Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Summer Rains!!

I was missing rains for some months and the good days back!! As everyone says “ summer rains are much special than rains in rainy season” and It almost rained everyday when I was in calcutta for Editing. As the toughest parts of the work are done; I can happily take bath in rain and can work leisurely when ever I please. Cheers to life its getting better and better. Yeah I was even saying the same the my sister yesterday; that I am enjoying a lot more now than in my school days. What more can I ask for ?
So here I am; just came from a shower in rain and happily working on this blog listening to songs!! Today I am going to write about some awesome people I met ( I didn’t write much about them till now which is very very bad) I know I know; this will become larger than a book; so I will try to write about few people now and continue later.
1) When I first saw this fellow ‘Venkat’; I know this guy is studious; a Mtech degree from IIT roorkee confirmed the same. But what makes him different from others is his commitment and his love to study and his zeal to achieve perfection. I met many intelligent people; but never I met a guy with this energy to learn. For guy from a typical village scenario and from a middle class family who struggles with his English; what he achieved is something remarkable. Kudos buddy.
He thinks about everything he does. Once I was explaining relative velocity to a guy to solve a problem; this guy turned up and said “ no srikanth; u are wrong ; “ and he started explaining it the theory; I said “ buddy; that’s damn tough; he may not understand the stuff; you need to make it simple”. And venkat says “ you cant tamper theory to make it simple”. What more can I say about this guy.He was the no.1 student of our training batch, and we used to copy all the assignments from him.
It was a privilege to stay with him for one year. We used to spend most of our weekends also in office. I used to watch movies and he used to study mainframes. And the best story was; his guide couldn’t totally understand his final project. When this guy went for his convocation his guide asked him to explain some parts of it. Lol.. buddy you gotta go places. Keep rockin.
2) This incident is something I really enjoyed. Some people can create comedy very seriously. Well this is about rajendra (IBM-er). He calls himself Mr. Perfect.. lol.
Training days are unofficially called as honeymoon days. So I took up this ‘Q’ messaging training which was scheduled on Thursday and Friday. ( four day weekend !!). lets not get too much technical ; this is about ending messages from one technology to another. The trainer came and informed us that total syllabus can be understood in 2 hours but as we need to spend some 2 days; we will poject some programs on screen ; and we need to type them and run in our systems.

I turned to this fellow rajendra and said : “ buddy; I will type half program and you type half. We will merge it.. what say?”
He looked at me very seriously
Raj: no; I will type everything myself.
Me: okay; you type everything ; I will copy from you.
Raj: no; I wont give it to you either.
Now friends this is getting tough; if you are sincere that’s well and good. But if you are too sincere. Problem starts.
So finally I copied it from the guy sitting before me. And my work is done. And tell you what; this guy rajendra is still struggling with his program. So finally he copied it from me!!
The game is not yet over!! He looked at me seriously and said “ copying isn’t great; you have to do it yourself; only then you can learn!!” .. lol
The guy looks so serious; that I cant stop laughing at him. All the same a very very good fellow with a very good heart. He once told me he wants to start a Orphanage when he retires!! My best wishes to you buddy. Hope u fulfill your dreams. And my help and wishes always with you. Cheers
3) Now friends; I am reasonably a good fellow. I wont drink and smoke. I pray regularly and I wont even drink coffee and tea. I don’t expect people to praise me but atleast I told expect to doubt. And my Mom strongly believes that I drink when not at home.. such a pity!! And my sister called me up on Dec 31st. “ Srikanth ; I called you to remind you not to drink and drive!!” first thing is I don’t drink ; second and worst thing is; damn ,I don’t have a bike either.
Me: sis; you pretty well know that I don’t drink.
Sis: I don’t believe you; everyone drinks now a days ( this is too much)
Me: ( I gave a final try) come on sis; this is dec 31 st; any drunkard would have got drunk by now. Here I am talking nicely to you.
And guess what my sister told me
“ may be you expected some calls; and that’s why you didn’t drink”.. damn.. damn!!

4) And now lets get serious; I am not going to talk about those rains anymore; not those early summer morning and other beautiful things; neither I am going to talk about something inspirational;
I am going to write about some one whom I really hate; yes yes.. I am speaking about them only; fortune tellers!!
Mom’s you know they love their kids; gives everything they wanna wear and eat; but they never believe their kids can do anything on their own. They prefer fortunes words than yours. Such a pity!
And guess what these fellows say about you “ you son is a dangerous fellow; he acts as if he is listening to your words; but finally he will do what ever he likes!!”
And my aunt kept looking at me ; she said “ till now I thought you are a nice fellow!!”
Its like as if he is speaking truth!! ( though I must admit there is some truth in it) these fortune tellers suck!!
Keep rockin
3 cheers
Urs
srikanth

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Hope!!

I was watching Shawshank redemption again!! And red says this unforgettable dialogue (at least for me) “ hope is a good thing; may be the best of all things; and no good things never die”. I must say Shawshank redemption is one the best works I have ever seen; that’s the beauty of movie making ; every one who is making the movie questions himself; Am I am making it correct? is it the best way to unfold the story?!!you calculate all permutations and combinations in brain; and you present it on the screen!! Either its nuvvo cinema paradiso or few good men;; I feel it’s the combination of scenes that can give you such an awesome movie; may me one scene more or one scene less would have made it awful! And ofcourse the chances to travel a lot and meeti ng new people are other beautiful aspects of movie making!!
So here I am back again with my new blog!! We are done with shoot of “Song of Life” and rough editing and dubbing are also done; and I just wish everything can be completed in 2 months and it will hit the theatres soon!! I am really happy that I took up this project; yes it was very tough working on it all alone for most of the time; I needed to arrange people ; even woke them up; along with planning the shooting areas and add to that the rehearsal work ; I think this would be my best effort till now;; but finally after seeing the rough cut I was happy; I am not saying I am making movie of the millennium ; but for a starter like me ; it’s a good one and I just wish it clicks; I am even trying to pull in 1.5 lakh more for color correction to make the product look better .pray for me guys I think I need all your prayers!!
And the best part is we became very close by the end of the shoot; one guy was telling me “sir; now I feel bored; I have no more work to do and I don’t know what to do till the end of the semester.”..lol.
And the visit to Calcutta for editing was the best!! We learnt a lot out there professionally; me and nisheshji worked day and night to finish the rough cut and the guys out there helped us a lot. Especially bapan and jishu!! Three cheers to both of them. And they really are two fantastic fellows to meet. Bapan started as an office boy in the same office and now he is literally organizing the things out there; he even learnt all softwares and editing techniques and the guy just sleeps just 5 hours a day ; never saw a fellow like him.And jishu from a small village near Calcutta is a hell of a guy; he had some excellent ideas and he taught me some excellent points; I just wonder how a kid younger than me analysed things so well; may be its genius or he learnt them while working; it was simply superb and it helped us a lot.
Now from the aesthetic point ; there is a beautiful lake next to the office we work; when ever power goes ; we can walk to the lake park and fell that cool breeze; we can even swim in some parts of the lake!! but if u have problems watching young love birds kissing one another better stay away from that place.
It is almost 10 months I started this project; I was supposed to release this in may; but it got postponed by 2 more months. I am expecting a july release for sure!! I question myself what all I did and what I learnt here. The best part is to work on 2 hours movie; till now I made some short films; but this one is tototally different and I loved working on this; planning 2 hour film in mind was one hell of a challenge; I gave my best for it.I learnt a lot and understood I need to learn a lot more!! What more can I ask from this? Add to this one more year happily spent in ISM!! And working on songs with mann!!Everything is awesome!! ISM is the place which fills me lots of ideas; I even completed a new script while working on song of life.
The other side of the story is; I came to how much I need to learn ; and how much I need to improve!!and what a team you need to make a splendid movie.when I watch movies now; and when I watch those early morning shots or some well planned shots; I wonder how much effort they kept there to take such a beautiful!! Not to forget the planning behind it!!
All I want to do now is to complete ‘Song of Life’ and release it and just take a 2 month break; a bike drive to kerala or a month stay in Himalayas is the only thing in my mind. And by god’s grace if it’s a hit; a chance to make odyssey and a team that can do anything to complete the project!!i hope.. I hope!!
Keep rockin
3 cheers
Urs
srikanth