Where the heck did 2012 go?

Wow...seriously, when the bloody heck did 2012 fly by? It freakin' feels like last night when exactly 364 days ago we were beset by a severe storm shutting down the power of our city, forcing us to open our eyes to darkness and mayhem on January 1st, 2012. But anyways, that's not the point. The point is, this so-called thing called TIME just whizzed past us, leaving us dumb-founded and as lost as a stray on the highway. So many things happened at break-neck speed that we didn't even realize when and where these days slipped by us. As they say, 'Life is what happens when you are busy doing other things'... But one thing is for sure, we got a bloody short life that there's no reason for us to compromise on the things we truly love. Whewwww! Ok, without rambling too much on the philosophical aspect of things, we'll just reminisce a bit on 2012.
I guess 2012 was a rolla-costa year...full of inspiring, adrenaline-packed stuff. We completed 2 projects - Metroxical New York(our latest feature documentary film) and 500 & 5(our first feature length narrative film project in Tamil), made some crazy artwork, travelled 8000 kms to parts of India that seemed like another planet(Ladakh, Himachal, J&K), did a dangerous(no kidding) trek to Kheer Ganga, climbed 16000 feet, met other whacked-out Nomads(from Uruguay, Sweden, France, London, Israel, Tibet, US) like us, met the Dalai Lama(sat through a little during his teaching), volunteered to teach and interact at SECMOL(Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh) teaching Ladakhi students Science, Maths and English, did a mini documentary film for them, met the awesome and humble Sonam Wangchuk(rumoured to be the real life Phunsukh Wangdu, a character played by Aamir Khan in 3 Idiots, the hindi film), attended the world premiere of 500 & 5 at IFFK, Trivandrum and a ton of other stuff. 
Most importantly, it was the people and friends who made it for us. People who inspired us with their minds, their creativity and amazing personalities. It's only when we interact with people like them, we truly feel we are all connected and are directed by this collective consciousness. Anyways, since some of you couldn't come for the film festival premiere and have been asking about it, a little update on that - We had 2 shows in total. The first one at Anjali Theater was pretty decent and the second one at Kalabhavan theater was ok, not bad. But the good thing is that, we had a lot of our other awesome friends at the festival who came out to support us. A special thanks to all our actors and crew who helped in bringing 500 & 5 to life. I would love to share some of the reviews and feedback we got after the screenings, but I guess I'll wait until the next step.
We had some reasonable press coverage from The Hindu(here and here), The Indian Express(here) and other Malayalam Press/Media. The funny part was, in the Malayalam Manorama newspaper, there was a headline that said – “Cosmic Sex(the movie) is the result of my research” says Raghu – Apparently, I had directed the movie about sex and spirituality. Poor Amitabh Chakraborty, the actual director of the film - he had worked so hard on Cosmic Sex(interesting film) and I get the damn credit. But anyways, the world is never fair and true. We also met some amazing filmmakers from Iran, France, Chile, Mexico and Turkey & got to watch some awesome, crazy-ass whacked out movies. A few worth mentioning are Holy Motors(French), Sister(French), Nos Vemos Papa(Spanish), With you Without you(Sri Lankan), Ini Avan(Sri Lankan), Tungsten(Greek) among others. Moreover, we have some interesting developments happening around our film. And just a note, nothing...nothing comes easy to independent filmmakers. Will elaborate further later.
Also, last week I had gone to the Chennai Thiraipada Sangam(Chennai Film Society) organized by Mr. Vijayan in North Chennai where they regularly have guest filmmakers to teach/interact with their students. They had invited me last week for a session. It wasn't really a class, at least that's what I told them, that a class would serve no purpose...so we had more like a Q & A session revolving around filmmaking, cinema in general and 500 & 5's making and the production process. It was heartening to see lots of like-minded aspiring filmmakers who really felt the need for alternative cinema in Chennai. Some wanted to be directors, some cinematographers, some writers...and the class' age group ranged from 20 to 60. We had an energetic session as we explored what's really stopping independent, low-budget filmmakers from taking their next step. Met some interesting personalities who seem to give hope towards the future of Tamil cinema. Alright, that's that for now I guess. And I won't say Happy New Year because I hope we 'show' and don't 'tell'...

Getting your movie ready for DCP

Getting your movie ready for DCP

Congrats you have come this far in making your movie and you are only few more steps away from watching them on big screens. 

A. Video

B. Audio

A. Video

For DCP, the movie needs to be of resolution 2048 x 858 for scope and 1998 x 1080 for flat. Assuming you have your video's resolution as 1920 x 1080, you need to modify its size to one of the above formats. Real Image in Chennai accepts only DPX Log files. I used After Effects to do this conversion and it was real simple.

If you have not conformed your video to 24 fps then read this article to convert your movie from 23.976 fps to 24 fps. 

Software Required

Adobe After Effects 

Steps

1. Create a Composition with the following settings. Hopefully you have already converted your movie from 23.976 to 24p.
   
   
   

   
   

2. 2. Import the movie clip to the timeline and obviously the width of the movie and the comp is different so you need to modify the clip's width as show in the image below.Transform → Fit to Comp Width

3. When you add this to Render Queue modify the Output Settings

And under the Color Management → Cineon Settings enable the “Logarithmic Conversion” and remember to choose an output directory with enough space on your disk and then render.

Note: Now after the DPX log files are created you can try and import the DPX log sequence into your After Effects timeline. Don't get panic when you see the images are washed out. The Log files are washed out and if you want to see the true color apply the "Cineon Effects" and you will see the true color.

B. Audio

Now that the video conversion is over, audio is lot simpler but it requires couple of softwares to get the work done. Refer to this article for other ways to convert.

Using Logic Pro

1. Create a logic project and set the Frame Rate under Synchronization tab to 24 fps. Import the movie that you converted from 23.976 fps to 24p whose audio will be in 48048 Hz. 

2. Open the movie

      File - Open Movie

3. Export Audio from Video

      File - Import Audio from Movie

4. Bounce

       File - Bounce 

      

Now you are all set and your movie (both audio and video) is ready for DCP. 

Not a dog’s day

(Ok, this post is atleast 2 weeks old, just found the time.) Perhaps the highlight of today is sitting at a coffee shop in the second floor of a shopping mall, in ‘mid-town’ Chennai and sipping on a cappuccino and looking out the glass window at the rain-mud-and-filth soaked traffic below. I neither feel pity nor wear a smug smile as I witness the rat-race because it really hasn’t been long since I was in the sludge, wading through murky waters which are obviously a result of our freakin awesome drainage system. Don’t get me wrong when I say that I’m in the shopping mall and contemplating life in such elite quarters. Mind you, I’m not a fucking elite, though I can be and sometimes act like one(and that’s a whole different argument altogether) just to empathize with things on both sides of the spectrum. I just freaking hate mindless consumerism but I will hate it from inside a glitzy shopping mall. I’m a minimalist, a bloody local with thoughts verging on the extreme. On the rare instances I will pay Rs.90 for a coffee with which I can sit comfortably in a lounge-like ambience for more than a couple of hours trying to make sense of Dito Montiel’s interview in Filmmaker mag or Arundhati Roy’s incendiary  ‘Shape of the Beast’(ok I ain't going for pretense there). As I wait for the guys to get back, I thought, ok fine, with all the commotion outside and inside my head, lemme vent out stuff.

Why is today not a dog’s day? Well, then don’t ask me if every other day is a dog day. Not for me, it’s not. Today, as with any other day I travel/commute, I witnessed about a 150 dogs, bitches, bitches with babies inside them and pups scattered all around in the rain doing what they would normally do. Experience a ‘dog’s life’. Having the life of an ‘underdog’. Spending a Dog day afternoon. Groundhog day. See? More references. No wonder we termed it so. (ok so groundhog doesn’t have anything to do with a dog but still they sound the same)And today was more than normal for them, especially with the cold and almost omnipresent uncertainty that the rains bring with them. And earlier in the day, before we came to Chennai, we had to transport 5 wet, shivering pups (who’d been taken away from their mother) from the soggy paddy fields to our humble abode in the village. Back to the 150 canines, their faces were so full of implication, that I could write a page each about what they were thinking. I mean, if they actually do. Or do they just live in the moment? Taking each day as it came? Surprisingly, many of our human kind seemed to have the same expression, or were they worse? Can’t tell. Really. But these days, my guess is we humans are becoming pathetic in more ways than one. So, pretty soon, to say, ‘it’s a dog’s day’ will become NOT a bad thing after all. Because, as people, especially as Indians, we suffer more than we can endure. No I take that back. We suffer uhh…more than what we think we can endure(coz we can endure shit-just-about-anything), but as we get accustomed to that, we reach the next phase of suffering and we endure that too and the chain continues. So henceforth, thou shall pat each other in the backs, in congratulatory delight, because we love to revel in our hopelessly romantic status as sufferers. (pic from google)

A morsel from the cauldron

I know we haven't been updating anything from the 'making of' process. As expected, the going got very crazy and we are still figuring out our next schedule. But here's a little morsel out of the production cauldron. This is a tree that we shot one of our scenes from, in Palavedu village, a little away from Avadi. This is from the 'Social Worker's' story.

The road oft taken

Wings of Evolution at Sathyam Cinemas, Chennai

Hey folks, in Chennai there are 2 hot things happening. One of course, Chennai itself, with its scorching heat and the Other is our Exclusive Screening of 'Wings of Evolution' on May 18th, 2008, at 9:45 a.m at the Seasons Theater of Sathyam Cinemas, one of the biggest multiplexes in South India. Currently, preparations are being made with ticketing, posters etc. We'll have a post-screening panel discussion , the details of which have not been finalized. Will post an update soon. Folks in Chennai, rsvp to attend. Till then, keep beating the heat.

Siragu Documentary - In Production

Great News!
Our next documentary film on Siragu, a school(it's more than that) for street/homeless children, is under way. We started production/shooting yesterday in Avadi, Chennai, India.
The day started out great with the Production Crew leaving at 7 a.m from Chennai city. After a long 2 hour drive, Ramesh, Packya, Babu and Raja reached Siragu Home/School and met the children and checked out the school and the location. Ramesh, who is organizing and directing the whole shoot in India, is a trooper, who's been working constantly with sleepless nights and endless travel. Packya is associate producing with on-location logistics help. Raja, is our Cinematographer, with about 8 years experience in Chennai. A great team. Period.

We got lots of great shots of the children in the school and the surroundings. The school is located in the outskirts of Avadi, which is itself in the outskirts. It's amazing how the Founders/Managing team, Uma and Muthuram have built the school from the ground up. They are so committed in their goal to educate children from the most down-trodden areas of the society. They have been amazing in their cooperation and are guiding us through the entire shoot. Do check out their website www.siragu.org
The above are some pictures that we took immediately after we landed there. Enjoy and more to come right after this.