Short films | Made using DSLRs

Now with the Canon EOS 5D MKII, the boys can become men sooner. The rituals of climbing the filmmaking hierarchy will be a lot easier, assuming there is a compelling story to be told.

Image via Wikipedia

Canon came out with Canon EOS 5D MKII which comes with video capabilities, HD quality video on what is essentially a Digital SLR camera. This is significant development for the pro-sumer and independent filmmaking community. At this point they are very excited and are going bonkers. It is being discussed on twitter, check the tweets of Stu Maschwitz and run a search on vimeo with Canon EOS 5D MKII, you will get to see the excitement in form of test shoots and demo-videos. Let me explain the excitement.


When it came to films what separated the men from the boys was the filming technology- video vs film. Boys shot on video and always aspired for the film-look. They used plug-ins in the edit to mimic the lensing effects and contrast levels that define the film-look. On the Canon 5D you can use canon range of dslr lenses, control the look and feel of the scene manually, unlike in video cameras where controls were limited.

Over the past few months the progress has been clear. Demo videos are giving way to works of serious art. Now the independents can worry less about the form and focus more on the content.

Short film made with 4500+ still photographs. Shot with a Canon EOS 30D camera.




SYNOPSIS

A girl misses her train to Milan and is set to wait overnight in Rome until dawn. However, a chance encounter with a guy changes her plans and the night lights of the capital turn into the background to a tender love story. An extraordinary chemistry made of knowing glances and small gestures fills the few instants that separate them both from the sunrise.

Blog | New beginning

Technorati says in one of its studies that 95% of blogs are abandoned says an article in New York Times

"According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled"

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I started blogging on 11 feb 2005, it was a musing about socio-cultural scenario of Kerala. I was an erratic blogger and would post whenever I felt like. I had moved to Mumbai in Jan 2008 and thus lost the vantage point to the happenings in Kerala. I discontinued keralatimes. My last entry was on 28 august 2008.

I learned and gained much from the process of blogging.


1. Before the blog my jottings were not more than a to do list or occasional poetry. I learned to think paragraphs. Though my grammar and spelling still remain terrible. I found a new expression in writing.

2. I developed opinions on cultural and social issues, started listening to what was happening around me.

3. I began to understand technological developments of the internet, looking back i feel that I am part of a social media revolution that everyone is talking about now.

4. I trained myself to sift and navigate the information highway. Introduction to RSS and Feed reader happened.

5. I found new friends to share ideas with

6. and more

"There will come a time, when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning" - Lois L'Amour

Rubber & Prejudice or No Bride for Rubber Tappers

June 01,08 | M.R. Subramaniam |Businessline

No Keralite is coming forward to tap rubber these days. Workers from Tamil Nadu are getting jobs in infrastructure projects. Therefore, planters have now turned to getting workers from the North,” says Mr N. Radhakrishnan, President of the Cochin Rubber Merchants Association.
..............
One reason Keralites not wanting to become tappers is due to a social stigma attached to it and them not able to get brides!

Kerala's future

"Kerala is in a state of flux. Caught between a communist past and capitalist future, between pessimistic melodrama loving older generation and a practical cosmopolitan young generation. A land blessed by nature being destroyed by false pride of its people. The time of this land is yet to come"
- Quote from Parashunaama

Parashu- 'higher than thou'

Parashu stood wondering what consequence he wanted to embrace as he stood thinking where to sit. He could sit down on the dusty ground, or he could climb higher up and let everyone look up if he were to speak, along the depth and  distance axis he could take up any place. The choice he takes would have consequences. The obvious question was if he was willing to take a position, he understood that even standing there was a position on the axis. And he made a choice, slowly he move on to the higher ground and occupied a golden seat.

White

God and his lambs

note the god's own country board, hidden behind the umbrella is 0 km to hill palace museum.

Bloody road

The roads of Kerala today are the reflection of the governance- and we are mute witness to the total chaos.

red kinetics

Parashu on art of cinema

You know what, actually, 'Good cinema' or 'award cinema' is not meant for a layman, because it's goal is not to operate with cliches or existing audio-visual language. it is meant for those in the filmmaking trade, much like a trade journal or a concept car to those in the engineering or auto-industry. It's role in the system is to stretch beyond cliches, the form/content. Art cinema has the role of exploring new ways of telling stories. stretching the medium to its limits... the new idioms thus created eventually gets adopted into the mainstream/ commercial cinema.

In the media i have heard certain filmmakers and critics talk about good cinema as an opposite of commercial cinema.

'Good' is subjective, we could fight over what is good or not yet not find an answer. Good cinema. what the fuck is good cinema anyways.

commercial cinema is a term used to categorize films that play to the gallery, whose objective is to entertain, and titillate primal senses and aspirations of its viewers. It is called commercial cinema, because of its primary motive to make profit. Continuing to speak in the same breath; Good cinema doesn't play to the gallery. It has an arrogant stamp of its maker. Who says 'this is the way i want to say it, see it or go to sleep'. That is the way it is meant to be.

Let us face it. It is an art to entertain people. not every toms, chandrans, and harrys can do that. It is an art to entertain and make money. every filmmaker dreams of it. maybe not for moneys sake, but as an indicator of a being heard by a larger audience. (larger the audience more the money)

But why do we need the so called good cinema which will put a layman to sleep to have commercial release, ending up being a waste of money and precious time because it is not the audience it is meant for. Good cinema has rightful place in the cinema ecosystem when it is not seen as the opposite of commercial cinema. This is the bane of Art cinema in Kerala- The art filmmakers who see 'Good' Cinema as something against Commercial cinema. It has to be made with an aim to create new audio-visual idioms rather than stick to the form of film noir or cinema verite which unfortunately is the only genres made in the name of art films in this part of the world.

SHAME! SHAME! The butcher on the wall- Saddam is inducted into the CPI(m) 'Wall of fame'

"Deshabhimani, a Malayalam daily and a CPI(M) organ, ran an editorial on Saddam titled Lal Salaam. Even CPI minister Binoy Vishwam wrote a column in another daily...."

WHY is the CPI (m) doing this?

"....Saddam was the CPI(M)'s poster boy in the recent Assembly polls and last month's Assembly bypoll in Thiruvambadi. The CPI(M) defeated the IUML there"-

Report and photo taken from DNAINDIA. http://www.dnaindia.com

This stand is contrary to the stand that the communist party has taken worldwide. In kerala the CPI(M) is inducting the US slain ex- president of Iraq into their 'wall of fame' alongside che, lenin and other foreign dignitaries. SHAME ON THEM. Please note that the public memory is really short. Not long ago Saddam was called the butcher of bagdad for killing of innocent people of Iraq and attacking Kuwait.But today he is forgiven, he is a hero. Good for him. SHAME ON YOU. Shame on you Deshabhimani editor-in-chief. Shame on you Kairali TV editors. Shame on you, Kerala Communist Party Leadership.

This is the stand taken by Communit League. www.communistleague.org
I am glad that there is some Communists with a historic perspective on this issue.

This what they say “The communist league has no interest in adding its voice to either of the two competing chorus shouting about the execution-style killing of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein al- Tikriti at the hands of the U.S. sponsored government of Prime Minister Nouri al- Maliki.
Even though we shed no tears over his demise, we refuse to join hands with those who are ‘celebrating’ his death.
Based on our own observations, these ‘celebrations’, and the people who organize them, are tools of Washington and the Bush regime, designed to manufacture ‘public opinion’ that can be spoon-fed to the people of the U.S and other countries by the corporate media.

Even though we believe the ‘trial’ of Hussein was a show trial, with the verdict and sentence fixed in advance, we refuse to join hands with those who are ‘protesting’ his death.

From what we have seen, those who are organizing these ‘protests’ whether they are described socialists and communists or are from the arab community, alibi, apologize for and even act on behalf of some of the most reactionary elements helping to tear apart and wipe out the people of Iraq”

READ ON

Why not truth now?

Like the zen master said, truth does not always liberate masses/ society/ community. They have to be readied to first accept the truth, to understand the truth in its real context and perspective. The ground has to be prepared for the seeds to be sown.

-like the true stories about how behind closed doors detailed strategies are drawn to tighten the grip of control over a community's perspectives and further shape it by the the moral standards of the media baron's orthodox family values, using a network of marketing agents who stand guard to the empire of profit that is founded on instilled sense of guilt, shame and false pride of community.
i know real stories of people, (more than one), driven to edges of depression and despair by the network of information that is in place for the media network. it is scary. the network of control is like a state military intelligence. they use it to intimidate the powerful and drive common man to suicide.

or

real stories of how the liberators/ party of the poor, innovate and learn new techniques of extortion to build a corporation so huge that it makes the ex- oppressor look like a petty thief. how they are mastering the art of extortion of public and private fund over phone calls, leaving no messy trail of evidence. all legit fund creation, that will fund the future uprising of the masses fed and blinded on liquor and hyper-reality. They are not ready for the truth.

Many true stories are condemned to languish in small gatherings and get passed on as murmurs ear to ear within closed circles, sometimes leaking out into the mainstream as hearsay and as a report of news from a reliable source, which never really gets substantiated and ends up as mere gossips or conspiracy theories.

A Journal

Conversation with a 'Pulayadi mon'

Parashu - "Worn-out by the sun and stress I settled under the tree. Summer sun was scorching my scrotum"

- "The fully opened municipal tap dripped, my hopes were brimming over the Bisleri bottle as the drops collected at the bottom. Across the road, through the mirage, mud huts were bleached out in the afternoon brightness. Out of the luminescence appeared a local Goddess with a full earthen pot and let me quench my desire. She was a true Goddess..."

On hearing that, 'Pulayadi mon' interrupted and started to drool, making hand gestures that implied sex -"mmehhmmm...yymmmeeeemm......"

Parashu- "No, 'O great son of Pulayadi'... We did not fuck"

-"There is more important matters than sex and fixations with sex, in this case it was water"

motion graphics scribble 1

original image

how can you set me free if there is nothing called freedom!!

While scripting reservation

In one rural indian village there were 3 friends: a hard-worker, an intelligent and a near stupid. They went to the same school and got same opportunities. Years later, the hard-worker became a high ranking official at LIC, the Intelligent became a doctor and the near stupid became a clerk at the local administration.

Now, that does not make a good story, so predictable. We put it forward for popular reaction and got response "no drama..."

The discussion continued...

Now, what if...the hardworking becomes a clerk in local administration, intelligent becomes a high ranking official at LIC and stupid becomes a doctor.

Sounds dramatic. "the script is getting interesting"- the popular verdict.

Continue... go on flesh it out... substantiate...

A hardworking person can get a low paying job because of
a) bad luck, b) missed opportunity, c) lack of guidance... so on and so forth

An intelligent person not living up to the expectation could be because of a) bad company, b) drugs, c) getting misguided and joining an extremist group in college (and later reforming)

A near stupid becoming a doctor could be because of a) divine intervention, or b) now proposed reservation policy

(p.s. note : don't read further if you found the above offensive)

Need more drama!! let us put in the caste angles...

The hardworking person who ends up getting a low paying job is an upper caste then... popular reaction- "too bad", "deserves it", "fate"
and if the hard-worker is a lower caste then... popular reaction- "need reservations"

Then intelligent person ends up getting a job below his caliber and happens to be an upper caste then... popular reaction- "too bad", "deserves it", "fate"
if he is a lower caste then... popular reaction- "need reservations"

The near stupid ends up becoming a doctor and he happens to be an upper caste... popular reaction-"injustice", "what the fuck!!"
if the stupid becomes a doctor and he is of the lower caste then... (if you take a politically correct stance) ... then blame it on parliamentary decisions, Arjun Singh style.

And thus spoke Parashu: reservation if intented to uplift the economically backward people should not be caste based. Because unlike fifty years back today there are wealthy lower caste and scavenging upper castes. So the policies will have no effect on the cash rich upper or lower caste, they can always choose to go abroad... In this attempt to create equality in another 10 years we will end up creating a new class of under-privilaged- 'the economically backward former upper caste'.

Kindness! Respect! Servitude!

Not-a-burden

RSS march. PAST.