Lantern Festival
Another week disappears - slightly more productive than last week. Graham Wallace helped us out with ADR for one of the scenes in the movie between Tarun and me. The whole process took longer than anticipated but Graham and Tarun were kind and passionate enough to lend extra time to the process. ADR works a treat and the scene has much better dialogue now without the inter cutting background music. I finished reading one of the scripts in my inbox and next one is lined up to read tomorrow. Besides that I did a good clean of my room and managed to take out some solid amount of clutter. Amazing how much you can pile on without realizing.
I managed to catch up with Angelique briefly at the Lantern Festival but soon parted ways to enjoy some awesome food {my favorite this time around being a Vietnamese dish - I don't know the name for it but it was beef wrapped in grape leaf}. The festival was PACKED. It has grown huge over the past few years. I remember that in 2003 - there were hardly any people checking out the festival but now it is an experience walking through the crowd. The problem this time around was entire families coming out to the event {which isn't a bad thing} with strollers for their toddlers and young kids. There is barely enough space to walk as it is and every time one of the parents with strollers stopped to look at something or talk- it would stop the flow of people immediately. Also the organizers need to be more creative with their stall layouts next time around - it was essentially the same as last time and walking through the place is like deja vu. Different varieties of food available was definitely the highlight. If only they had a weekly night market with all those food stalls somewhere in central city....sighhhhh.....
Here are some pics from the event.
Guys cooking mussels
Flames & Smoke
Crowds checking out the food stalls
Trying to walk
Nightfall = more crowds
More food
Lanterns
Lanterns Galore
Kids checking out a display
A better view
Kids amazed at the lantern displays
Climbing trees amongst the lanterns
This is the most crowded I've seen this road
Despair
Thats me for now
Amit
Labels: Auckland, Festival, New Zealand, The Moments In Between
December in the park
It's been an incredibly busy period since my last post. I had a very short notice surprise audition come up as the actor who was originally cast for that part couldn't do the part because of personal health reasons. I did get the part and did a 1 day shoot on the TV feature and that turned out to be a fantastic experience. The other audition that I did went well and that again was a fun experience.
Since the work on 'Moments' has slowed down in terms of production, I decided that a way to speed up the process in the overall scheme of things would be to start compiling the scenes that have already been shot and edited to find out where the holes are and what needs to be done to fill those up. One of the holes was covering up dialog cuts in the scene between Tarun and me, so I went and got some pickup shots at 'The Whitehouse' as we didn't get any cut aways the first time round when we shot the scene there. We'll be shooting one more scene next sunday, which is a meaty scene and that should give me some consolation about the pace of the project. It's been a hard year but after the past couple of weeks I am declaring my year closed on a high note. Anything good that might happen between now and end of 2009 is a bonus. 2010 here I come.
Friday evening was the staff Christmas party and there wasn't anything terribly exciting that happened at the party. Yesterday I had a long overdue catchup with David & Christina and it was nice way to spend Saturday morning and afternoon. In the evening, I went to 'Christmas in the Park' along with Benji and it was bizarre event. There was something terribly off with the whole vibe of the event - it was like one huge coca cola commercial. It's supposed to be a family event but then you look around and see people getting boozed and stoned while kids and teenagers are running around. Both Benji and me almost got food poisoning over there when the thai stall served half cooked chicken skewers and they gave replacement sticks that were half cooked as well. The jerky pork kebabs from the Jamaican food stall more than made up for the earlier culinary misadventure. But to be on the safe side Benji and me decided to get a tequila shot on our way back, to negate the one bite of half cooked chicken that we had earlier.
Christmas in the Park
Beautiful sunset
Auckland Hospital
Distant viewings
Walk back
Grafton Cemetery
Bunch of people enjoying the cool air
The tequila shot
Earlier this afternoon, had a picnic lunch at Grafton Road cemetery which Angelique organized. It was an odd choice of location but a good one. It is bang in the middle of the city but it has so many trees and is pretty quite. It was an opportunity to catch up Tessa after ages and also got to meet Angelique's boy friend besides meeting some very interesting people.
Picnic at Grafton Cemetery
Sunshine
Sun and Shade
Flowers over a grave
Angelique & Kelly
Anna & Xien
Me & Tessa
End of picnic
And now it's heads down, preparing for the business project presentation that I've got to give to the TVNZ top brass tomorrow. Wish me luck.
Later,
Amit
Labels: Acting, Festival, The Moments In Between
Diwali
So it is that time of the year again. Diwali celebrations are on in Auckland over this weekend and for me it is always the yummy food that takes me there. The food stalls were in full swing and it got crowded as the day went on. I had pani puri {gol gappas} after a long time and they were yummy - even though the rates were untypically high but that's an indulgence you have once a year I guess.
This year the festival had a new location - it's been shifted to Viaduct from it's regular home on Britomart car park. A big plus for the move was the extra space and the scenic location but on the other hand the festival is now spread out and the energy is diffused over a larger portion of the land - not necessarily a good thing for the performers and the other drawback was the lack of sitting space. It's still nice to see that the festival is still being celebrated
Walking into the festival grounds
Beautiful flower decorations (I found out they were fake while resizing the pics :-))
The crowds checking out the stalls
A dancer pondering her next move - 'should I be on stage right now?'
Yummmmm.....Indian fast food.
Moi - checking out the food
Benji enjoying the festive atmosphere
The main stage for performances
Freaky clown game - it was bizarre but amusing seeing the syncronized head turns
An indian lady swelling bangles and jewellery.
2 Big Kids - Ainsley and Heidi
Kids eagerly getting a closer look at the Indian dance(r)
Rain clouds threatning to dampen the celebrations but no one cares
'I am so special' :-)
Artistic Shot :-)So that's the visual report back from the festival celebrations - I'll be going there again tonight for dinner. :-)
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Festival, New Zealand
Razor
Festive SeasonIt is that time of the year here in NZ where everyone goes crazy doing Christmas shopping and closer to Christmas the entire country comes to a virtual standstill. The main streets are decorated with various stuff and it just kicks in the point that we need periods of extravagance like these to connect with people we care about. If only we could connect with people and be good to each other all the time.
I just watched
Battlestar Galactica: Razor - it was an interesting watch and adds a little more plot detail before the last season kicks off. The only thing that bugged me is that they did not add more threads to tie it up tighter to Season-4.
I had a day off work today and it has been a nice relaxing day. Played some tennis with Lance {he started teaching me how to play the game and this is the first time ever i put my hands on a tennis racket, so was nice to lose the set 6-5}; watched the BSG movie {refer to above paragraph}; lazed around and have now started reading
Mister Pip by Llyod Jones, which is turning out to be a fantastic read.
Maybe I should get some pending work done tomorrow. :-)
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Books, Festival, Tennis, TV Series
City Lights
City LightsWell first off - FIVE has been selected to screen at
Microcinema Festival '07 in Palatine, Illinois and will be the closing the festival. Also Gina Dellabarca who runs
Star Publicity will be helping me out with publicity for FIVE leading up to it's DVD release. It is another week and half before we finish off sound design on FIVE and deliver the master tape to Arkles Entertainment.
I watched a documentary titled "
Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality" - the doco was alright but the philosophy and the subject matter was fascinating - it deals with Death Anxiety and the way it shapes our lives. It is definitely a must see doco - if you can ignore some of the weird music choices they make in the background.
Till later,
Amit
Labels: Festival, Five, Publicity
