4th Best

Auckland is the 4th best city in the world in terms of quality of living. Don't believe it? Well here is an excerpt from an article from yesterday's NZ Herald.

New York, London and Paris don't hold a candle to Auckland and Wellington, according to a worldwide quality of living survey. The New Zealand cities ranked among the best in the Mercer 2009 Quality of Living survey, which covered 215 cities and was based on criteria including political, social, economic and environmental factors. Auckland jumped one place from last year to join Canada's Vancouver in fourth place, while Wellington stayed 12th on the list.

Austrian capital Vienna took the No 1 spot, knocking Switzerland's Zurich and Geneva into second and third respectively. Paris (France), Tokyo (Japan), London (England) and New York (United States) were in places 33, 35, 38 and 49 respectively. Baghdad, in war-torn Iraq, claimed last place.

So for everyone who thinks America or UK is the place to be - then eat this. :-) Personally - all I can say is that NZ is a costly place to live in and you don't earn as much as other places in the world but nothing can beat the lifestyle that it offers - especially if you are an active person. Each place has its positives and negatives and in the bigger scheme of things one has to decide if the positives of a place are what suits them. Am I glad that I made the choice to call NZ home? Hell yeah!!!

Till later,
Amit

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.

After watching the movie last night I was walking back to my car when I heard this 2 piece band playing on Queen Street and it stuck in my mind that it would be cool to film them and use them in 'the freedom project'. I managed to get hold of Benji, came home picked up the camera and went back to Queen Street and talked to the band about what we wanted to do and they were keen, so we went ahead and filmed them performing a couple of songs and I plan to use that as a way of opening 'the freeodom project'. 

I've had a couple more workshops for a few more scenes for the project with Toby, Delaney, Michelle and Simon. I also caught up with Ian to discuss complexities about one of the storylines that I want to explore which turned out to be very productive and all in all it has been a really good week for the freedom project. 

That's me for now.

Till later,

Amit

Perception is Reality - Mostly

‘Synechdoche, New York’ was a good film as the vision for it was grand and ambitious. The acting is top-notch and there is no weak performance to speak off in the entire movie and that in itself is a big achievement by the director. It does get a tad confusing towards the end but somehow it still makes sense. It is definitely worth a watch.

 

I spent the weekend doing nothing – after 2 long weeks I needed to recharge my batteries and I spent most of yesterday fighting off an onset of flu by sleeping through it and it seems to have worked. More workshops for ‘the freedom project’ are taking shape now and it will be a busy couple of weeks again.

 

That’s me for now.

Till later,

Amit

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

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

The Winter's Tale

I just got back from seeing 'The Winter's Tale' at Aotea Centre - courtesy of Shuzhen. This wIt was an awesome experience as the seats were 2nd row from the front which is one of the best seats you can get in theatre - the farther away from the stage you are the lower the price of the tickets. Add to it the show itself was pretty good.

It's shakespeare so some of the dialogue is hard to catch at times but the performances from most of the cast made up for it. I especially liked the older actors as they brought so much gravitas to their roles and it was amazing looking at them even when they had no dialogue and off the younger actors Ethan Hawke was superb. Rebecca Hall was good but did not carry the same gravitas as the older actors but she is still stunning to look at. The production was awesome and everything done on-stage and behind the stage just enhanced the play. It was definitely one of the most lavish productions I've seen. All in all I was a happy chappy at the end of the play.

So this rounds up a long but exciting week of a world class movie premiere and a world class theatre play.

That's me for now.
Amit

Star Trek

The premiere to 'Star Trek' was good. It was great seeing a proper red carpet event to a big budget hollywood movie happening in NZ. We were the 3rd place in the world to see the movie a month before it's release after Austin (Texas) and Sydney. 4 of the lead actors were there at the premiere but we only got to see them on the big screen as they were in the other auditorium (they had blocked out 6 cinema theatres on the same level for the premiere). Zachary Quinto looked like a cool guy and his sense of humor was awesome. John Cho and Chris Pine were equally funny while Karl Urban was as charming as ever. It felt like Karl was the one who pushed to make the NZ premiere happen and hats off to him if he did that.

The movie itself was very good - it was fun, adventurous, epic and they got the tone, balance just right. And the SFX and the scale of the movie were mindblowing. The acting was spot on and the only nitpick I had was there was one moment which was too convenient but otherwise it was almost perfect. I reckon it will definitely reignite the franchise when it gets released a month from now and hopefully we will get to see a couple more awesome movies from the same crew.

That's me for now.
Amit

Premiere

It looks like it is a lucky week for me – I got my hands on a couple of passes to the premiere of ‘Star Trek’ taking place tomorrow and I am thrilled. I had entered 2 competitions and I was seriously considering buying a $55 charity ticket to the event when this morning I dropped in a mail to the good people at Flicks and asked them whatever happened to the lucky draw to the event. An hour later I got an email from Andrew saying that they had already drawn the winners and I wasn’t one of them BUT it so happened that one of the winners couldn’t attend the event, so they were happy to pass the tickets onto me because it just happened to the right timing when I asked them the question. Wohoooo….I could’ve asked anyone to the event but I went ahead and asked Benji if he wanted to attend the premiere with me – mainly because his girl friend is trying to arrange a free double pass for me to see ‘The Winter’s Tale’ – the second play in ‘The Bridge Project’ starring Ethan Hawke and Rebecca Hall amongst others and directed by Sam Mendes – in short another world class theatre event. It is a good way to repay the debt – no? And boy am I feeling lucky right now. :-)

I went and watched a Hong Kong film called ‘The Shinjuku Incident’ last night and it was a mixed bag – it was very good till the last 20 minutes before it descends into total nonsense and chaos and thus spoiling the solid story/acting/visuals that came before that. It was weird watching it with a primarily Asian audience – I reckon the theatre was 95% full with Asian people. I found it strange that at some points where the extremely shocking violence or tragedy elicited laughter from a sizeable chunk of the audience. Is it a natural defence mechanism that they need to laugh to negate the strong surge of extreme emotions or is it a difference between the spoken word and the translated sub-titles on the screen that a ‘foreigner’ won’t get? I don’t know but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

That's me for now.
Later,
Amit

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

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.

'Freedom' project is looking something like this at the moment

Liz and Drew doing a scene read through

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

FRANK
You were pretty quiet in the car huh?.. Now which of these ones do you wanna watch first?

ANNE
I don't wanna watch any of them

FRANK
What? But you like movies. That's why we went to the DVD store.

ANNE
I had 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'; 'Unberable Lightness of Being' and I was searching for this one...what's the name? It doesn't matter. And you just couldn't wait..

FRANK
You were taking so long and I thought you would like these chick flicks.

ANNE
I don't like chick flicks. And I don't like being made a dick off in public either.

FRANK
All the other girls like chick flicks.

ANNE
What other girls?

FRANK
I mean girls in general. And I wasn't making a dick off you- I was just joking around with the guy at the counter. Just guy talk

ANNE
OK. Let's see - 'Almost Famous', 'All the Real Girls', 'Dodgeball'...Dodgeball - how the fuck is this a chick flick?

FRANK
It's got Ben Stiller in it -girls dig Ben Stiller.

ANNE
Fuck those girls. I'm done here.

FRANK
What? You mean you are angry with me?

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

FRANK
What do you want? I thought you didn't wanna talk to me anymore.

ANNE
I can't find my keys. I must've left them here.

FRANK
I haven't see them.

ANNE
I am sure I left them here.

FRANK
Look I know ''Dodgeball' isn't a chick flick but I was hoping to watch it sometime. I heard it's pretty good and

ANNE
I don't wanna talk 'bout the fucking movies.

FRANK
Alright. (pause) What if we returned these DVD's and got out the ones you wanted -
ANNE
I don't want to talk about it Frank. What's so hard to understand? And stop being a dick and help me find the keys.

FRANK
Alright. (lame arse attempt to search for the keys) See I don't understand. I thought we were going so well together and suddenly all this. Is it the DVD's?

ANNE
Fuck the DVD's Frank and Fuck you.

FRANK
Jesus, cool down bean. What are you so pissed off about? What do you want?

ANNE
You really wanna know? I want love

FRANK
What?

ANNE
I said I want love.

FRANK
What 'bout me?

ANNE
What about you?

FRANK
I love you.

ANNE
Shut up frank.

FRANK
Shut up? Don't you love me?

ANNE
Not anymore.

FRANK
Not anymore? What's that supposed to mean? (pause) Since when?

ANNE
Since the day after we met.

FRANK
Since the day after we met?

ANNE
Frank you aren't deaf. So stop behaving like a fucking retard and stop fucking repeating everything I say.

FRANK
Stop fucking repeating everything you say?

ANNE
There you go again. Do you know how fucking annoying that is?

FRANK
Did you ever?

ANNE
Did I ever what?

FRANK
Did you ever love me?

ANNE
I don't know.

FRANK
You don't know.

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

ANNE
Goodbye frank

FRANK
Is this a breakup?

ANNE
Call it what you want.

FRANK
I'm not a retard, you know.

ANNE
It was a figure of speech Frank.

FRANK
So you think because you are doing your PhD and all, you are all smart and shit. Let me tell you something - you don't know what love means. You don't know me and you'll never know -

ANNE
Of course I don't know you -we've been seeing each other for four days for fuck sake. Just because you think you are good in bed and all doesn't -

FRANK
I am?

ANNE
Yeah the sex was great but the point, Frank, is that I don't think it will work out between us.

FRANK
The sex was great. So what's wrong? I just want to have sex. I can work with no strings attached.

Anne leaves the house and closes the door behind her.

FRANK
Bitch! (pause) I am good in bed. Yeah! I am good. (pause) Fuck. Anne, Anne...

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

Finance

When I was younger I always got confused whenever someone talked about spending more than they had or could afford by taking out loans in order to invest. I guess to a small extent I still don’t believe in spending more than you can afford in hard cash or through recognized channels of income and maybe that’s why I haven’t made too much progress in building a financial empire :-). But seriously – looking at the economic crisis happening around the world – to me it seems like the main problem is that people borrowed to buy what they couldn’t afford and the banks and financial institutions allowed it in order to make a quick buck and look where that 's got us. As far as stocks are concerned – the thing that always bothered me was the future of a company could rely so heavily on what the shareholders thought how the company was doing and to me that is a major risk because share holders are not privy to all the information and decision making that goes on within a company plus if they don’t have an appetite for calculated risks and instinct of the leaders within the company then a company with good and sound fundamentals can still fall apart. Add to it the fact that people dabble in shares to make a quick buck.

In asian countries people don’t buy a house till they have saved up most of the amount for it and sometimes it takes almost their entire working lives to do that. In complete contrast are western countries where you cover a small upfront deposit and the bank covers the majority of the amount while you pay them interest only payments to survive on existing income and have the satisfaction of saying that you ‘own’ a home. You sell it off a few years later when the property prices have risen and you make a capital gain out of it and that’s how you create wealth. But the problem is that if you have unforeseen emergencies like loosing your job or a major life event and you default on your payments then you’ve made a huge loss because your financial wealth creation security has just disappeared from beneath you.

I am obviously over-simplifying a complex set of financial issues but the fact is that we live in an increasingly fragile world where people are loosing jobs, loosing their homes and barely scraping through a living and the question I have is – is it worth living beyond your means? I don’t have a financial empire but the only thing I can say in my favor/defense is that I am debt free. Something ingrained in me hates being in financial debt.

Till later,
Amit