Musings of an Idiot

Avid

I am back on an old version of Avid. I gave Sony Vegas 8 a good go but the workflow was driving me slightly insane. It took me a good 4 hours to cut 1 minute of the scene - which is atrociously slow. I guess I don't know all the keyboard shortcuts but the way to edit was driving me up the wall. The way Vegas works is pretty user friendly and I reckon it would be good if you are doing a simple edit or have lots of time to spend to learn the ins and outs of the system but it was definitely a non-starter for me.

I decided to give the old version of Avid a go again to see if it would recognize the video decks so I can digitize the footage and luckily for me it did. I've now ingested the footage into Avid and plan on editing the scene over the next couple of days. The performances are spot on and now it is now just a matter of finding the rhythm and tone for the scene.

After that it is onto the next set of scenes, workshops and planning.
That's me for now.
Amit

Labels: Post Production

posted by Amit @ 12:28 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

Ironman

Well - it is the weekend again and I plan on doing some much needed housework and pending tasks. I still haven't replied to my emails but at this point I can't be bothered. It is one of those phases where I don't like answering anyone - I will get over it soon but for now I am enjoying the freedom of ignoring non-critical mail.

The cut for 'To'ona'i' was locked on Wednesday night and neither David nor me were hurt or injured during the process plus I didn't have to use the knives and forks on David. David won the overall contest of the number of changes suggested to number of changes agreed to and implemented by 11-9 but I don't mind losing this contest at all as the locked cut feels so much more fluid. I encoded the files and passed on the DVD's to Mr. Mamea - now most of my active 'hands on' part is done and it is upto the sound designer to make the short film cohesive by creating an immersive sound design.

I went and saw Iron Man yesterday and it was a nice experience. The movie has flaws but it works wonderfully well and is great escapist fare. The center of the movie is Robert Downey Jr, who really sells the movie to you and the supporting cast supports his well. And the thing I liked about Iron Man was that in one of the few action sequences in the movie Tony Stark goes ape shit while dealing with his enemies. You never see that kind of brutal assault from a super hero because they are supposed to be 'good'. Imminently watchable.

Time for my beauty sleep.
Ciao,
Amit

Labels: Movies, Post Production, Short film

posted by Amit @ 10:56 PM 1 Comments

Awarded

Well - FIVE was chosen as the Best Feature by the judges at DeReel Independent Film Festival in Australia. And yeah I am thrilled beyond words.

Besides that - just mentally preparing myself for tomorrow when I sit down with David to lock down To'ona'i - the short film that he is making. I need to sharpen my knives and forks to combat his nanchucks - it will be one helluva wonderful event I swear. I will write an update if I come out as the survivor.

I have seen the first 4 episodes of Season-4 of Battlestar Galactica and it is thrilling as usual. Seeing the cylon civil war was awesome - they seem to be laying parallels with humanity but I am finding it hard to imagine as to how they will wrap up the story.

Anyway time to hit the sack.
Till later,
Amit

P.S - the new DARK KNIGHT trailer rocks..it rocks real hard.

Labels: Five, Post Production, Short film, TV Series

posted by Amit @ 11:33 PM 0 Comments

Further developments

The past 2 days have been super busy and I desperately waiting for the weekend. I was supposed to go for an audition on monday evening right after my acting lessons and because the character I was auditioning for was supposed to speak in an american accent I scurried around for an accent coach and I got in touch with John Dybvig, after recommendation from Mike [my acting teacher]. The time was fixed for Monday late afternoon -straight after work and I was excited. Then early on Monday morning the audition got cancelled but I still decided to go through with the accent coaching as it is something that I had been meaning to do for a long time. So I went over to John's place for my lesson straight after work. The class was extremely helpful and I intend to keep at it, so that I have an additional skill set if need be. After the lessons I drove over to my acting lessons in the evening and then came back home and cooked some Keema Curry to wind down after a long day. By the time I hit bed I was dead tired. A 16 hour day in total.

Yesterday was no less busy as I went home straight after work and started working on To'ona'i. I started implementing the changes that I had discussed with David and I got into the flow of things pretty quick. Editing is not about cutting - it is about intuition and working from the heart rather than from the mind. Anyone can cut but not everyone can make a story flow - it is a craft (like writing or acting or any other creative art form), which you just develop as you gain more and more experience. I made some interesting discoveries about length and the time of a cut, that I am pretty pleased about.

Funnily enough I lost track of time and missed my physio appointment and ran really close to the line with my salsa lessons. The lesson was interesting in the sense that there were more girls than guys at the class - which was a problem as you can only dance salsa in pairs and the steps for girls is different from that for the guys and the fact that guys are the ones who have to lead the dance. It was a good workout, especially after the 2 private classes I took before this group class. A lot of what the salsa teacher taught in the private lesson started to make sense including the observation that kiwi girls are really hard to dance salsa with [not all of them obviously but most of them] and the guy has to work extra hard to make them work to the signals. Kiwi girls forget that in the dance it is the guy who leads and they just have to follow the signals and they try and control the dance. Typical!

Anyway after the salsa lesson, I came back home and went about authoring a DVD for Mr. Mamea and I didn't finish it till 12.30 at night. And by the time the DVD authoring was done and I had tested the DVD on a couple of machines I was on auto-pilot mode and was glad when I finally hit the bed. With post production schedules I hate running close to the line and I always like to keep aside contingency days just incase shit hits the fan - luckily in this case it did not and everything went to plan. So I did have a good sleep knowing that I had done my bit even though it was a 17 hour day and it was my 4th day of doing 15+ hours a day. So yeah I am eagerly looking forward to the weekend but that's not before I hand over the DVD to Mr. Mamea tonight and discuss further post production action on the short film.

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Acting, Food, Post Production, Short film

posted by Amit @ 12:46 PM 0 Comments

To'ona'i Rough Cut

The weekend disappeared into post production for To'ona'i and I have just come out for a breather now. Mr. Mamea brought over his short film on Friday evening and we had the viewing of the rough cut he had done and after discussing the guidelines on how much liberty I had [ruling out any Michael Bay style fast cuts or David Lynch style mind games], I went about tightening the short film.

It took me an hour on saturday morning to get used to Final Cut Pro, which is what I was editing on [I usually edit on Avid] and then some more time to come to grips with the material in front of me. Once I had taken everything in, the next couple of days went away in a breeze as I was constantly finding ways to economize the story telling without losing the core of the story and also developing a more solid story rhythm and pacing.

I was pretty pleased when David viewed the movie again last night and did not have a heart attack and neither did he kill me for chopping off about 2 minutes off the running time of the short film. There are a couple of minor visual tweaks to sort out but the refined rough cut as it stands is looking pretty good and is flowing nicely. Sound post on it will be a challenge and my sympathies are already with the guy who will be doing it as it will be a massive mission to clean up the audio - which because of the nature of the short and the shoot wouldn't exactly have been easy to record in the first place. The rest of this week will be going into implementing those tweaks and also authoring DVD, so the David can do what he needs to do with them before the project moves into it's final cut stages.

There are other commitments to fulfill this week and I am sure I will somehow manage them as well.

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Post Production, Short film

posted by Amit @ 9:19 AM 0 Comments

No Budget Film School

Well here is a great series of articles related to 'no budget' film making straight from Microcinema Scene. I love it and it is definitely a must read for anyone wanting to make their own movies. Check it out in all it's resourcefulness.

I went and saw 'No Country for Old Men' yesterday evening and it was a good movie spoilt only by the last 5 minutes - maybe because it is a faithful adaptation of the book. It was rivetting nonetheless. Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin are beyond fantastic in this movie. I even had a nightmare about Anton Chigurh last night - the character is that frightening. Here is an exchange in the movie that just about hints at the menace that Anton Chigurh is.

It is definitely a movie worth watching.

Amit

Labels: Filming, Movies, Post Production, Pre-production

posted by Amit @ 7:51 AM 0 Comments

Ratatouille

Well..what's been happening at my end? Several things and the main thing obviously has to do with FIVE. We are at the last few stretches of finishing off sound post - will be doing final viewing checks for the stereo mix in a couple of hours and then will be laying it back onto tape tomorrow evening. Then it will be another week and half's work for Benji to finish off the 5.1 sound mix - an added luxury we are working towards since we got a small extension for delivery deadline to the distributor.

To give you an idea about how intensive sound post on the project has been - here are 2 screen shots from the audio project. The first gives an overview of the audio timeline and most of the audio tracks used. The second screenshot is a magnified image of a part of the timeline. You can click on the images to enlarge them.

Screen shot 1: Audio timeline overview

Screen shot 2: Magnified audio timeline

The overall sound design on the movie is starting to sound a lot better. Looking back at the project as a whole - the entire project was challenging as a whole but sound definitely ranks above everything else to make this project work and it is a mini-miracle to be finishing off the movie properly. There will be a couple of theatrical screenings of FIVE a week before the DVD release and I will post the details once they are finalized.

At work - I applied for a permanent position at TVNZ in technical resources and had my interview and was offered the position. I have taken up the position and it is definitely another exciting phase, especially with the changes in technology that is happening. My job officially starts from 2nd September.

I went and saw Ratatouille and it was a really good movie. Brad Bird is incredible in creating emotions with his characters. The movie had so many laughs and at the same time kept moving all along in such a way that it was a delight. The food in the animation looked so totally amazing and the animation overall was excellent. A highly recommended movie.

I think that's it from me for now.
Till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, Movies, Post Production, TVNZ

posted by Amit @ 6:47 PM 1 Comments

Sound

The foley recording today did not really happen for all purposes as we did not really have enough time and the location we chose had low traffic noise in the background + the area was wet and squishy from the rain over the past couple of days. So we will be doing another session sometime soon.

I rejoined swimming classes but at a different location as the swimming trainer at the previous location was not really that great and looking back I did not make much progress under him. And funnily enough the classes start from tomorrow evening. So that should be an interesting evening getting back to swimming after 6 months. Scary but exciting.

It is amazing the amount of time emails consume - personal and professional. Over the past couple of weeks I have been in email contact with various US distribution companies talking about international sales rights to FIVE and the amount of time it takes to write a single email still amazes me. On an average it takes me atleast 30 minutes to write a 2-3 paragraph email. You don't want to write something casually and end up regretting it later, so a lot of thought process does go into it and thus the amount of time taken. At this point I am just talking to various distributors and sales agents and I will update on that front when something happens.

Other than that just bits and bobs here and there - nothing too significant for me to write about. Before I sign off here is an interesting article about Facebook.

Later,
Amit

Labels: Post Production, Publicity, Swimming

posted by Amit @ 10:04 PM 0 Comments

FIVE update

The NZ DVD release for FIVE will be towards Halloween period - end of October, so expect to see the movie in video stores near you. It gives us till the end of this month to finish off the sound on the movie. Ande Schurr has come on board to help out with foley recording and getting the sounds that we need - which is a big plus as we were in a tight spot with resources and equipment.

John Davies - the NZ distributor liked the poster that Ilke created for the movie that he has commissioned her to create the DVD jacket for the NZ DVD. It is exciting because I think the color scheme in the poster is truly enticing and reflects the movie as it is supposed to be.

The first review for FIVE has come in and it is a mixed review but HERE it is in all it's glory.[The bit about acting confuses me as the feedback from all the test screenings said that acting, tension and cinematography were the movie's strongest points.]

I watched a few movies - The Unpolished; Knocked Up; The Simpsons Movie and the only movie that can be given a miss is 'The Unpolished' which was slow and boring and did not go anywhere. I started following a TV series called '30 Rock' and it is hilarious - an intelligent comedy.

Signing off for now but do check out this article which explains how to rip off WINZ - I wouldn't recommend it because dealing with WINZ is such a pain - one is better off putting those energies in getting work than getting treated like scum.


Till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, Post Production, Publicity

posted by Amit @ 2:27 PM 1 Comments

Sea of Fury

A view from the ferry

Furious and serious

The sea lashing at the ferry terminal

Magical lands by the sea

The feedback from the first audience test screening came back from Paekakariki and overall it ranged from interesting to good while 2 ladies walked out 20 minutes into the movie as they couldn't bear the tension and anticipation. So I guess overall it is a welcome change hearing that kind of feedback from people I have never met.

The stereo mix is still not completely done and I extended the deadline for that till this coming Sunday but I don't know if that will be delivered according to my expectations as the first pass of the stereo mix had a fair few issues and the way things are going I am just not sure if there will be enough time to review the mix before sending out the copies to the film festivals. The frustrating thing right now is that I can't do anything about it - I just have to wait.I wish I had the money to be able to pay someone to deliver to the deadline.

Anyway....
Till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, New Zealand, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 4:15 PM 0 Comments

Wired

Crazy times.... It has been almost a week and half since the last post and it is hard to believe. It has been insanely busy at my end. In the last post when I wrote that I had only 2 X 16 hour days coming up I was being pretty optimistic - the truth is that ever since then I have only had 18 hour days and today was the first time I got to sleep for about 8 hours. So in total it has been 2 weeks of 18 hour days and it is a minor miracle that my work rate did not drop + I didn't make any mistakes especially since every single moment was important.

The visual component of 'FIVE' is locked while the first part of the audio segment is almost done for sending off the DVD for the audience test screening at Paekakariki. I extended the 2.0 mix deadline by a week and half since the amount of audio post on the movie is massive - especially with the amount of ADR we have done (close to 30% of the movie).


During this time I also went to my first audition for a TV commercial and I was on hold for the job till this morning but ultimately didn't get it. It was great just being on hold since it was the first thing I ever auditioned for. I also got my head shots done on recommendation from my agent and it was a good experience - I will get to see the results sometime this week.

Ilke Gers has delivered the poster for FIVE and I love it since it captures the mystery of the movie. The poster at this point obviously has lots of space but that will be filled up once reviews for it start coming in and stuff. I am not sure that this is the poster that the distributor will be using but it is definitely the one I will be using to send as part of press kit to festivals.

Here is the poster for FIVE


Till later,
Amit

Labels: Acting, Five, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 3:13 PM 0 Comments

Dark Clouds and a silver lining

The weather has just gone from bad to worse and the chill just creeps through the woolen clothing and heated rooms. And the thing that makes it that much more miserable is the rain. Funny how we get so used to complaining about the weather - I bet there are several hundred places right now that would be praying for rain.



Here is a pic I took at a birthday party I was invited to and I love it. I am sure each one of us has done the same thing at some point or the other during our childhood.


I recorded ADR for 'Rajit' and it was fun considering that I was doing it for the first time ever. I got my stuff done in a couple of hours and it went like a breeze. Got 2 more ADR sessions to go in the initial round. Most of the music is in and the movie is feeling much better. It is a relief seeing everything click into place.


I am feeling tired as I have had 3 X 18 hour days. Plus I need to catch up on sleep as I have another 2 X 16 hour days coming straight through, so that's me for now.
Till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, New Zealand, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 11:44 PM 0 Comments

ADR

ADR's can be pretty intense as yesterday proved it but it is worth it. There is nothing that can beat having good sound in your movie [besides having good visuals and good acting and good editing ;-) ]. It lifts a movie up several notches and definitely takes away from the low budget feel. I finished the second pass of color grade as per schedule and I think I am happy with the final color mix - will check it out tomorrow. Still have another 3 character ADR's to go and we will hopefully will get them done this weekend.

Talking of sound I did much research on finding cheap but good headphones and finally bought Koss KSC75 headphones and they are frickin awesome. I love listening to music and sound on them - there is something about the sound quality through them which is great.

I had a laughing fit recently when I saw someone break away from what they were doing so that they could 'clean up' their virtual pet. I found the whole thing ridiculously funny and every time I think about virtual pets I just crack up. Japanese are weird (no that's not a racist comment but just an observation) as they just want to get away from reality as much as possible and the means which they come up with is hilarious - in this case 'Tamagotchi' - virtual pets. I won't write anymore on the topic as I am cracking up already. You can read all about it HERE.

Now back to work with the end credits.
Later,
Amit

Labels: Five, Post Production, Random

posted by Amit @ 1:29 PM 0 Comments

Online Continues

I have been meaning to update the blog but time is just so precious right now especially with work at TVNZ and with onlining 'FIVE'.

I watched the first pass color-grade of the movie with Benji and it didn't turn out that bad at all. A few things here and there but nothing major -so that's definitely a big sigh of relief. I am half way through the second pass. Plan is to finish the second pass by 20th June and then go about tying things in together. I have started putting some of the pieces of music that have come in and the first 30 minutes of the movie has effectively been scored - so have another 45 minutes odd to go on that one. Still have to do the crucial ADR bits with the actors before we start wrapping the first stage of the movie -which is a 2.0 mix for film festival release. Benji is probably going to spend another month or so on it doing the 5.1 mix for the DVD release but that comes later - not even thinking about that in detail right now.

Work at TVNZ is going great and I recently received training in a couple more functional areas and I am loving every moment of it. Learning keeps you on your toes - which is always good. Talking of which - the next 5 Sundays for me will be gone in voice training workshop with Sally Stockwell and that's a workshop I am looking forward to.

Will leave you with a couple of pics in the meantime



Till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, Post Production, TVNZ

posted by Amit @ 10:08 AM 0 Comments

Color Grade

Just finished the first color grade pass on FIVE. Phew...........

I have been at it since 7.00 in the morning - took a 2 hour break in between, so eyes are too tired to keep looking at the computer screen any longer.

Total time taken for first pass = 26 hours

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 9:39 PM 0 Comments

Fest

As expected I got a 'rejection' email from Auckland International Film Festival. I guess I did not take the news too badly, even though I am a bit confused by the festival's email as I knew that this was going to happen (as stated by me a few posts earlier and the same thing I have told close friends almost a couple of weeks back). The festival's email said that they had heaps of choice with digital films this year - which was kind of confusing as there are only a handful that anyone knows that were being made and completed recently. I also talked to Andy Conlan, who recently completed his SIPF funded feature 'The Last Magic Show', over the last couple of days and it has been the same frustration for him as well - his movie has been rejected as well, even though it has name actors in it. The common thing between both our projects is that both of them have been picked up by Arkles Entertainment for NZ/Australia distribution and I can only think that it has got something to do with the non-selection. Maybe the festival doesn't like local movies that have been picked up for distribution - a position which is even more confusing in the light that they are showing international movies which have been distributed and they are also premiering 'Eagle V/s Shark' - an NZFC funded movie, which has again been picked up for distribution. I have dropped them an email asking for clarification on numbers just to satisfy my curiosity but I am not expecting any replies.

The first good thing that has come out of this is that I get a $5 discount in submission fees at one of the international film festivals if you show them a rejection letter from the Auckland Film Festival. :-) And the second good thing is that I can move the project completion deadline by a couple of weeks - which means that everyone is back on track with the project again. Phew....

I spent the whole day color grading and my eyes are a little tired. The good thing - I have hit the 34 minute mark with the movie. Another 40 minutes odd to color correct and then have a look at the first pass on a broadcast monitor to see how it 'really' looks and then go back into fixing the muck ups or discard some things and grade from those from scratch. Oh I am jumping the gun - let me try and explain it from the start: The problem with grading on a laptop is that you can't see accurate colors as they have been recorded because of various factors [LCD screen + video codec interpretation in Windows among a few] and the only way around it is to grade it to a rough point using what you have, check the cut on a broadcast monitor somewhere [you can't buy them just like that - they cost a fortune] and then regrade it on the laptop from the notes you have taken down and if you are lucky do the final touch ups on an editing system already hooked upto a broadcast monitor before putting it back onto tape. So yeah that probably gives you an idea of where I am at with the color grade process since I am cutting and color grading 'Five' on my lovely and sturdy Dell Precision M60 [which was also used to edit 'Memories of Tomorrow']

Anyhow I think I am becoming delirious - time for me to shut up and go to bed.
Till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, NZ Film Festival, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 11:09 PM 0 Comments

The Palm Tree

The post production funding for 'Five' has been declined by SIPF; which didn't come as that much of a surprise as I was expecting it to be rejected. No real reasons for expecting that outcome except for my gut feeling that it would happen even though it was a strong application with a distributor already attached to the movie. I don't think I will ever get funded by NZFC or SIPF - again no rhyme or reason for that thought - just a feeling {I think I might have said it in one of my earlier posts or it is just deja vu}. So the path is clear that I need to keep working on finding ways to make 'no-budget' to 'low budget' movies till I am able to attract funds from private sector or overseas.

Talking of post production - the plan all along was to keep working on it as if we will never get the funding and the approximate date for finishing off atleast the 2.0 mix is 1st week of July - at which point I need to start sending the finished cut to any film festivals that select the movie. After that point - Benji will keep working on a 5.1 mix for the DVD release, probably for another month or so. Sam Good has joined the audio post team as a foley recordist - which is great as that eases off pressure on Benji a bit. I will be starting the colour grade on the movie this week. So work on post is still going ahead full speed.

I watched 'Hushabye Mountain' on saturday along with Brett - one of my acting classmates and it was good play. The acting and production design was brilliant - there were some story threads which didn't tie-up nicely but still it was a great experience watching live theatre. Unlike movies - you don't get second chances while performing. What is done is done and the audience reaction and feedback is immediate - so it definitely is a scary process performing live.


I also caught 'POTC3' and was very disappointed. I didn't go into the movie with any high expectations and was annoyed when the movie just started acting self important with no continuity whatsoever with the previous installment. The only point the movie comes alive is when Johnny Depp is onscreen and that too when he is not talking to himself - otherwise it just felt too self important and pretentious where it was creating a mythology and trying to solve it within the same movie. And one of the major villains of the piece was the blandest one I have ever seen on film. Anyway - I will stop talking about the movie because it was an average experience.


I had a lovely Sunday morning/afternoon having lunch with David and his family. I love the bread that he cooks and D was kind enough to give me half a loaf to take home...yippeeeeeee......

Anyway kind of drained right now after a full days work and the acting lessons in the evening.
Till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, Movies, Post Production, Theatre

posted by Amit @ 9:10 PM 0 Comments

Fine Cut

I started the fine cut on 'Five' this morning. It was a tense yesterday night as the project crashed on me again. I had weird problems with accessing files from the project, so I formatted my system and built it up from scratch and reinstalled all the softwares. That didn't solve the problem, so I started isolating problem areas within Avid and it turned out to be corrupted databases which was causing the problem. So yeah - it was a big relief sorting out the problem without impacting on my edit time for the movie.

I also had the meeting with Richard today and it was a good meeting. 'Nowhere to Love' is still alive and we are going through stuff to make sure that we get back onto the same page before we progress the project further. It is easy to suddenly be on different chapters of the book - without realizing it but the good thing is that we have acknowledged the problem and we will now be working towards rebuilding the project. There will be some radical changes to the tone of the movie but I think that will make it feasible to make it even if we don't get any funding whatsoever.

So thats the long and short of it. Off to my acting class now.
Ciao,
Amit

Labels: Five, Nowhere to Love, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 4:54 PM 0 Comments

29 Hours Later

Well - the project is up and running again - thanks to Benji's persistence and thinking outside the box. Instead of the original 10 hours that I had estimated - the recovery has taken 29 hours odd. The thing I am thrilled about is that the project is safe and I think I will still hit the deadline for tomorrow's cast screening and also mail off the festival screener.

As to how Benji saved the project - it has a lot to do with how Windows and Mac reads different file systems and working around it. The main thing that came out of this incident is that NTFS system is a bit too secure for it's own good and doesn't exactly bode well for editing projects where the work flow involves sharing the media and working on the project on different systems.

Anyway - back to work - encoding the mpeg file, so I can then use it for authoring a DVD.
Adios,
Amit

Labels: Five, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 12:50 PM 1 Comments

Hard Drive

So we have hit the first technical snag in post for 'FIVE'. The main partition of the external hard drive has become corrupted and so we can't access the movie at all. The 1TB drive is divided into 2 partitions - Media One and Media Two: Media One has the entire movie and is about 330GB full while Media Two has behind the scenes footage from the movie and is only 50GB full. We can not access Media One - Windows doesn't read it and same within Avid.

Benji came up with a possible way to recover the data and we are currently in the process of trying to recover it. Benji's machine has got both Windows and MAC loaded onto it and Mac can see Media One drive and all it's data. The easiest thing would be to copy the data direct onto Media Two drive but since the external drive is NTFS file format - Mac can not write to it. So now we are copying the files to Benji's FAT32 drive and once that is done - we will boot into Windows and transfer the files across. The only other hiccup is that we have 330GB of data while Benji's hard drive has only 100GB free - that means 3 rounds of doing the same process again - with each lot taking about 3 and half hours odd from start to finish. And once the data is transferred we also have to format the bad partition and get the drive back to it's original state.

At the end of 10 hours odd - will get to know if we have recovered the project or not. That is when I should be encoding the movie and making a DVD to send out for selection process to a film festival plus the cast screening of the rough cut on Saturday. I think now it will be down to the wire and will be a mini-miracle hitting those time lines.

Keeping fingers and toes crossed.
Amit

Labels: Five, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 12:19 PM 1 Comments

Memories of Murder

Yesterday I caught up with Lucas after a long time and it was great. Working with him in 2003 was what really got me the clarity of vision of what I wanted to do within film & TV. I think I still cherish that first experience so much because it opened my eyes to possibilities as well as learning.

I have taken a mini-hiatus from editing 'Five' to get some distance from the cut - so when I get back to it I am objective about how things are. When you are working on a movie at such close range one tends to loose sight of what is right for the movie; I mean if you are an editor working with a director then this problem doesn't arise as the director is the one providing the objective eye (and vice-versa while discussing stuff through) but when you are the director/editor then it definitely helps getting a bit of distance which puts things into perspective.

I watched a couple of movies - 'The Spanish Apartment' and 'Memories of Murder'. The Spanish Apartment was alright - it was more like a slice of life of an exchange student in a new country and the ending definitely left a bit to be desired but it is still an entertaining watch. On the other hand 'Memories of Murder' is a nerve wracking masterpiece from the director who later gave us 'The Host' [which I didn't enjoy as much as 'Murder']

The movie sucks you into the story and never lets go till the end. The story is based on true events about the first serial killer in South Korean history. And man - even though the pacing is slow at times - the movie is still nerve wracking as you see the detectives become completely obsessed with the case and their life becomes it. The movie is again beautifully cinematographed and places you in that time period of south korean history straight away. It is a must watch movie and again if you are expecting fancy editing or story telling techniques - this is not it. This is pretty straight forward (in terms of shooting style and editing) movie which will keep you hooked on the deeper you get into it.

The only other news is that the old flat we used to stay in has been burnt down. I was flipping through the newspaper when I saw a photo which kind of looked familiar. On closer look it was the old flat and the news article said that it had burnt down completely and that the fire had started in the car port downstairs and then engulfed the whole house - destroying it beyond salvage. I always wondered why the Zimbabwean neighbor who used to live downstairs needed so many mattresses (he would have at least 10 mattresses in the car port at any one time). Well - luckily no one was hurt as no one was home. It definitely was a bit of a shock driving past the old house and not seeing a roof on top of it.

Anyway till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, Movies, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 9:54 AM 0 Comments

Rough Cut Begins

Well - watched the assembly for 'Five' a few times now and made some notes about the changes I need to make. Fortunately - the list is only 2 pages long right now and once I implement those changes I think the movie will be in a much better shape. Sound design will obviously make a huge difference to the overall product. I have been talking with Benji and we will be aiming to do a proper 5.1 mix this time around - it will take us a bit of extra time to get it right but I think it is totally worth it.

So I have now officially moved the project into the rough cut stage and have started working on the changes and it definitely takes more time than the first assembly because you are trying to make something work - which means going back to the source footage and reanalyzing the footage from that scene and seeing if there is anything else you can find to achieve what you want to show. When thing starts working - the amount of satisfaction you get is immense.

Freelance work at TVNZ is going great and I am loving it. Shift times vary between 0700-1530 or 1530-2400 on any given day and it works out nicely because it still gives me time even during my work days to do a little bit of editing. Overall the freelance work is a great balance to the editing I am doing and I am a happy chap.

I received a letter from Department of Internal Affairs letting me know that my application for New Zealand citizenship will be assigned to a case officer in approx. 8 weeks time and that I need to send all my original documents to them for the same - which I promptly did - so I guess I won't be travelling out of the country for the next 3 months or so. Heeheee...

And in completely unrelated news - I spent a fair bit of time arguing with billing department at Telecom since they mucked up the amounts for our broadband plan without any fault of ours. It has been time consuming but relatively pain free as I explained to them the whole situation and as to how Telecom was charging us more - they have sorted out it out for now and have credited our account back for the extra money charged but here is keeping fingers crossed that I don't have to go through the same exercise again next month.

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, New Zealand, Post Production, TVNZ

posted by Amit @ 10:31 PM 0 Comments

Hard Labor

The past couple of days have been just pure hard physical labor. Benji hooked me up with the opportunity with helping the post production company he works - I was supposed to help move offices and help in getting the new office up and running. It was definitely tiring but fun at the same time.

Here are a couple of photos I took this morning - the office had about 5 rooms full of stuff and the challenge was to try and get the edit suites up and running and also have the local network as well as internet up and running.


The photos from this morning only give you a hint of the challenge we faced. We drilled holes through the wall, ripped up carpet, made network cables, moved stuff around left,right and center. But ultimately we managed to get the edit suites functional and tidy.


It sure was hard labor and just gave a reality check that setting up a post production company takes a shit load of work and investment. Now with a little bit of pocket money tucked away into the wallet - I will get back to editing 'Five' over the next couple of days and also have to plan for the pickup days shooting schedule. So thats that from me for now.

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Post Production

posted by Amit @ 7:57 PM 0 Comments

Goodbye 2006

Before coming to bidding farewell to 2006 I would like to quickly highlight something important.
Wikipedia - the online encyclopedia is doing a fund raising in order to keep the site going. It is a fantastic resource and I think it a worthwhile cause to share the knowledge base - after all knowledge is power. Do donate whatever amount you feel like (big or small) to it to support the cause. You would have lots of questions about what and why - you can check out the FAQ section on it HERE. In order to donate you can go to their page here.

Yesterday was a lovely day as I attended Tania and Andrew's wedding. It was a different experience - more so because it was the first western wedding that I have attended. The whole event (including the reception) lasted about 8 hours - which is a big change when compared to any kind of indian weddings which are long drawn and elaborate affairs. Overall it was a fantastic experience and it is always good to be part of a family event - in this case the Wordsworth family.

Editing wise I have edited another 10 minutes in the 1 day I had since the last update, so the assembly now stands at 58.5 minutes. Yesterday and today are my days off editing and I get back to it from tomorrow. I hit the first rough patch in assembling on Friday as one of the scenes wouldn't cut together at all because of lighting and exposure problems on location. That was one of the last scenes we shot in the evening on one of the Saturdays of filming and we kept filming even though we were loosing light pretty fast. It has now come to bite me in the bum during edit. We will re-shoot the scene when we go back to shoot the pickups and the climax of the second act. It is not a biggie as it is only a small scene. But overall the movie is shaping up really nicely.

Since this is going to be the last post for 2006 I think I will get a little bit introspective of the year that has gone by. The year started off great with trip back home and catching up with family and friends in India before coming back to NZ. Work wise - it has been a tough year overall with all the struggles of trying to get 'Nowhere to Love' into production and ultimately postponing it till we got the script in a better shape and find proper funding for it. Add to that a rough year at South Seas where there were more downs than ups - especially the later part of the year, which made the overall year that much more tougher. And I unfortunately also missed my sister's wedding earlier this month. But the year had also had many positives where I managed to rally together a team to get 'Five' off the ground and into production in a really short time span. This more than made up for everything else. I also moved into a new flat which has been fantastic and proved to be a good move. I formed some great new friends and probably did more socializing than 2004 and 2005 put together.I paid off my student loan. I got my full NZ driving license and I have applied for NZ citizenship after finding that I was eligible to apply for it now - making the cut off date by 5 days (otherwise I would have had to wait for another 2 years). And finally being lucky enough to get the support from a lot of people in one way or another. So it has been by all means been an eventful year.

Now I head into 2007 with my second movie to be released sometime during the year. And without the security of a pay check arriving into my bank account every week as I will be freelancing instead of being in a job. It is definitely an exciting time to look forward to. A bit frightening at times but exciting and challenging nonetheless. Here is to another year lived to the fullest and to the future.


Wish anyone reading this a very happy new year and all the best wishes for another exciting year.

Adios,
Amit

Labels: Filming, Five, Future, Introspection, Post Production, Wedding

posted by Amit @ 3:30 PM 0 Comments

Tsotsi

Watched 'Tsotsi' - a South African movie which won the best foreign film oscar in 2006. It was a beautiful movie. Some of the music choices seemed a bit bizarre to me but I think they might fit with the South African culture.The thing which makes the movie really stand out are the performances by the leads combined with a well crafted story. The cinematography is raw and lush and the editing has a gentle rhythm to it. It is a really touching movie and is a highly recommended watch.

It has been a good day as I hit the 48.5 minute mark with the assemble edit today - 10 minutes of assembly in a day. Some days are really good where you fall into the pace while others are slow where you labor through some scenes. But I am pleased overall with the pace that I am doing. Just got to keep it up I guess. It is a long drawn process and this will carry on till the end of April, 2007 - which is when I hope to have the movie finished by.

I found this tutorial relating to working with P2 Media in Avid and thought it would be a really good link to share with everyone. You can check out the tutorial HERE.

I have started watching a TV series called 'Popetown' - an animated BBC T.V series which was made but dropped without screening by the BBC because of protests from the catholic church. I have watched the 1st episode and I found it hilarious. Further updates on that when I finish watching all the episodes.

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Avid, Five, Movies, P2, Post Production, TV Series

posted by Amit @ 10:54 PM 0 Comments

Christmas Aftermath

Today was the first proper day of editing where I got a proper 8 hour shift and it was good. I had been sneaking in about 3-4 hours of edit over the past couple of days so that the assembly would keep progressing nicely. At last count I have assembled about 38 minutes of the movie - which is not bad going considering that I have probably put in about 24-25 hours edit time into that. The real challenge in editing usually starts when the assembly is done and you start trying to get the pacing and rhythm right.

It is holiday season and most of the country is on a holiday break. I still find it amusing as to how almost the country comes to a stand still during this period. The shoppers don't mind it though since everyone is out shopping and this year there was a record spending spree leading up to Christmas where the total amount of transactions through credit cards and debit cards hit NZ$ 196 million in 1 day (on Friday)- which to me is absolutely insane as it does not include any cash or cheque transactions either. People find so much comfort in materialistic things when it is a feeling of goodwill and sharing that counts. Even if half the people did one good deed on that day the world would be a better place to live in.

On Christmas eve - i.e Sunday evening, I went and had dinner with friends at a Thai restaurant - the food was a bit expensive but really yummy. On Christmas evening I was invited to a lovely dinner with Lance and his family. The Christmas dinner was heaps of fun and was rounded up nicely by a table tennis tournament, card games and some lovely food.

I have been bad over the last week or so, in the sense that I haven't sent anyone any Christmas greetings or text messages or emails. I am so caught up with editing the movie that the dose of reality just jars me. So you can say that I have been really lucky that some people thought it worthwhile to drop me an email or a text wishing me the best for the holiday season but a couple of text messages have been really frustrating as well - they are from numbers I don't have on my cellphone. They obviously know me and have gone to the pain of wishing me but when I text them back wishing them the same and asking who they are, I don't receive any reply back. How annoying is that? I am not being an arrogant son of a bitch or anything, I genuinely want to know who it is because I don't have their number on my address book. We can make life so complicated sometimes.

I found out today that freelance work for me at TVNZ would start from the 3rd week of January, so now I have to really make my savings stretch that much more. On the other hand it is fantastic - as it gives me a good 3 week solid run at editing the movie and I can possibly get it to the half way through the rough cut stage by that point.

As a sign off note I would like to draw the attention to our environment. Global warming has claimed it's first inhabited island recently. To the critics who think that global warming and climate change is just a whole load of shit then they ought to read this article as well - Climate Change is turning animal's world topsy-turvy. And we are not helping other species either - Orangutans are at the brink of extinction because of man-made follies. How did we let it come to this? Are we really that inhumane?

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Festival, Five, Global Warming, Holiday, Movies, Post Production, TVNZ

posted by Amit @ 7:47 PM 0 Comments

Three Burials and a Wedding

It has been a busy few days - it almost feels like eons since I posted.

First I would like to say 'Congrats' to my sis - Veni, who got married on the 15th of December. There are no other words to express my joy - it is always hard finding a life partner and it is great that she found hers. All the best for the life ahead sis.

My neck/back is feeling a lot better. Another 2 physio appointments to go and I think it will get me back on track. Saturday went into cleaning up my room - which had become a complete mess again. It took me longer than normal as I did not want to strain my neck or back.

I did watch 'The Three Burials of Melqauiades Estrada' on Saturday and it was an awesome movie. One word for describing it would be - 'poetic'. It is beautiful and lyrical and gentle. It transports you into another world and it is a highly recommended watch.

I have started assembling 'Five' on Sunday and spent about 5 hours before I had to stop because of my back. Editing is so much fun - I had almost forgotten how good it felt in front of an edit suite playing with the footage.

On Sunday evening - I went to a Christmas dinner at Barbara's flat. Each of their flat members could invite 2 friends and everyone had take a cooked dish along with a 2 Dollar gift. I cooked some 'Tofu Curry' and I wasn't particularly happy with it - mainly because tofu doesn't have any taste and to me that is boring. Next time I will use paneer {Indian cottage cheese} and I think it will taste heaps better. It was a nice dinner - got to try different types of dishes and also got to meet some more wonderful people. It was a pleasant evening.

Monday was a bit tiring as I did about 10 different jobs through the day ranging from sorting out stuff at TVNZ with my ID to a job interview in another department at TVNZ to picking up my new printer - to name a few. I later went and watched 'Jindabyne' with Julia and Barbara. It turned out to be a terrible movie - it was beautifully shot but the story and the pacing were completely out and it just felt like an overdrawn soap opera. It was annoying as hell trying to sit through the movie and the movie felt like an exercise in trying to showcase the scenery and trying to portray some of the Australian indigenous cultural issues - it succeeds at showing off the scenery but everything else about the movie was bland. Maybe the movie works for australian audiences but it definitely did not do it for me. I felt shattered by the end of the day and today was no different.

Got another big day tomorrow where we will be shooting some green screen stuff for the movie - which means that I will be picking up and dropping off the camera and the green screen for the shoot. Also have a script workshop session later in the evening with the cast of 'Five'. Auckland Regional Council came back to me after I put in request for additional shoot dates in Jan and have generously agreed to grant us permission under our existing cover - which is fantastic as I don't have to sweat about the location now.

Anyway I think I will go to bed for now.
Till later,
Amit

Labels: Festival, Filming, Five, Movies, Physio, Post Production, TVNZ, Wedding

posted by Amit @ 9:41 PM 0 Comments

Where the truth lies

I am sitting in excruciating pain with a heat pack across my shoulder, neck and back. I somehow managed to hurt myself without knowing it and woke up at 3.00 this morning with unbearable pain and couldn't go back to sleep. I rang up a physiotherapist first thing in the morning and arranged for an appointment - which was not till later in the morning. Normal routine things were painful to do - even putting on a T-shirt was a mission. Anyway the physiotherapy session itself went well and I am feeling a lot better than I was in the morning. I have 2 more appointments - one tomorrow and the other on Friday to try and sort out the neck and back. I had to cancel my last swimming lesson for this year as there was no way I could even get to the swimming pool leave alone getting into it. And I won't be attending this year's graduation ceremony either since pain is not good in a social event and I can barely keep a straight face with the discomfort I am in.

The gone weekend was busy in a different way - I have been doing frame grabs from the movie, so that I can put them up on the wall - that way I can visually see the overall structure of the movie and identify key emotional and story points which have to come through. It is important because when you are working on a big project it is easy to get lost and loose track of what you set out to achieve. I was taking the frame grabs to different photo places to get them printed and see which one got good results - out of the 5 print places there was only 1 which kind of printed decent pics and if I go with them it will cost a small chunk. To me it seems like an unwise business decision that I should give someone else that much money when I can buy a printer, which will become a future asset. So I am seriously thinking of buying a multi-function printer which can print photos, normal paper and DVD/CD's - that way I can maximize the cost-benefit of the purchase. I ended up doing lots of research and I am veering more towards buying a Canon iP5300 printer - haven't made up my mind yet but getting pretty close.

I rented out 'Where the Truth Lies' - a movie by Atom Egoyan because it was a movie mired in rating controversy last year and I did want to see what the fuss was about. The movie turned out to be a really well made movie and doesn't fake its punches. It is an artistic achievement and features brilliant performances by Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth and Alison Lohman. The camera work is exquisite and so is the editing. I definitely think the rating board killed the movie's reach. It is a different kind of film-noir and it would have been great seeing it on the big screen. I also got out a movie called 'The Squid and the Whale' but didn't get a chance to watch it - I might do it this weekend.

More things simmering quietly underneath (well not so quietly since i just wrote it on the blog) and will update things as they happen.

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Movies, Physio, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 10:32 PM 2 Comments

March of December

Another week gone screaming past and heaps of stuff has happened in the meantime. I am tired from today, so the order of things might be jumbled or sometimes incomplete or both.

I met up with some family friends who were traveling through Australia and New Zealand and had a few days stop over at Auckland. It was good catching up with them.

My swimming lessons are going well and I have 2 more classes left for the year and then will restart next year sometime. School is as hectic as ever. I am glad that I am leaving at the end of this year. I definitely need more time to myself.

I have finished digitizing all the 24 tapes and I have also digitized 2 of the 3 'Behind the Scenes' tapes. I have decided not to use the group clip/multi-cam edit mode in Avid for editing as it will slow the whole thing down and also give less creative movement with the edit. I will be treating it as a single cam edit (even though we shot with 2 cameras). I won't be sub-clipping the footage either as it is another time consuming process instead I will be using locators on the source footage to make the notes I need to edit.

I went and watched a Korean movie called 'The Host' yesterday evening. I didn't particularly like the movie - it is well made and executed but the Koreans have a weird story telling technique. I was constantly frustrated by the build-up of crucial scenes not coming to fruitation and the whole experience wasn't getting any better when the projector in the cinema kept going out of focus from time to time. The movie is well-made - very melodramatic and funny for a horror movie and the special effects are good but the movie just didn't do it for me. Benji on the other hand loves the movie - so you have to decide for yourself.

I had ordered 'The Fountain' from amazon a few weeks back and the book arrived on my doorstep this Saturday but I was dismayed to find that what I got wasn't a graphic novel but a movie tie-in book which had photos from the movie and the original screenplay of the movie. I was very disappointed and I gave amazon customer care a ring later in the evening to explain how I thought I was ordering the graphic novel but instead ended up ordering the movie tie-in book since both have the same description. They were understanding and sorted the stuff out for me. I get to keep the book I have and they will be sending me the graphic novel straight away - so am happy with their customer service.

My desk is almost tidied up and need to sort out the bunch of DVD's/CD's sitting there. My room isn't in too bad a shape - I just need to tidy up small bits and bobs. The next mission is tidying up the house - which has suffered from lack of attention through November because we were filming 'Five'. The 'To Do' list is currently sitting at 6 major things and I think this coming week will be focussed on reducing or completely crossing off the list (if I am lucky).

On a sign-off note I am amazed by articles like this "Single women ask' Where have the good fells gone?'"[and the supplementary article to it..]. Well I think if those single women get off their high horses and stopped being judgmental then they will find all the single guys they need. Typical female way of questioning things when things aren't going their way (shrugs his shoulder in disbelief and dismay).

Till later,
Amit

Labels: Avid, Five, Graphic Novels, Movies, Post Production, Random, Swimming

posted by Amit @ 8:25 PM 0 Comments

Work

2 weeks to go before I finish off my teaching contract at the film school and things seem to just keep getting busier and busier. I have been spending atleast 2 days a week with Bernadette - the person who will be taking over the position, while I am still trying to finish off the paperwork and assessments for the year. It is always a huge learning experience sitting and talking with Bernadette as she comes from both news as well as film background. She has worked with prominent directors like David Cronenberg, Peter Bogdanovich, Sam Pillsbury and it is a pleasure listening to her about the craft of editing.

We have shot a total of 24 tapes till now on 'Five' and I have finished digitizing about half of them - got another 12 to go and then we shoot more stuff - the climax of act-2 and the remaining pickup shots. I can see it coming together in my head - now just have to see if it plays out properly.

Anyway I am babbling - I am tired and about to go to bed now.
Till later,
Amit

Labels: Five, Post Production

posted by Amit @ 11:03 PM 0 Comments

The first Post

my first ever foray into the world of blogging...can't get this working with the site for now and have emailed Brett to help me out. Brett is the webmaster for the site and a fantastic dude... the idea was to try and share the mind of an idiot with everyone out there.

Labels: Post Production

posted by Amit @ 3:43 PM 1 Comments