Celebrating Cinema!

It feels only like yesterday watching movies on a black and white screen where the hero and the heroine are doing a romantic song with the hero driving a car with traffic and lights moving in the background and artificial movement being created on a static car set in the studio (and of course,notice the hero swinging the steering of the car from left to right as if he were steering a submarine... how in the world could the heroine actually sit in a car being driven in such a way without throwing up is a big question mark! ;) Engaging the audience with closest-to-reality 'incidents' that left an "I can associate with it" feeling was important and the audience lapped it up gleefully then.

Cut to today-

Avatar is a perfect example of cinema not because it is the costliest ever movie nor because it is loaded with high-funda technology but simply because it still has not lost track of the fact that the audience need to be told a story and through the medium of cinema (reminds me of the technology is an enabler and not a replacement example!!) The movie, for all its complexities, has a fairly straightforward undertone that man is the root of all evil to the environment. No one will want to watch a movie that doesnt dramatize this message because movie is all about drama - a drama that people want to go and watch for 2 hours and forget everything else around.

The scene where Jake actually gets to try out his 'bird' for the first time is a perfect example of how much power cinema is capable of in conveying depth of emotion. His initial unsuccessful attempts at climbing atop the bird, his subsequent success at taming the bird, then his first little sky diving session atop the bird and then his absolute joy at having tamed the bird and flying blissfully across the skies, joined subsequently by his 'girlfriend on her bird' accompanied by beautifully rhythmic drums as background score and of course the ultimate thrill of almost feeling him fly in 3D kind of sums up the "I was here when it happened experience" and actually takes the "I could associate with it" to the next level with an "I would love to be a part of this"!

For that matter, some of the more intense battle sequences are also very well 'described'. If you were to put down this part of the movie on paper, it would just be "battle begins, bad guy ultimately gets killed, good guy survives, and they lived happily ever after". This is not an attempt at comparing literature and cinema but just a layman's joy at watching a one line plot pan out into a 20 min audio-visual delight!

Perhaps, what hasn't changed about cinema since its beginning is its ability to enthrall the audience with 'let-loose' imagination and the 'even I can do it' mentality (remember the famous bell-bottoms or the XXL size plastic framed goggles!) It remains the average human being's closest medium of fulfilment of make-believe aspirations (I wanna be like Tom Cruise)and basking in the glory of fulfilled aspirations (I have finally achieved the Tom Cruise look!) A toast to Cinema!

What just happened????

Recently I was out on a trip to some place in Andhra and I had complete strangers for company... So how would you expect some typical ice-breaking conversations to have gone? Thankfully, I have sampled some..

Middle-aged man: (smile) Beautiful place, huh!
Me: (smile back) Yeah, Absolutely beautiful!

(pause for a couple of mins while both of us are supposedly admiring the 'beautiful' place)

Middle-aged man: (scans you around from the corner of his eye careful not to meet your eye)(unfortunately eyes meet) It gets pretty cold at night here I heard
Me: (plastic smile) Of course, the mountains all around must make it cold
Middle-aged man: (nod of the head) Yeah, yeah.. you are absolutely right!

(pause again)(meanwhile another young lady comes by and joins the company)
Young Lady: (looking at both of us) So, place is really beautiful right?
Middle aged man: (looks at me with an 'I told you so' look) Yeah yeah. We were just discussing how beautiful the place is and how cold it gets at night.
Young Lady: (nodding in approval) Yeah yeah. The mountains. Should be really cold at night

15 mins of the conversation - Moral of the story - Beautiful place and cold at night!
God.. I hate ice breakers!

* * * * *

This was a bus journey on the same trip. Everyone is tired after a long boat ride and nodding away to sleep. Suddenly I hear a young girl from somewhere in front of the bus start to sing some classical Carnatic music. 'Hmmm. Pretty Good', I wonder. Then something happens. There's a woman in the row in front of mine suddenly cranes her neck to look at who is singing, spots the girl, turns around quickly to her husband sitting next to her who, by the way, has just sprayed a pain killer for his hurting ankle and gone off to sleep. She taps him violently and says (in Telugu),' hey, look up, someone's singing'

"She is singing well,no" the lady declares approvingly to her husband. Confused at suddenly being violently woken up and then realizing the consequences of offering a 'dead bat' to this conversation (Amazing how quickly his brain senses 'danger' even in half sleep!!) he clears his throat, looks at his wife and starts singing the same song that the young girl in front is singing. (Probably realizing that's his passport to getting away!) YES!! he actually started singing!!!! and thats when his wife says "Shhhhhh!! Let the young girl sing. She has got a beautiful voice, no!" The husband nods "Yes, Yes, she has got a nice voice" and he closes his eyes to 'enjoy' the song!!

* * * * *

End of the trip, last lunch before the final bye-byes, the young lady comes up to me and asks " So, had a good time. You were pretty silent throughout the whole trip. Not feeling well?" I just smile to say alll izz well. Then she goes on "Hmmm. It was a good trip, no.. Quite enjoyable" I nod again and say "Yes it was good". The middle-aged man passes by, looks at me and says " Hey.. nice trip right? It was nicely organized". Both of us nod back and say "Yes. Good fun. Only it was a bit cold during the night"

End of trip! :)

Lights, Camera, Action!!!! (Sound?????)

As I watched (and enjoyed) some of the intense gunshot and long dialogue sequences from ‘Inglorious Basterds’ during this weekend, one thing really struck me about how majority of movie reviews almost never say anything about how a movie ‘sounded’.
Think about it.. Can you watch any of those epic battle sequences from Troy or even those weepy scenes from Kal Ho Na Ho without the dramatic background score and accompanying dialogue? What is it that makes one of those action sequences from Batman or even the musical renditions from Song and Lyrics extra special– Definitely the audio! (Even for an f1 race, audio is everything – my colleague will definitely agree with that!! ;) )

This actually set me trying to recollect some of my favorite sound sequences from movies all across… instant recollection was the mud fight action sequence from nayak (mudhalvan in tamil – oke okkadu in telugu). The concept of the sequence by itself was pedestrian (the protagonist soaking himself in mud and fighting the goons) but I loved the way it was executed from a sound perspective. The sequence had the hero jumping up in the air – frame then frozen--- panning across each camera ( I heard there were close to 21 cameras) located 360 degrees around in super slow motion—and an electronic synthesizer in the background score following each camera all round and then finally the hero landing on his feet. The beauty was in the synthesizer moving precisely to the reference point of the camera angle (if it was the camera on the right in the super slow mo, the synthesizer had moved right and stayed there just long enough) Of course, that again brings us to whether the sound sequence was relevant to the movie. I would say this particular sequence wasn’t entirely relevant (and most may not even remember there was a scene like this!) but just probably might go to show how much of an extra factor audio might be in turning an ordinary scene into one of instant recollection.

Probably one sequence that demonstrates relevance of sound design and execution is the Neo – Morpheus kungfu sequence from the original Matrix. The first part of the sequence is an earnest ‘attempt’ by Neo to try and hit Morpheus (you will notice there is no background score for the initial part of the sequence) and then as news spreads across that Morpheus is fighting Neo, there’s a buildup of background music. As Neo is attempting to break through the shackles the background slows down. After a quick gyaan session by Morpheus, Neo begins to demonstrate his speed and almost lands blows to Morpheus- this is where the background score builds up brilliantly and becomes really intense.The standout feature of this sequence has to be the controlled build up of seriousness in the sequence. I am not sure if brilliant screenplay alone would have lent the desired ‘emotional’ effect to this sequence. Some of the other sequences in this movie too were breathtaking from the same perspective.

Let’s all get thinking on some of our favorite sequences too…..

PS: Also maybe goes to show why I would like to watch any of these sequences ONLY in an auditorium! :P ;)

beard!

Treebeard: You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.

This was a phenomenon that began slowly and sporadically just like an epidemic and spread like wildfire. It was the great beard and perhaps it succeeded in bringing out latent (or dormant) emotions from people around (without saying anything of course!)like a certain impatience to life (when is this going off? How long more for this naatak? Aren’t there better things to life than growing this shit? Why this atrociousness?)Perhaps it also brought out the unused colourful vocabulary.
But the beard had stranger tales to tell. Reminded one of those countless characters of the irani chai café frequenter whose only motive in life is to puff away to glory with the one hand and keep picking up the stained white tip broken to the mouth in between immaculately measured puffs with the other hand. And of course not to forget the sudden reach outs to the plate for the chota samosa. Perhaps the thickening black ‘forest of disgust’ completed the picture perfectly.

Treebeard: 'Beneath the roof of sleeping... leaves and dreams of trees untold, When woodland halls are... green... and cool, and the wind is in the west, Come back to me... Come... back... to me, And say my land is... best.'

Although, wherever black beard went he was greeted with one of two extreme expressions – either an expression of absolute disgust (including at his own place) or an expression of absolute indifference (anywhere but his own place!). The clean shaven evolved into the bearded gradually just like the evolving moss on the water tank(this was one of the descriptions for the appearance, by the way!!) – a moss that reflected the true unwilled wandering of the mind beyond ‘established boundaries of wisdom and so called well being’. Or a moss that is perhaps caught in two worlds as the beard discovered on a rainy Sunday night. How do you explain being able to sit leisurely (nawabi style) at one of India’s oldest heritage structures for a glorious cup of tea amidst buzzing crowds of activity and bright lights and a steady pattering of the drizzle on the plastic roofshade and ever encircling clouds of tobacco. Into the new city-barricaded from all forms of ‘threats’ including the 3-man strong innocent tourist mob that wants to enjoy a cool breeze and probably a hot cuppa at 11pm with a lakeside view that is gloriously reflecting the city lights. You are greeted by a stoic – “matter ye hai ki 11 bhaje ye food court bandh ho jaata hai” “Atleast can we take some pictures of the lake?” “Sorry boss, pictures bilkul allowed nahin hai”. Is it a mindset problem or just a security problem? why no such security in the old city? Don’t they need security? Or the new city has too much expenditure sunk in that needs constant attention of the Grey guards! The point here is did only appearance have a role to play in this seemingly dichotomous situation.

What is in an appearance? Strange are the world’s ways of making perceptions based on outward appearances. Did a change in appearance transport the beard-bearer to unknown territory? It did help him fit in snugly into circles which would have scoffed at an otherwise appearance. Does a change in appearance automatically guarantee you ‘special access’? Definitely not. Perhaps it only succeeds in people outside your inner circle looking at you from a totally different perspective.

And by the way, did the beard bring out the much awaited slap right across the jaw? Did it learn a lesson and disappear? Hmmmmm…..! Guess! Guess!!!


PS: All Treebeard quotes are courtesy ‘The Lord of the Rings’

The Brainstorming Conundrum

Blog response to Premjith's Blog

Read the blog here - http://itslateral.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-am-alonecan-i-brainstorm.html

If someone is able to get into 3-4 characters, either he/she might be, as u said, suffering from a mental disorder like a multiple personality disorder or must be a genius to still remain sane.

Assuming he is sane and not a genius, can someone really get into 3 -4 characters? I think the biggest advantage with conventional brainstorming is a collection of brains – now I feel there is more to a brain than just its physical existence – Its an outcome of that brain’s experiences with different problems in the past and solutions and also the difference in the way brains are ‘wired’ – some brains want to start thinking in terms of numbers, some brains think in terms of images, some in terms of something else- I think that’s the biggest advantage with multiple brains in the real sense.

When you are trying to create 3-4 different characters, these 3-4 characters are still a subset of the “same” brain and somehow I feel will not give the same impact as having multiple brains simply because you are cutting the same blue wire into multiple smaller blue wires while what you need is a red wire, black wire, blue wire and yellow wire to complete a circuit

Having said that, it also depends on the problem you are trying to solve. Trying to do our messaging matrix for example, will need multiple brains simply because one brain alone will not have so many perspectives about different products- you might then say will it be possible if one person has learnt about all products and knows about all products, will he be able to create brain sub-characters and storm to himself? Interesting question – but if he is programmed in such a way that he thinks he knows everything, it is more likely that he will not want other brains involved. But still, end of the day, I would say the outcome wont be as effective as it would have been had there been multiple brains involved in the exercise

Objectivity??? Hmmmm.. if your personal stakes are low in being objective and you don’t have something called an ego clash within yourself or with others, chances are people can be objective. But if it a life breaking opinion/decision he is about to make, problem is personality might overtake objectivity. Man is a social animal – his intention from the society is to satisfy his needs in the end. That is the primary reason for socializing. Objectivity is just an intermediate path to ultimate subjectivity (in the form of satisfying your needs)

jaldi-6

Frankly speaking, I wanted to write a blog with this title the moment I read the review of Delhi-6 in Times of India on Friday morning. I liked the way the review ended “Watch it for the desi feel”. I was excited at the prospect of being able to watch the movie during the same weekend, thanks to Kartik and Anupama who had already booked the tickets. And it was during this time that my mind started to wander, picturing the visuals associated with “a desi feel”….

Desi means being able to watch a full sunrise amidst chaos on the streets on a beautiful morning on the bicycle, it means walking on the road with a constant fear of being mowed down by the push cart or the cycle rickshaw (and the thrill also of being able to achieve the feat, unscathed!) it means playing cricket with friends on a hot summer’s afternoon with the “goli soda bandi” waiting at the edge of the ground, ready to un “POP” a cool little drink for the parched throat, it means outrunning each other in the compound of the house barefooted and enjoying the feeling of resting those sore feet in water in the evening, it means resting your chin on the wide cemented window and gazing at the bicycles, scooters, cars and people going about - some slow, measured walkers – some leisurely “tilted to one side” cyclists- the occasional “silencer-less” wannabe street racer and the royal Nawabi “potbellied” driver- cum- owner of the longish Standard 2000, it means lying down on the warm cement terrace, bathed during the day in the sunshine, with feet deliberately sticking out on the ground with the rest of the body on the charpoy, gazing at the dark and beautifully lit night sky with gay abandon, it means walking to the movie hall in the next street – excited at the prospect of watching a brand new movie that will usher in new hope , a new trend, a new wave and, most importantly, another reason to not study!

…and then the movie begins. 5 minutes into the movie, (I loved the “in-your-face camera” angles especially in the car in some place called New York and sat up with some interest!) cut to Delhi --- the narrow cemented lanes and the high roofs with large glass ventilators on top – reminding me of a “close-to-heart childhood memories” locality called Vittalwadi in Hyderabad. The uneven terraces – with a high terrace, an intermediate terrace and a low terrace – representing, typically, the hall, the dining room and the bedroom of a single house and the not-to-miss “pathang egirese” (telugu slang for kite flying!) competitions with ur challengers clearly in sight and their manja colors a pure give away! (was only a backroom boy who held the charkha for the pros to execute the combat strategy) and very frequent howls of “kaaaaaate” to signal the end for some and new found confidence for others (and also awakening from slumber for some others!).

But all of these visuals mean nothing without a story – a story of a brother, a friend, a sister, a cousin or at least a foe (the pathang flier on the other terrace!). The desi feel is never complete without a feeling of attachment. There is no point having a 21st century adaptation of the 20th century desi which is a little too fast to digest

“Elaborate Story-telling is still a virtue”