the prettiest comet .......

today i saw a lovely movie called Eklavya....the royal guard...
very nice movie.beautiful locations...very nice cast....short and dark and sweet....
i definitely recommend the movie for all movie buffs and non- movie buffs alike. i finally got delivery of my bike from Ahmed bhai who had taken responsibility of fixing the broken foot rest connector thingy....He gave me the bike and it felt good to finally ride me julie again.I had almost forgotten the feeling of riding her.She felt nice...real nice....as i made my way back from the garage i couldn't help but smile and as i parked her in my office basement...i apologised to her....she didn't reply....i walked away and for some reason i felt the need to turn back and take another look at her as she stood there....what a sight she is.....she makes me smile....i promise her, as i walk away...."I'll take care of u"...she doesn't reply, but i know she heard me.....she's been with me.....through quite a lot....she has shared many good and bad moments....we've smiled together....cried out in pain together....i remember the moments we've spent together with Mehma...she loved me julie too...she said to me once...."this is mine OK" i agreed...she told me to take care of her....i will take care of her......she has been with me when Bombay was flooded...she was with me in spirit even when i walked to sharath's home and back when he himself, hadn't made it home in his car.she helped me get back to office that evening.....she saved me that evening.....i remember her falling the first time and i felt her pain as her brake lever took all her weight as i fell.......she was with me when i fell on the way back to Goa....as i fell i knew what she was enduring.....i was in denial as i picked her up and saw her wounds..i said to myself...."no...no..no..."..she was the prettiest there was, and she had scars all over her right side because of me.....i share a scar on the palm of my right hand with her....i live with this reminder for the rest of my life....a white patch to remind me of the skin which ripped as i tried desperately to reduce the speed of my skid on that bridge.....it was my fault...i still remember....she had taken a lot...she was still with me all the way back to Bombay...i don't know what it was that made us keep going.....i think it was the thought of being back with Mehma....i remember getting visions of her on my way back...i was talking to myself....the pain was too agonizing and i couldn't stop because if i had stopped...my companion would had to stop....it was about the ride...don't give up...i thought to myself...how bad can this get....just get the job done.......i have to get this over with....i made it to Bombay wit her....she pressed on with me...even though she had taken quite a beating....she still made it happen.....i believe she has a soul...she is with me...i know i am not as loving as i should be...she deserves more....i try to give her my attention...its still not the best she deserves...i wish i was more loving while she wasnt hurt...i wish i had realised how important she is to me then....you never know what u have till it leaves u....its been atleast 4 months she was lying in the parking lot and i dont know what i was doing without her.....i know now.....i am a dick.

the only sense of freedom....

Bikes...I've always loved bikes.2-wheelers. Whenever i walk the roads of Bandra, there are possibly only 2 things that can distract me from an argument wit a friends or a long conversation carrying on on the way back to office. Either a hot chick or the roaring sound of a nice naked bike coming our way. both receive a moment of silence as they pass by. The similarities are also quite amusing! their curves get u hooked... their sound sometimes can be attractive... the desire to ride them can be compared.... the desire to own one, because they are very few made like that one. ...the desire to own more than the one i have...cause men are never satisfied. I know guys are gonna kick me but come on....we all know this shit anyway. I personally own a Comet GT250cc made by a Korean company called Hyosung. For the poor ignorant ones, hyosung is quite an old company that burst into stardom when they provided engines to great bike manufacturing companies like Suzuki. Their V-twin engines are quite famous in the bike world. They are full Ducatti wannabes but what the hell at least they aim high unlike our Indian companies that have been talking big and delivering shit to the Indian consumer since forever. for e.g. the enfield. We all know this classic Indian bike which is so out of date that the Indian government should actually declare it a national classic and persuade the company to only supply worldwide to various bike museums. cause thats where it belongs. In a museum and Enfield should be sued for under developing a great bike and being stingy enough to ghasao the same damn design though various generations of bike lovers. Enfield sucks and we all know it. so anybody who thinks otherwise can kiss my hairy ass. Anybody remember how Yamaha released a picture of the Gladiator in the sad indian BIKE magazine and how excited we all got? And what actually got released? A fuckin regular commuter. We were shown visuals of a nice sleek 4stroke 100cc bike with lovely inverted front suspension...exhausts neatly tucked under the rear seat....monoshock rear suspension. And even though it was a commuter as opposed to a performance bike at least we could all go to office in style! But no re baba...indians dont go to office in style...we struggle our way to office...No.1—the roads are designed by xtreme sports fanatics to simulate the feeling of “being alive” everyday as one goes around Bombay....the potholes are custom made to deliver the commuter with the much needed wake up call if he hasn't had adequate sleep!So we struggle our way to office in our regular looking commuter bikes which are sold by our lovely indian companies with the most pathetic sticker...(not even vinyl)....technology, passed off as “new and improved snazzy graphics”!!who the fuck approves these designs anyway? Are these losers fucks even from a design background? Or are the engineers who design the pathetic engines, only doing double shift and saving the company, a design team ka karcha?Just one look at these commuters will put a person at a position to judge what the company is all about. People say that Apple makes revolutionary computer designs...no they dont...they just made a very obvious move towards the future of personal computing. why should we have boxy designs?....curve it out. make it smooth...in corporate some ergonomics...what the fuck? The computers are great...lets improve on the exterior shell?right? Well in that case the Indian bike companies are all doomed cause not only is the soul fucked the body is just an after thought!!so there is no hope and as long as fucked up bikes like the Hero Honda Karisma keep selling....the future is very very dim. I bought my bike for 1.85 lakhs. This is a wannabe ducatti. Hyosung know it.I know it and the world know it. Is is a good bike?Does it deliver? It damn well does. Kinetic Motors delivered this bike to the Indians to study the Indian bike consumer psyche...i feel. they wanted to know if the boys will buy a true performance bike when they see one.....and i don't know the statistics, but whenever i ride me Julie on the roads...the number of questions i have answered...prove that indians love bikes...they wont shell out the kind of money i have for my beauty but they all love bikes. What is it wit bikes? People called us crazy when we went on a road trip to Goa on our bikes. They said.."catch a fucking plane ...its not that expensive”!! all i have to say to them is I've done it twice.....i fell on the way back once..ripped the skin on my palm...have a twisted ankle, clicking for life.....tachometer broken...foot rest broken....headlight bent...handle bar bent,paint scratched and i still say its all human error and I'll still do it again.... figure it out.....

so much to see..so little time...

my life on this planet is not bad...i have a goddess as my partner...i have an honourable job(mostly)...i have money in my bank account which keeps me satisfied(mostly)...i have a decent 250cc bike which keeps me happy(mostly)...i have a PS2 which keeps me occupied most Sundays(mostly) and i have a room full of toys which project to the world, my innocence(mostly)...i have decent friends(mostly!!)...what else does one need....but yet there is something missing...it can never live up to the feeling one gets while going through a 2 hour or 3 hour movie....
while watching certain films...the genre can either be a thriller or a horror or a feel good romantic or whatever...the genres are too many and my patience to write all of them down too little....well these movies kind of entertain us...make us sad...motivate us....some wanna make us puke...but whenever we get up after the movie and sit and analyze and relive the moments...we want to be in there...we want to part of such a world....is it because our lives are that pathetic that we want to get out and enter that world....?
i have seen a lot of nonsense cinema too.....thank to Sharath Shankar....a freak of nature that is a walking encyclopedia of movies one need to watch....He used to work at Candid Creations and his work demanded him to go through various kinds of films....well that's what he claims.....i think otherwise.....he loves movies....bottomline....what else would explain the kinds of films he has seen and made us watch....suggested rather..he's seldom overtly persuasive!!(kindly detect the inherent sarcasm in the sentence...shanks)....this guy watches movies, unbiased...it can be Hollywood,Japanese shit,Korean shit...u name it....it doesn't matter...now this guy suggested me a movie by a director called Takeshi Miike....now anybody who has seen this guys films like...Visitor Q,Audition,Ichi the killer will know what a person...a regular person goes through in the process of watching the film. all i can say is that this man defines creative freedom....his work touches the most perverse(subjective) topics one can think of and leaves you satisfied.He is considered to be the bad boy(understatement) of Asian cinema.Shankar suggested these movies to be.I have not been the same since.He has corrupted my fragile mind beyond repair.I can take anything now...i am so desensitized, that u could drop dead in front of me with your head blown off and i wont freak out....i can take anything.. till i saw "Requiem for a Dream".this is a must watch for any muthafucka who wants to cry his head off....and you don't even have to be an illegal drug abuser!!If Mr.Miike is perverse in a sympathetic way...he makes u see things u will never see in real life(or maybe u can).....and yet his characters are not two dimensional fools who u write off as losers.....he makes u respect these poor souls...i thought that if i like this movie...does it make me a pervert...or does it just mean that i am appreciative of the directors efforts?either way ure fucked cause the subject matter is so beyond regular life and unacceptable that it is considered a crime to even like this kind of cinema!!But what am i talking about here...i was talking about movies that make us feel like shit about our own lives....Now i saw a docu by David La Chapelle who is considered a brilliant photographer and this debut effort to showcase a kind of dance form which expresses aggression and sadness and negative energy into positive things made me feel good about my life in general...and left me a little empty too......good because the situations which led for the dance form to be invented is sad and fuckall but the dance form itself made me want to jump up and shake a leg.The name of the movie "Rize".This form of dance makes me feel envious because they have this culture ..free of any rules...they dance because they want to...because their heart tell them to....because its in their blood....it made me wanna go to kerala and learn Kalari..which is also a dance form which one can perform for releasing one's energies in a positive manner...Kalari actually is a form of martial art....which now is a dance form....So i just feel really bummed sometimes thinking of how these movies make us feel....as i was writing this blog i kinda got lost in the way and my thoughts took me to some other place so anybody who reads this blog, will know that i go way off the topic and start rambling about irrelevant shit....but they aren't irrelevant...cause these are my thoughts and I'd rather acknowledge their randomness and embrace it, rather than, fight it and try to stay within the restrains of the topic...anyway...i'll write in a little more on this later....peace and thank u all for reading....i appreciate it...

The awkwardness of the beginning!

This is a tale of my good friend and collegue Amit Chitnis...it's a tale which has suspense..anticipation..a little dose of awkwardness and a hint of romance.
When i joined the studio which i am working for now..i was introduced to a very young, fair and shy looking boy.The moment i saw him..i was reminded of an old friend called Rani Sadgirlkar(name changed on popular demand!).I knew then as much as i know now that they would both make a perfect couple.Both had the same cultural background...both spoke marathi fluently..both were fair enough to pass off as zombies....both of them have a wacky sense of humour....and to top it all off...both of them even worked in the same field...!!
now i'm not religious or anything but how could i ignore these holy signs!!i had to do some thing...
last i had heard...Chitnis had never been in any relationship, but not that that mattered....and Rani also was single to the best of my knowledge.....So i tried my best to verbally explain to both of them about how much the both of them would create magic but my dream was left hanging by both of their non-enthusiam....i wept tears in my solitude...the romance which was so meant to be but one that never happened!
Now years past by and i got over them and on one sunny afternoon i get a call from her..that she wanted to meet up!!I say ok casually and set up a time and told her to come to my office...I hang up and as I click the disconnect button on my cell phone....it dawned to me!!!
Rani->office
office->Chitnis
Chitnis<->Rani!!!
he he he
So she comes to the office and we talk for a while..i excuse myself and go to the Flame2 room(where Chitnis generally works).....i go and wit a straight face, call him to my room..the Flame 1 room(where Rani is sitting..unsuspectingly!!)He says "I'll just come"....i walk away and go to my room and start chit chatting with Rani and as i talk to her i reach for my handicam and start cueing it up and there Chitnis walks in...i press the record button on my cam and i gently place it on my lap....i introduce Chitnis and Rani.She turns to take a look at him and as she turns i see him fix his hair wit his hands...finally they meet and what happened next was very funny cause Mr.Chitnis realised what i was trying to do and instead of hanging around and having a chat wit the girl that he had heard sooo much about...the guy tries to leave in a rush...."I'll come back" he says...i ask him to just wait for a second, so i could get Rani to stand next to him for the camera...they both at that point realise that the camera is rolling!!He awkwardly smiles and says...chal re...bye......
So he leaves the room and i ask Rani the verdict....whether she liked him or not?she says....He's nice!!....hmmmm!!!
Now what i liked about this little moment was that since both of the subjects had still not lost their innocence...i could capture the awkwardness which one feels in the beginning of a relationship....
it reminded me of my own anticipation and excitement, i felt when i started dated the special lady in my life....i wanted so much to impress her and wanted her to like me and the above experience kind off took me back in time....i wont know if they will ever date each other....it is not in my hand for them to fall in love with each other....but i would love to see a nice couple, going around, with my name on the arrow that helped pierce their hearts.......who knew, playing cupid was so much fun?

the reasons why....

today i came across a quote by Oprah...its a nice one....it kind of reminded me, of a thought i once had about my profession.she says "Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not." Let me explain why this thought connects to my profession.I've been working in the Visual FX industry for the past 7 odd years and in my fresher days i got the opportunity to work under the guidance of some very talented people who showed me the way....taught me the skills i have today and also inspired certain professional ethics, which have sunk so deep into my character that they are second nature to me now.Its hard for me to not do the things they have taught me.Now in the beginning..i would execute a composite just so that my supervisor was happy and once i had his approval i used to go home a happy man.But as years past by and i got better at what i did...i wondered to myself...what am i working for...is it the money?....is it the glory? now to answer these questions.....the money in this industry is quite satisfactory....not enough to make up for the time spend away from your loved ones...all the 24hrs and 48 hrs and 72hrs, one puts into a certain job it requires.Compositing involves working on either a sequence or a specific shot till the requirement is fulfilled and most of the times...the deadlines are, lets just say "weird".....Now there is glory....once in a while...when the director likes what you've done to his film...he sometimes appreciates ure effort...but even though these things play in your mind....the question still remains....is this all worth it....?Let me give u some facts...India has a long way to go in terms of visual fx.We are still just scratching the surface...and so the clients we handle mostly don't turn out to be very post production non-savvy...which in turn means that the clients don't really have much of a clue about compositing and visual fx.There are clients who do not involve the fx house even in their ongoing vfx shoots and just land up at our doorsteps with the final rushes!Having said that, even if a compositor does execute a great composite which is supposed to look so seamless that even the director who was there on the shoot, cant make out what is done.....he loses out on the appreciation simply because the client doesn't know any better....he is just very happy that his vision was made a reality.Which means that no matter how many nights and days you spend to finish a shot....the clients mostly wont even notice ure work!!!funny but true...so how does one psyche oneself to keep going?the money makes up for it? that would be a no....
I once asked a friend and colleague of mine..what do u work for?he arrogantly answered back...."for the limelight".....this guy was a graphics artist who was very good at delivering print work for various clients....packaging in advertising is a very in your face ...visually attractive side which cannot be mistaken for realism.....well what ever works for the guy....he had his reasons all figured out....so what was mine?
now to answer this question I'd like to use the analogy of a compositor and a comic book hero!!
well let me explain, before u think I'm an pompous prick who loves to call myself a super hero!
well I'm talking about a certain kind who has to have 2 identities so that his loved ones aren't harmed...well one guy does the work, the other person serves the purpose of the cover up.u all know the story....well the comparison begins when the real person cant claim the credit or glory of doing all the great things the Hero has done.The definition of a compositor is a person who is supposed to be invisible.The moment a viewer knows that something is done in the shot/sequence...the compositor has failed....his work is expected to be so seamless....does any of this make sense now?So the real hero can never even think of showing off his work to a layman even if he wants to show the world that he is good at his work.I say i get a kick, for being in the shadows....there is a certain satisfaction when i see my shot being watched in a theatre and the crowd has no clue that something was super imposed or cut and pasted or that that breath taking explosion was put together in a tiny room in Bandra!!i love the shadows....i need the shadows....if the layman remain layman no more....my job is not justified....its a little like Batman!!So who do i work for again?i work for my colleagues and for anybody who is savvy enough to understand the time and effort i have put into the shot...not the viewer....not the client..they unfortunately are the ignorant ones...but without them ...there would be no me.....so i guess i get cheap thrills when i play my sequence and nobody knows what the hell I've done in it even though it is under their noses....sleight of hand is a lovely concept!!
well whatever it takes to keep me going....and this reason keeps my clock ticking....

Black Friday

last night i saw Black Friday....all i want to say is--> go watch the movie

continu----ing

so this movie "TBT" is a movie directed by a brilliant Indian director...who, back in the day used to be and still is a very good ad film maker...who gets bitten by the film bug...so off he goes and makes a lovely story based in some hill station and city and so forth....(this blog is not about the movie!!)
ok so the story goes that i had worked on the film executing some seriously weird visual fx on this film a year back (2005) and delivered the film vfx+DI very successfully around that time...but the film went through some snags with some "people" and these people with whom lies some level of "power" decided to change around some stuff so that the edit gets a little more "digestible"....now the preview i saw today had sound+great looking visual and privacy....but the preview i had seen with the director a year back had work in progress visual and no sound...the director was kind enough to narrate the story to us scene by scene....dialogue by dialogue....and yet even though we had these obvious distractions.....i personally found the first edit , much more fresh...edgy....intelligent and satisfying.Now the new edit seems nice too...yet the edge...the discomfort and certain thought provoking visuals which in its entirety felt really good...have been brutally canned from the film.
Now i would like to point out that i felt the reason this re-edit was done was probably a very calculated move by the people at power which would probably make great business sense but then the question is .....why does practicality always have to take priority over creativity?

TBT

i went for a preview of a film i choose to call "TBT"..cause i choose not to reveal the actual name...lest i get fucked over by the concerned people who might take offence to my views and reviews about the film!!
so here goes......coming soon......