Tuesday, November 30, 2010

News Update!!

Things have been going quite slow lately, and it has been some time since we made a movie. Here are a few updates on what we have been up to!

1. The last movie we made was Chaotic tendencies in March end. Unfortunately, this movie shows a lot of footage from within the company premises, and so cannot be shared in public! I intend to put together a sub-section of the movie, editing out the footage from within the company, and put it on Youtube. Haven't got around to working on this yet, though!!

2. I put together a short experimental clip (strictly re-using stock footage) featuring 'Matrix Rain' animation done by myself in Premiere Pro. This video is strictly for geeks!!

3. A Matter of Choice and Life's Good were screened in the Filmbooth Eight Film Festival in New Delhi on 18th September 2010. One may remember that A Matter of Choice was screened in CMS Vatavaran in 2009 as well. This movie is probably the TIIMMC movie which has reached the furthest!

4. We organised a couple of film-making workshops for folks from the company in the lines of Film Camp. My opinion about Film Camp remains unchanged however!

5. A Regular Sunday (working title) got scrapped after the first scene was shot!

6. On the individual achievements front, as all Bengalis will already know, Anupam of Tomar Shawhore and Tiebreaker fame is now a renowned singer, having shot to fame with his number "Amake amar moto thakte dao" from the superhit film 'Autograph' - Srijit Mukherji's directoral debut!

Friday, July 30, 2010

Life's Good

The lyrics were by Chandrika - the same girl referred to here. The concept & direction by Neeraj. In fact, apart from handling the camera in the first scene, I didn't contribute much to the video. Apart from the fact that my daughter starred in it! And my wife played the double for Sushma! And the first shot was in my house! And I did review Neeraj's editing, and give him some pointers! Okay - so even if I didn't contribute much, I was involved in the video from the beginning. So, this post is warranted!!

A very strong way of passing the message - this video was made mainly from an artistic point of view. Although I did disagree to some extent with the style of narration, I cannot but admire the overall effect. There is suspense, there is a buildup - and there is a final message with a crash & a bang. There are some very nice shots, although the light is poor & the camera is not up to the mark for the purpose. My favourites: the last shot & the first - in that order.

Well, watch, comment, and distribute (the link) as you wish!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The View From the Other Side

Amateur Moviemakers as we may be, we still go to the length of auditioning folks for roles in the movies we make. We usually have these sessions when we start any big project, but keep notes on all auditionees so that we can cast them in the smaller, more numerous projects as well. Although there usually is a lot of fun and banter in these sessions, the core team members (Vibhor, Neeraj & me usually) do take the whole thing very seriously since these decisions taken here have a large impact on the quality of the movies made later on.

Chandrika auditioned for a role in The Movie Which We Never Made... and was selected, a couple of weeks before she left Bangalore for Higher Studies! (She was only the first in a long line of people to follow!) I hadn't visited her blog for a few days lately, and yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to see a post on her auditioning session with us. It was very interesting for me to get a view of how the whole thing is perceived from the other side of the camera. Here's a link to her blog post on this.


For those who don't know Chandrika, she is also an amateur poet, as you can make out from her blog posts. The latest TIIMMC venture, directed by Neeraj, is based on a poetry written by her. Hopefully, I shall have a post on this movie here in a few days...