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

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

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

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

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

Nice one

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

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

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

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

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 ?

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

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

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

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"

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 ...

"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

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

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

Perhaps perhaps perhaps

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

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

"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

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 ...

"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

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

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

Gulmohar (35 mm) 10 min film trailer feedback

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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Film Editing Resources

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 good documentaries on editing:
 The Cutting Edge Magic of Movie Editing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJcQgQHR78Q

Some Good books:
1) The Technique of Film Editing- Karel Reisz and Gavin Miller- Focal Press 
2) In the blink of an eye - Walter Murch

Some of the good short films available on the net

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. Warning- will really hurt your heart.



6) Harvey Krumpet
This is a 22 minute animated film - I really like the nuances here - and the book of fakts :). How to use an interesting device.


7) The black rider
The people who have watched dev-d would rem this. Mr Kashyap used its concept for one of the scenes 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 - this won an oscar - really whacko


11)

To ber continued... got to go. Please help contri.

Some nights

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

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

Dorze: How are you now

Nima:

Dorze:

Nima's identity

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

Visiting 2005

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

the concept of surprise dinner outings...

Yeshe to Nima

I do wish love was comfortable ...

The mermaid dream

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

here i come !!!

was talking about that thing of life

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

memories

Nima: Who was she ?

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

Random day dreams...

"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

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

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

Memories

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

Faint Smile.

First look of my movie

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

india shopping

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

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

And music in car.

Indo chinese

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.

..

"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

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

Best weekend code:
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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.

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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: