Musings of an Idiot

The Moments In Between

'Freedom project' is no more - it is now called 'The Moments In Between'.
Amit

Labels: Freedom Project, The Moments In Between

posted by Amit @ 7:53 AM 0 Comments

NG

Just finished doing the rough cut on the scene we shot earlier this week and it is a funny scene with brilliant performances from Toby and Delaney. It's got a chunk of the scene missing {that we haven't shot yet} at this stage so not planning on sharing it at all.

Labels: Freedom Project

posted by Amit @ 7:56 PM 0 Comments

Digitize

I just finished digitizing footage from the 2 most recent scenes we shot for 'freedom project'. Oh I forgot to mention yesterday's shoot went well - it was short and crisp and the footage is looking like gold. I can't wait to edit yesterday's scene. Now planning the next couple of scenes, seeing how I can make them happen. Also it looks like we are close to locking down a name for this movie.

I'll leave you with a couple of screen grabs from the recent scenes.


Enjoy,
Amit

Labels: Freedom Project

posted by Amit @ 2:31 PM 0 Comments

The Chase

People say if you really want something then don't try too hard and stop thinking about it and it'll come to you. Well that's not exactly my experience and it definitely doesn't help my cause or dreams or aspirations or needs. Just have to keep chasing.

Labels: Freedom Project, Random

posted by Amit @ 9:55 AM 0 Comments

Limbo

I hate having down time - even though I know it is essential from time to time to recharge your batteries and I do crave it occassionally but still. Things are busy as usual but somehow I still have the feeling that I can fit more into my work schedule.

Labels: Freedom Project, Random

posted by Amit @ 12:00 PM 0 Comments

WH

More developments on the 'freedom project' front. I acted in my first scene for the project last night and it felt good. Simon was directing and he was on one of the cameras while Benji was on the other. I don't have to worry if we got the coverage and everything we need to make the scene work in post production because Simon will have to deal with it..wohoooo.... A special thanks to Brian Le Gros who was generous to us with use of his property and making things possible even though we are a 'no budget' independent film.

We are shooting the next scene for the project next week and I am excited about that as well. Benji is dropping out of the project after next week's scene but people have been generous with their offers of help and the project has to go on one way or the other. Also we are close to recasting the part opposite me and just awaiting confirmation that it is all go from the actress.

I did a small acting freebie for TVNZ7 idents and those will start airing this week on TVNZ7. I also managed to cull down my list of movies to watch at the NZ International Film Festival to 5 and finally went and bought the tickets.

Signing off,
Amit

Labels: Acting, Freedom Project

posted by Amit @ 11:16 AM 0 Comments

Tweet

I bit the bullet again and opened a 'Twitter' account, so if you want you can find me there under the username @unkreative.

Watched the Borneo episode of 'Intrepid Journey's' last night and I really want to go there next year. 2010 can't come soon enough and by the way 2009 is screaming past it feels like it's just around the corner.

Gearing up to shoot a scene this week and another one next week for 'freedom project' if stars align themselves. Fingers crossed for that. Wish I had money to pay people to commit times to it and also to lock down locations but that's the nature of independent film making I guess - on a wing and a prayer.

Amit

Labels: Freedom Project, Travel

posted by Amit @ 9:51 AM 2 Comments

Freedom Update

Several developments on the 'freedom' project front. First up - Simon Ward is now on board as co-director on the project. It will ease up the workload on me as I can't direct the scenes I am in anyway. Secondly, I bit the bullet and bought one radio wireless mic to solve my worries about extra crewing and audio problems. Simon bought one as well, so between the two of us we've got the audio side covered. Third up is that we are gearing up to shoot the next scene - hopefully this week. We were supposed to shoot it tomorrow but the location was unavailable. And lastly I had to take the hard decision to re-cast one of the parts because of various reasons but it is all part of the process.

Labels: Freedom Project

posted by Amit @ 9:06 PM 0 Comments

Slow freedom

Well autumn just passed by without a sign - just cold winds and rain and now is the onset of winter. Note to self - try and plan your next holiday in May/June. :-)

'Freedom Project' is going a little slower than I anticipated but I have taken overall stock of the situation and it is looking good mostly. There are some awesome stories that are coming out and I am hopefully that they will flow together when the edit is done. Even though it is experimental in the way we are doing it - it still has to work as a dramatic narrative for the audience to invest their time in it. Managed to score a location which I was having trouble finding and the workshops are coming along nicely, so I can't really complaint. :-)

Here is an excerpt from the scene with Matt McD and Lorraine - which we basically developed using acting workshops. The scene is still in final stages of development so can't share the full scene right now.


Adam: Wohh..Woh..Woh…Stop..stop..stop..stop…
Tricia: What? I was just joking.
Adam: Yeah.. Look..please, please tell me that this is not the sort of thing you’re gonna bring up tomorrow. You just launched into a racist, fatist, sizest rant
Tricia: I didn’t say anything racist
Adam: Yeah whatever it was…you just…you just…I can’t remember your words now
Tricia: That’s crazy
Adam: Because that’s gonna be disaster tomorrow. This guy comes to see us and we sit down and we go 'we bought the best cot because cot deaths are caused by fat people, rolling over, drinking too much…'
Tricia: It was just a joke.
Adam: You know what your jokes are like..You know..
Tricia: Funny…You love my jokes
Adam: Stop..stop..No..No..
Tricia: You laugh at my jokes..you love them
Adam: Yeah I laugh at your jokes but I’m married to you
Tricia: because you laugh at my jokes
Adam: That’s hard tack but yeah I married you because you are so funny. But there aren’t many people who find you funny. Well, we’ve only met 6 of them.

Later,
Amit

Labels: Freedom Project

posted by Amit @ 7:45 PM 0 Comments

Postponed

The shoot we were supposed to have today has been postponed because of various reasons. Slightly bummed out but that's the nature of the game of indie films.




That's me for now.
Later,
Amit

Labels: Freedom Project

posted by Amit @ 9:19 PM 0 Comments

Quantum Leap

At start of the workshop last night with Matt and Lorraine for 'the freedom project', I found this book lying around titled 'Quantum Physics Cannot Hurt You' and it got me fascinated and Matt started describing things about it and I was fascinated. The writer, Marcus Chown, is in town for the Auckland Readers & Writers Festival and he gave an interview on National Radio as part of the promotion and it was facinating listening to say the least. I am sorely tempted to go and visit the festival to hear him talk but I decided that maybe the best way to know more is to read that book first otherwise it is kinda pointless sitting in the audience with no clue as to what's going on. So I rang up all major bookshops this morning to see if anyone had the book in stock {which they didn't} and I finally managed to track a copy down at the University Book Store and went up there for a stroll. The stroll itself was wet because of the intermittent showers but I am still pretty pleased as I got a couple of nice photos {I used my phone camera ofcourse- I need to invest in a decent smaller camera that I can slip into my pant pocket}. Now I have my hands on the book and I can't wait to dig into it. Multiple universes and alternate realities - here I come. :-)

Labels: Books, Freedom Project, New Zealand

posted by Amit @ 9:43 PM 0 Comments

Polaroid Online Exhibition

The weather has been playing havoc through the entire week and is likely to remain so through the end of next week. It just makes it harder to do things and it is such a mission waking up so early in the morning. It's saturday and I am at work - someone called in sick and I took the extra shift since I had nothing pressing to do today. I could've spent time on 'freedom project' but I already had a busy week with it with 3 solid workshops, so needed to take a step away from it.

I watched 'The Class' last night and it was a wonderful experience. It is a masterpiece and I loved how it showed characters who were actually human with all their flaws and their strengths. It was an engrossing ride even though the movie never leaves the school premises.

The polaroid camera has been un-used since my trip back to NZ and I started planning a mini polaroid exhibition to be displayed on unkreative website and possibly on Benji's website and put the idea forward to Benji & Lance and both of them are keen on it. So the idea is to shoot 10 polaroids each using my 600 camera and then put it up online. In a lot of ways it is an interesting experience because of the limitations of the camera. Let's see how this project shapes up over the coming month.

That's me for now.
Amit

Labels: Freedom Project, Movies, Polaroid

posted by Amit @ 9:00 AM 0 Comments

What's good for you

I was watching a program called 'What's Good for You' at work and here are some things I picked up during the program and thought I would share with everyone.

• Spicy food doesn’t cause ulcers.
  
• Vitamin D helps absorb calcium into the body.
  
• Cook meat on hotplate instead of grill to avoid carcinogenic materials build up on the meat
  
• 50gms serving of Fries has 18 gms of fat; potato chips have 16 gms of fat & baked potato chips 4 gms of fat.
  
• You should eat at least a couple of hours before you go to bed otherwise you miss out on deep sleep, which causes you to feel tired when you wake up the next day as your body hasn't repaired itself completely.
  
• 1-2 glasses of red wine is good for your heart but not for people suffering from enlarged heart, high blood pressure, family history of heart disease or alcohol abuse.
  
• Breakfast is the most important meal of the day but fatty breakfasts aren’t good for you as it causes weight gain. Porridge is an excellent breakfast food.
  
• Pasta is low GI, so it doesn’t make you fat especially if you stick to tomato based sauces
  
• Basmati rice is better than Jasmine rice because it has low GI.
  
• Fish is good for you because they contain Omega-3 oils and one is recommended atleast 200 mg of Omega-3 oil a day in whatever form.
  

Labels: Food, Freedom Project

posted by Amit @ 9:16 PM 0 Comments

Stainless Heart

It's been a busy week and have another hectic week ahead. I watched a couple of movies at the World Cinema Showcase - Gomorrah & Rachel Getting Married. Both of them turned out to be interesting movies. Gomorrah was a real stunner though - it was a patient movie that slowly unravels the complexities of what's happening with the italian mafia. Rachel Getting Married had some fantastic acting especially from Anne Hathaway but it kind of looses steam 2/3rds into the movie and is probably 20 minutes too long for what it is.

Labels: Freedom Project, Movies

posted by Amit @ 3:19 PM 0 Comments

The First Scene

Ok...so here is the first scene that we shot and edited for 'the freedom project'. This is a rough cut and it will obviously change when other scenes come into play and I re-edit parts of it in context of a feature film but it is still a solid base to start work from. The video hasn't been color-graded and the audio hasn't been touched - so it is basically footage from the day [it looks slightly dark because of the encoding process]. The music track used in the song is called 'Between the hit and the miss' by an Irish band called 'Cowboy X' - thanks to them for letting me use the track in this segment of the movie.

Here is the vid



Comments and feedback always welcome.

Cheers,
Amit

Labels: Freedom Project

posted by Amit @ 10:04 PM 0 Comments

System Switch

So the version of Avid I had didn't want to recognize any cameras/decks - which basically meant that I couldn't ingest anything for edit. After a good couple of days of trouble shooting I decided to chuck it out. Avid has discontinued Express Pro and the base system they now have is Media Composer and my grand old laptop is not geared to handle MC - I'd tried it a couple of years back but it wouldn't run smoothly. And I definitely am not in a mood for upgrading my laptop just yet as it is still good for most of the stuff except for HD editing and I can't afford to set myself back by a few thousand dollars right now. So I am giving Sony Vegas Pro 8 a whirl and see if it runs fine on my system - if it does then that is what I'll be editing the 'freedom' project on.

The other conscious decision I've been trying to adhere to is cutting the number of times I eat my lunch outside. Till now my standard has been 5 days out of 5 in a working week but I am now planning to do it only once in a week. I've been sticking to it for the last couple of weeks and I hope to make it into a habit.

Daylight savings have kicked in and I am a happy chappy. It is actually light when I wake up and it means that I am not hitting the 'snooze' button on my alarm all the time. Yeah it gets darker earlier but it is nice actually living a normal day.

That's me for now,
Amit

Labels: Freedom Project, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 9:24 AM 0 Comments

Frank & Anne

We just finished shooting the first scene for the 'freedom' project and the scene we shot was originally part of 'Rejected' but I had chopped off the scene during the script revision and developed it into a stand alone scene for this project. I am tired right now so will leave you with a couple of pics from rehearsals {and will update with couple more pics from the shoot later} and also the script for the scene we shot.



If you don't like profanity skip reading the dialogue.


Anne walks out of the house slamming the door behind. Frank finds the keys lying around and pockets them.


Frank pretends to find the keys and offers them to Anne.


Anne leaves the house and closes the door behind her.

Frank runs out of the house after her.

Big kudos to everyone involved with the scene- Liz, Drew, Benji and Lance. I'll try and do a rough cut of the scene later this weekend and see how that shapes up.

Peace out,
Amit

Labels: Filming, Freedom Project, Movies, Script

posted by Amit @ 12:16 AM 0 Comments

Fitness Update

Well - I keep getting teased by Lance that I've become obsessed with my fitness, so thought I would cover that in this post. The truth is that I might be slightly obsessed now - the fact is that I want to be healthy and fit 20-30 years from now. A fit body is the key to a fit mind in a lot of ways. It's been roughly 6 weeks since I've started going to the gym regularly and there have been small improvements through out. I took a fitness test today and my resting heart rate has come down to 65bpm {from 71 bpm}; my weight has gone up from 66.9 KG to 68.2 KG but my fat content has gone from 20.8% to 19.5% which means that the extra weight I've gained is muscle; my cardio levels have improved and lie half way between average and good with a scale rating of 47.5 [a significant improvement over the last time];and finally my blood pressure is within normal range. So there have been small improvements all around because of the regular exercise. No time to bask in the glory of these improvements because my aim for the year is to get my resting heart rate down to low60- mid50 range and try and decrease the fat content to maybe 15-17% of body weight.

Things are picking up momentum with the 'freedom' project and we will be shooting the first scene later this week with Liz and Drew. Lance and Benji will be shooting the scenes and we had our technical meeting last night. Add to it I've just kick started the process of developing the scenario with Claire for the scene that we will be putting on for the project.

The script development process for the scripts I want to take to India are going at their own pace and Angelique has taken my suggestions on board for the script she is writing while Simon is coming up with some nice stuff to enhance 'Rejected'.

I've finished reading 'The Forever War' by Dexter Filkins and I can't recommend it highly enough. It is such a hard read because of the emotional punch it packs through it's simple but profound observations that you feel for the author. By the same token it highlights human nature in it's stark nakedness.

We have new flatmates and they are a pretty chilled out couple who are into sports and stuff and do normal hours and don't have any crazy hidden agendas like doing band practises or anything like that. We had a BBQ to mark end of summer, mini flat warming for them and it turned out to be a chilled out event and got to catch up with old friends.

I am now eagerly waiting for the daylight savings to end because it sucks waking up in the morning {according to the clock} and still finding it pitch black outside. On a different note - tax cuts kick in from tomorrow, so will have a very small additional amount to spend/save.

Anyway as you can tell I am pretty fragmented right now and waiting to catch up on my sleep.
Till later,
Amit

Labels: Books, Fitness, Freedom Project, Random

posted by Amit @ 7:36 PM 0 Comments