August already!!!

Damn time flies fast - it will be August tomorrow.

I was worried that my trip away in October was going to create a problem for my business management course at work, since I wouldbe missing 3 classes out of 8. But those fears have been laid to rest as the course moderator got back saying that they will give me extra coaching while I am still here and also give me material and homework to do while I am away, to make up for the missed classes. It is a relief and I am looking forward to the course that starts this coming monday.

There is a food show on in Auckland right now but I am not really keen on spending 20 bucks odd on an entry ticket when I could spend the same money watching 'Bollocks' - a play that has the people I know in it {who are all involved in 'the moments in between' as well}.

Amit

Long Tuesday

Some drunk idiot accidentally texted me because he didn't enter all the numbers of the person he wanted to text and that broke my sleep and it took me a couple of hours to get back to sleep. Not particularly an ideal situation when I had a 5.30AM start at work, so I am feeling pretty tired right now.

The latest fitness update is mainly positive to neutral. Neutral is that there is no change in my blood pressure and resting heart rate and my weight has remained consistently within the +- .5KG range - either side of 67. The positives - my VO2 max has gone up slightly to 49.3 {i am not completely happy about the level of improvement but that's something I can work on} and my body fat% has gone down to 18% {a loss of 2% body fat content from last time while the weight still remains the same - means leaner muscle}.

That's me for now.

Amit

Drag Me to Hell

I have started designing the website for 'The Moments in Between' and hopefully will have the bare bones version uploaded later tonight with more work on it as the project progresses.

'Drag Me to Hell' was a thrilling ride - it is scary and funny at the same time. The current crop of horror flicks leave something to be desired but this flick really amps up the tension and pushes the right buttons for the audience {the lady next to me was shrieking and screaming through the movie and there was nervous laughter from some of the audience at some the more gruesome gags}. I would have liked to see a better realized ending for it to have a bigger impact as the audience leaves the theatre but it works as it is right now.

Amit

D'arranged Marriage

I had a day off everything yesterday and slept through most of it - more so because I was woken up by one of my flatmates returning from a late night party at 2.30 AM and then turning on some music - loud enough to get through the walls {the joys of flatting..sigh!!!}. I tossed and turned and since I couldn't go back to sleep and the noise was still on, I worked on 'The Moments In Between' till 5.00 AM and went back to bed once the music stopped. I did manage to wake up by 8.00 AM again and went about the day - doing household chores and shopping etc.

In between all the chores - I got chatting to Tarun {who I did a scene with recently for the movie} and he invited me to his play 'd'arranged marriage' that was on later that evening. A good sleep and a boxing class later I was at The Pumphouse in Takapuna where the play was being staged and it was a bloody fantastic one hour. Tarun is hilarious in the show and the audience was rolling over laughing throughout the runtime. Pure genius. You should watch it if it ends up playing anywhere near you. It definitely was the highlight of my day.

The Pumphouse

The night ended with a quick drink at the Speights Alehouse for Brendan Q's birthday party. It was fun and got to meet some new people. Maybe I should socialize more often. :-) Driving in to work this morning was weird because there were so many people stumbling around the roads drunk - trying to get home after a night out drinking and there were an equal number of cabs blocking the roads as they hovered around the night clubs waiting to pick up potential passengers. It felt weird and definitely reminded me why I don't like the drinking culture in NZ - so many problems that come out of it but people would rather be happily ignorant about it than deal with it.

That's me for now,
Amit

Chocolates & Smoke

Lights, Smoke & Apartments

A new shop that opened recently near Queen Street - there was only guy in that shop and he was behind the counter. Women love chocolate or what?

Disgrace

'Disgrace' has been the best movie that I have seen at the film festival this year. It is an adaptation of J.M.Coetzee's novel of the same name and what an adaptation. It is brutal and uncomfortable as the novel - it is poetic, it is beautiful and stunning but at the same time very real. The performances from everyone are bang on target and the movie just flows so naturally it is amazing. In a lot of ways I think the movie actually transcends the book - which is very unusual for film adaptations.

We have new flatmates and they will be moving in sometime within the next week. It is a relief of sorts and also the house will become a little bit more lively again.

A

In The Loop

The weekend disappeared into doing an additional shift, going to Julia's birthday party at the Wine loft {which was a pretty chilled out place}, sleeping through most of Sunday and cleaning out my wardrobe {by putting all my old clothes that I don't use any more into one of those charity bins}.

I had applied for a place on this year's directing workshop conducted by SDGNZ & NZFC. The workshop is on Visual Storytelling and it is with Tom Abrams - the guy who did the workshop last year - which was one of the catalysts for starting 'The Moments In Between'. Kate from SDGNZ called up yesterday to confirm that I am in the workshop as an observer again and I am thrilled needless to say. Going by last year's workshop it is an opportunity to spend some quality time in a creative bubble.

The business management workshops at work start from August 3rd and happen with a 3 week interval - which ineveitably leads to a clash with the drama directing workshop on the 24th of August. I'll see how I manage that last day conflict and i'll miss a couple of the managment workshops when I am away in India [that i'll make up for one way or the other].I am still very excited that I am back in the learning phase again.

Amit

Clarifications!!!

I put part of my comments that I wrote on NZ Film Festival Director Interview on the flicks comments board and I was surprised to get a mail from the editors of flicks website saying that Bill Gosden had replied to the comments and his reply is as follows:

I can appreciate that my statement requires some clarification, but calling it rubbish seems harsh (that was in response to a comment by another user which said the statement was a rubbish call).

1. There is often, if the filmmaker welcomes it, considerable dialogue between the Festival and filmmakers whose work does not ultimately make the cut.

2. Does the "discourse" have to relate directly to your own work to be of some benefit? We hope filmmakers interested in participating in the Festival might enjoy the opportunity to check out the work that does make it - and to meet the visiting filmmakers involved.

Good on Bill for taking time out to reply to the comments and that definitely does make his sentence a whole lot clearer. So I guess now the onus is on the film makers to open up a line of dialogue with the film festival to get more detailed information of the criteria/feedback of why one's film didn't make it in.

I did post in a reply to the comment saying: As far as 'discourse' is concerned - it's just that it benefits anyone/everyone who attends the screenings with visiting film makers (and I think it is my favorite part of the festival - listening to film maker's experiences) - not just film makers whose films didn't get into the film festival . My gripe was that the earlier statement mixed 2 different topics together in a single sentence and it was easy to misconstrue it as a backhanded excuse by the festival to local film makers whose movies didn't make it. So thanks for clarifying both the aspects.

Personally I do think 'discourse' is most effective when it is in direct relation to your work and the reason I would argue for it is - a) film making is an active and personal art form; b) every film makers circumstances in making a movie are different and so the best learning experience is from discourse on that particular piece of work rather than on movies that were made by someone else in a completely different set of circumstances.

So yeah - the learning process continues.

Amit

The Chaser

The flatmate hunt is not going as well as we would like and since the lease is in Lance's name and mine - we'll be shelling out more money to cover the empty room's rent. I guess the only good thing that comes out of flatmate hunting is that you meet some really interesting people and some weird ones as well. Fingers crossed that we find someone soon.

SDGNZ had some free passes to give away to their members on first come first served basis and I managed to be quick off the mark and scored myself a free ticket to 'Disgrace' - one of the movies on my original list of 12 - that I had culled out to save on money. Wohoooooooo....I love free movie screenings - especially at an event like NZ Film Festival.' The Chaser' turned out to be fantastic experience. The movie becomes a little long at the end as they try and finish tying up all the story threads but even then it is a taut thriller which keeps the twists and turns coming while keeping you engrossed with the characters.

TVNZ gave everyone involved with appearing in the TVNZ7 Idents a $100 gift card to say thank you and I promptly went and bought a Outdoor Research Trio jacket with the money. It was at 50% off it's normal price and it meant that I got a real good deal with this one - as the jacket is an all-in-one mountain/all condition protection jacket with an outer rainproof shell and an inner insulation jacket - essentially 2 jackets in one that's good for tramping or any adventure sports where you are exposed to extreme weather conditions. I figured that with the consistently rainy weather we have in Auckland - it would be wise to invest in a rain jacket plus I would've needed it for my next year's Borneo trip because it tends to rain a lot in Borneo {because of the rain forests}. So yeah - I'm very happy with the purchase.

In other news - I'll be doing a National Certificate in Business (First Line Management) from August through TVNZ, my employer. Needless to say I am thrilled and excited because it is an opportunity for me to upskill and have more practical skill sets which are sure to come in handy with the changing technology and practises at the company. It is an ongoing training spread over 8 months or so and it'll be good because I can try and implement whatever skills I pick up back into work.

Thats me for now,
Amit

NZ Film Festival Interview

There is an interesting article with the NZ Film Festival director, Bill Gosden, at Flicks.co.nz and it makes for an interesting read.

I respect Bill and I think he is doing a bloody fantastic job with the NZFF but I really don't get his statement/intention when he says “But even those whose films do not make it onto the programme can benefit from the discourse that surrounds the Festival." My question to him would be - HOW???? I mean if a local film doesn't get into the film festival then how will the film makers benefit from it when no one gets to see their movie - then there is obviously no talk about the movie or a 'discourse' about it because no one knows that the movie exists. I would like to see him clarify his views on the matter or atleast elaborate on the rather cryptic statement which looks like a justification on why local film makers shouldn't be pissed off when their film doesn't get selected into the festival without a concrete reason.

Your views please Bill.
Cheers,
Amit

Firaaq

'Firaaq' was a moving experience in many ways - first up was the fact that in India we don't like to see the reality of things around us and the movie does exactly that - it puts a mirror in front of us. The second it was a very unconventional movie and it was beautifully filmed as well. Most of the performances were spot on and the only thing that could have done with some improvement was the pacing - which tends to lag in places. I liked the movie a lot despite some small niggles.

The movie did create a lot of discussion in the 'Q & A' session after the screening and one particular gentleman was rambling on how the movie needed to explore other riots and also show 2 sides of the coin. He seemed to miss the point entirely because the 2002 Gujarat riots were aided by the local state machinery{the party in power was a right wing political party whose mainstay to power is 'hindutva'} including police and that caused a deep division in the society. The whole topic obviously made me angry at the hypocrisy that we have in Indian society and one of the people I know commented thus on my anger at the way things are in India: "None of the Indian Film Makers tried to promote the qualities of Indian culture, its richness , uniqueness or its diversity.They just wanna earn dollors exposing India to its extreme side.Discrimination and spineless middle class is there all over the world. Still india is largest democratic country in the world. Firaaq is made for awards and recognitions. Firaaq film makers should have selected better subject to get international exposure...."

And my response to it was:
"I disagree with you on that 'xyz' {name of the person}. It's easy being patriotic and try to bring everything under 'culture,richness,diversity' but the truth is that in India we are discriminatory but don't want to acknowledge it. What don't we discriminate on? Caste? Class? Religion? Region? Language? And worst of all - Skin colour- for chrissake. I think the world has seen enough bollywood movies to see the 'normal' side of India.

As far as Firaaq is concerned - no one actually makes a movie for the sake of getting awards and recognition or international recognition {btw - which film maker doesn't want international recognition????} - that's the silliest thing I've heard. You make a movie because you want to say something. Just because it is not a mainstream movie without the A-list actors or 'song & dance' sequences, don't dismiss it. I think it puts a mirror in front of us and people don't like to see themselves for what they really are."

And that's exactly what I mean - as a society we tend to dismiss anything that doesn't directly impact on us as 'a dark and unnecessary topic' that needs to be buried and not discussed or dealt with {especially if it deals with such a difficult subject as religion}. No wonder India is such a passive aggressive nation which tends to burst into random acts of violent implosion which harms the society a shitload more than it heals. I am not saying that India is the only country full of problems but we do tend to make it worse by all the various forms of discrimination that we practise in the society. There is a lot of good in the society but there is an equal amount of bad and as long as we tend to ignore the later fact we'll always have a fractured and troubled society. India is supposed to be a secular country and every act of social and domestic violence just proves otherwise.

NZ has it's own set of problems and they are not pretty subjects to deal with either but films on such topics do get made here and some of them are commercial as well as critical successes (and those movies didn't get made to just win awards). NZ is in a transitionary phase where it has been actively dealing with it's troubled past and issues for some time now. I say transitionary because we are still no closer to resolving the issues but the thing is that we are trying to deal with it and not simply ignoring it altogether. The problems (in some cases) are not of the same magnitude that we face in India, which become even more magnified in the light of the huge population in India combined with lack of social support systems, but still we are atleast looking them in the face in NZ and not turning our backs on them.

Amit
P.S - I just realized that I wrote 'we' for describing my points of view on both NZ as well as India - mainly because I still feel I belong to both the countries {I guess that's reflected by my NZ citizenship and my Indian overseas citizenship}

The Moments In Between

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

Moonombre

NZ is the third fattest country in the world behind Mexico and USA, according to Health Data Report 2009 which monitors OECD countries. Way to go NZ!!!! So much for the outdoorsy, active lifestyle image that we used to have. The problem is processed foods and obviously cheap food like meat pies and fast food, which in the current economic climate is what people buy to save on money and it ain't looking pretty. Anyone who eats more than a pizza or a couple of meat pies or couple of trips to McDonalds, is clearly not thinking of the health ramifications of doing that. I hope we wise up to the silent epidemic and take corrective measures to help avoid major health problems. All it takes is 30 minutes of daily exercise to keep us fit and I guess that's the bare minimum that we owe ourselves.

Sin Nombre was a feast on the eyes - very well directed and shot movie with brilliant performances. And the scale of the movie is amazing as well as it follows the nameless immigrants from central america to a better life in US of A. It is harrowing but mesmerizing at the same time. Moon was a great experience - especially because I got to watch it with Christina and David - even though we bought our own tickets, seperately and without planning. How random is that? Love it. 'Moon' was an enjoyable experience because it was full of ideas and I am still thinking about some of them. Sam Rockwell is rock solid in the movie and he is the movie really.

Exercising after a 3 day break was hard work and just made me realize how easy it is to get unfit. Need to think of someway to stay fit while on my India trip.

Very early start to the day tomorrow, so I am off to bed.

Later,

Amit

Sleepless Pain

I hope I am not becoming an insomniac because I had a terrible sleep last night and I woke up with a painful left shoulder - obviously from sleeping in an awkward position. My misery was compounded by the fact that Lance forgot to close his room window {before he went to Thailand}- which meant the storm like conditions and wind in his room were trying to pry open his locked room door and that created a constant low level banging that I could hear all night. I'll probably do something about that later tonight but the end result of last night is that I feel like I've been run over by a truck or something.

Last night was random - almost got run over by a stupid (and I mean a special kind of stupid -especially when he had a very close shave with 2 cars at the same intersection) tourist jumping a red light in their camper van; bumped into Brett Gallagher {one of the music composers on 'Memories of Tomorrow'} in person for the first time ever as I was going to watch 'Red Cliff'; ordered a chicken wrap at Burger Fuel and waited for 20 minutes for the order to come through with no luck - and then got the chicken wrap and the money refunded by the duty manager for their poor service; finally got to 'Red Cliff' but was annoyed at the number of people sneezing and coughing in the cinema theatre.

'Red Cliff' was an excellent movie - I now want to see the original 2 part asian release with run time of 4 hours plus instead of the 2.5 hour foreign version because there were parts which felt rushed and aspects jumped over plus I think it would've had more impact if you knew the politics behind the war instead of the over-simplified foreign version. Don't get me wrong - in it's current form it is still a fantastic epic and the time really flies by quickly and the action scenes are rivetting, though some of the CGI to show the scope of the battles is sometimes just passable. It is a recommended watch if you are into war movies or epics.

1 down - 4 to go.
Amit

NG

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

The weather is wet, cold and miserable. Just off to see 'Red Cliff' at the film festival now.

Later,

Amit

Fading memory

Everything is a fading memory and every memory is a fading reality.


I've been having vivid nightmares since Monday - it must be something to do with working night shifts and still waking up by 8 AM. It's been a long week by that account and I am hoping to sleep in tomorrow since I have a day off.

Looking outside in - I don't like some of my inherent character flaws that I see from time to time. I would like to fix them instantly but it doesn't really work that way does it?

Later,
Amit

Digitize

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

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

Rajiv (Tarun) & Ankit (Me) having a chat

Shady places, Shady people

Gerald (Toby) contemplating things

Unexpected call from Nancy (Delaney)

Enjoy,
Amit

The Chase

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

Lauren P has confirmed her involvement in 'freedom' and will be catching up with her later this week to get the ball rolling on our story front. Also met up with Sarah G yesterday and she is keen to get started on it as well and she likes the overall direction this project is going. Now have to focus on shaping up our storyline.

The flatmates who are couples are moving out soon because the girl is moving back to Dunedin to finish off her law degree and the guy can't afford the rent for 2 people. So we now have to find new flatmate(s) - which is a pain as always. And the annoying thing is that the change always happens when you least expect it or want it. In this instance - Lance is going off to Thailand for a month later this week while I am working night shifts this week - which makes showing people around extremely hard and for some reason there isn't as much interest in the flat. That's some more of my Borneo holiday savings about to disappear into covering the rent for the room. Anyway that's my grumble for now.

That's me for now.

Amit

Limbo

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

Got another scene shoot for 'freedom' coming up on Wednesday and I am trying to get more workshops up and running so we can pick up some more speed. I hope to have most of the project shot before my trip to India.

Amit

WH

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

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

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

Signing off,
Amit

Tweet

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

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

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

Amit