Ok call me once its done)
Arati: Theek hai chal (Ok then)
Vaidehi: Bye

I felt a sense of compression of time. As if like back in college days when we spoke 3-4 times a day and then she had called for the 4th time. She was so fresh in my mind. Not lost, not forgotten. Somewhere we were still in touch.

Bhopal gas tragedy

2009-12-02T23:02:00.000-08:00

Indi today mourns 25 years of bhopal gas tragedy - a pesticide plant shifted to India coz it was deemed too risky for american citizens. Total toll - 20,000 people killed (a painful death) around 5.67 lakhs still affected. The people behind it still free,the people affected by it still not compensated. Most of them homeless jobless in the absence of compensation and ability to work. They still drink the contaminated groundwater.

But I don't remember their plight everyday. I only remember the Top ten news of the day and this happens to be the headlines.

I will forget this tomorrow.

Popularity contest

2009-12-02T04:48:00.000-08:00

Who are the most popular people. What are the most popular entities ? How do they become popular.
I am a huge believer of democracy - the majority opinion - the popular opinion- still am - it is self-corrective - though slow but steady - because anything radical would mean dictatorship. i was reading a sufi book - the sufi parables are quite like zen buddhist philosophies - which I have quite enjoyed as the eastern philosophies goes beyond thought rather than restricting itself to it.
The book revolts against popular opinion by citing the following parable:
A man died and a coffin was created. He was laid and he woke up. Seeing the entire procession he fainted again. He was proclaimed dead and taken for burial. He woke up again and said "I am alive - let me go". A man said - "But the doctor said that you are dead". He said "No I am alive". The other man asked everybody at the burial "Do you think he is dead or alive?". Everybody said "He is dead". "So you are dead". And they buried the man.

Along with this story, it provides another story - in other end of the book but it is interesting how the solution to above problem is cited in the other story.

A man landed in "The land of Fools". He saw that everyone was scared of a water melon and thought it to be a monster. He went near the melon and everybody said that - "he is daring". He went and smashed it and started eating it. Everybody said - "he is a monster too and they killed him".
Another man landed in the same world. He saw everybody was scared of the water melon. He knew it was just a melon. But he pretended to be scared of it. He tip toed near the melon like every body. He led them, himself acting scared near the melon and then he managed to touch it and made everyone touch it. He then managed to cut and everybody ate the melon too. He was made the king of the land.

I think it is quite an insightful story as to how things operate in our group.

The things that make Saurabh

2009-11-30T23:22:00.000-08:00

PS - This is probably one of my highly personal post and is time sensitive - it will take me 3-4 days to realize that it is too personal to be in public and I might then make it private.

So now that I am married for 2 years, I have discovered properties of Saurabh that I didn't know existed. Here is a list:

1) Making 4 cups of tea every morning and drinking only half a cup.

2) Buying a container of curd and eating it all away alone and then claiming "Oh my God! We finish off one dubba of curd everyday".

3) Invariably, atleast once a week finding a unique place of losing his specs/wallet/discharged phone/ ipod and frantically searching for it and in the process opening every drawer of the house. Finally almost sherlock homes type theorizing where it could be found - "Last I saw the phone was when i was having dinner then I went to bed, but it is neither on the bed nor on the side table which means that it has fallen behind the immovable side table." And lo and behold - that's where it is found.

4) On weekends after lunch, he claims "You feed me rice! I will goto gym now". He dresses up for gym and while I sit in one room assuming that he has left for gym after 30 minutes, I find him lying on the guest bedroom reading a book and then he looks at me with question mark on his face.

5) He is still shy of beautiful girls. Prefers to walk down 14th floors rather than share a lift with a beautiful lady alone.

6) "Come pick me from office. I am waiting." You rush to his office and he never comes out of his office atleast for 30 minutes. But in the morning when he has to leave at 7:30. He rushes out at 7:25.

7)"I will arrange my cupboard. Don't let the maid touch it. Don't let the maid touch it. Don't let the maid touch it" - he says. Not knowing that after Priya had arranged it once, I secretly arrange his casuals every week and he believes his clean cupboard is totally his doing.

8) Gets up at 6 am even on Sundays (to make his tea and sit on his computer). Whenever I check the computer (apart from stratfor) the youtube video with movie "99"-part 6 is open. Neither gmail nor facebook is open.

9) There is a sexy band playing outside the house and food festival that we can see from the bedroom window (bandrafest). Saurabh still prefers to sit at home read his book watch one of the three movies: 99 or departed or hangover.

10) Even if it is not a non-stick, his omelettes don't break.

11) Regardless of number of guests in the house, at 10 pm he manages to sneak into one of the beds and fall asleep. He has been found asleep with a book, on the laptop and on the sofa.

12) On seeing this list he would say "kya bakwaas hai".

Cognitive Science, genetic engineering, iWife and 2012

2009-11-19T02:53:00.000-08:00

Recently was discussing with my brother - what is the next big thing in the world of technology and we felt it was cognitive science. Earlier it was Internet and Computer Science - a wave that our parent's generations witnessed, next someone speculated genetic engineering - the progress there is slow and steady and once we make one big breakthrough then there will be no looking back. It can be used to solve lots of diseases and will revolutionize medical sciences, change our life spans. Also as my uncle says - we might start having genetically engineered children - which will initially face lots of moral opposition but over generations would gain acceptance much like (and much faster than) we started accepting gays.

The other big area where we see lots of work happening is cognitive science (cognition means "to know", common used form is recognition) where millions of dollars are being spend on making machine intelligent like humans. A very interesting quote I read somewhere that "An average general intelligence is much difficult to program than programming chess expert". It referred to the computer program that defeated the Chess champion Gary Kaspurov and having dabbled in machine learning myself, I can vouch for that statement. When I was in IIT doing my masters, in the second semester, majority of my courses were around machine learning - 3 out of 4 in the second semester- we had knowledge discovery and machine learning and computation brain. The small projects we did - like programming neural nets and genetic algorithms were very alluring and lots of fun. I still remember my favorite code being "Game of Kalah" that I did way back in my engg. days for a software competition where the computer could play smarter than me even though I wrote that code, the computer could beat me, the creator of the code.

I think in the area of cognitive science we have whetted our appetite enough and there are lots of people very very keen to know how much artificial intelligence will evolve in our lifetime. This is again something that will revolutionize our lives.

My short fiction(http://anandpai.blogspot.com/) had a concept of iWife - customized wife coming from this fascination. And a number of people asked me - shouldn't there be iHusbands too :).

So on one hand we will have genetic engineering which will have customized human beings and on other hand we will have development in cognitive sciences where machines will be more free-spirited and human like.

It will be interesting to see who will end where. I hope we survive 2012 to witness this ;).

Bonus of the day

2009-11-18T06:46:00.000-08:00

Saurabh can cook. He made bhurji for me (with garlic???) but it came out well.

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"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."- Anais Nin( courtesy Sumit's status message)

I was advised bed rest but I still went to college. Going to college was a bad decision considering the amount of fever I have gotten upon myself. But I read about dengue and it talks about phase 2 where one gets fever after a day of feeling normal. So maybe it is my phase 2 and it just co-incided with my going to college.

"war and peace" by Leo Tolstoy

2009-11-16T07:12:00.000-08:00

best part of dengue fever is being able to read this classic with minimum intervention from the outside world...