Nondescript filmmaker

When I went to watch Barfi , I was solely looking for another brilliant performance from Ranbir Kapoor. Anurag Basu, I had low expectations from. I was irked by the fact that he got bogged down by stars, the mega production set up, the crossover film idea and Spanish market exploration attempted in Kites . For me, Kites was a failure to see a great Hritik performance. To me, it was one of his worst performances since his debut. How that happened with a performer's director was beyond me. It still is. I like PC's looks. She isn't terrible. I knew from Fashion she could act. But she has consistently produced banal performances relying too much on her looks. She lacked the Vidya Balan abandon, which was so important to producing and enjoying a performance.   Barfi blew my mind. Like Pritam's music, frankly I don't care if bits and pieces of Barfi was picked, referenced, etc from other films. I am not trying to be politically correct. How can I deny I loved t...

My first trip to the Himalayan mountains in 1997 was a trip to... I can't remember the name of the place. I was on a film job for some organisation of the UN. (showing off :D). That first flight to Shimla made an impact on my life 10 years later. But that's another story. Having lived all my life in Mumbai, where the weather is stable and predictable (22-36 degrees celcius), Himachal was quite an experience. Since then I have spent about 100 days over different months-Oct, Nov and May-in Himachal Pradesh (HP), Uttaranchal and Ladakh in Jammu Kashmir (J&K). Irrespective of how beautiful and serene a place is, it can become miserable if you are feeling cold or hot or fall sick. Dressing up the right way for the weather can make all the difference. Here are some tips on managing the weather. 1. Before you leave, start looking at weather updates of the region for at least a fortnight. It'll give you a rough idea of how it might be when you land up there. Weather updat...

Just a track of everyday musings. I was compelled to put this down because of how quickly it led to rats and their evolution. It went like this. We're all in the race to buy a flat, land, a place to stay. Yet historically almost every nation has been built on usurping a region, its people and its resources. When did 'encroachment' become an issue? In the past, people went somewhere and if they found it convenient, they stayed there. If it was not convenient, like nomads or Bedouins, they moved on till they found something suitable in their context. Migrants-poor or rich do the same thing. So when did this become encroachment? When did laws regarding land ownership originate? So one person owned a wee bit of land... 10 persons owned some land 100,000 people owned a lot of land and so at some point of time 100s of thousands of people and few of them, who owned most of the land became afraid of standard usurpation procedures :D. So they created a new set of procedures to...

It's 23:30. From my mother's house I can hear the motors of a boat and dredging equipment. Today I am irritated because of the sound that refuses to go. In an area, where people go to sleep by 22:00, this sound and activity has been going on for years. There have been complaints but clearly putting cops anywhere close to activity area-Paravur lake in Kollam-to monitor the sand and clay smugglers have been out of the scope of the police department. Why? What is the real story? I have heard of immense damage to the soil and environment. When will someone wake up and take action before it is too late. How do we go ahead and get rid of this nuisance?

Real editing is about effectively designing and communicating audio visual content. It is an art that I long to be lifelong student of. Other than complain about bad editors and editing, I have little to contribute. In this series of articles, I'll talk about video editing software. Ideally any system Mac or PC should have equally competent editing software. Since the 2000s, the Mac had Final Cut Pro (FCP) and PC had several editing software including Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere. FCP made deep forays into the professional market then dominated by Avid especially in television and became the market leader of professional editing software. The advantage of having a market leading software is that you have a lot of users and forums and therefore a lot of shared solutions. My History with Editing The non-linear workflow that I had followed pre-2002 in a professional television production set up was: import/capture footage on low resolution, edit, export final edit on full resolu...

Understanding a product, its features and its market strategy helps you understand the philosophy and intent of its creators. It also helps you understand the maturity of a product and need for improvements (which are seen in newer versions). Most importantly, it helps you select a product that keeps you (as a user) on the cutting edge or relevant for a long time. I have had my struggle with editing software; I changed my profession for about six years (2002-08) and was therefore unaware of the new developments and resulting new workflows. So when I planned the edit of one of my 'comeback' films, my estimates went horribly wrong and I still face the repercussions of it. It take a lot of courage to choose a path of your interest. There is financial uncertainty, an undifferentiated video market, jibes from family members and community and your own fluctuating confidence to contend with. So not being able to edit my film for four years has all but broken me. But only just. Thi...