Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Crows

We feed crows every morning, and every time I have set up to take pictures of them eating hot rice like good brahmin ancestors, they never turned up. Too smart to be seen on camera I suppose.

Labels: Video, WOW

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Miscellanea

Priya Venkatesan has become the latest, and best ever to have scuttled another Mrs Pandey draft post. In fact she has absolutely rattled the poor old woman.

Chennai Super Kings are alright, but so far my favourite player has been Piyush Chawla.

I have been out in the sun (briefly) and it is not as hot as it could be. The evenings are splendid.

In three years time when the global film industry goes through another lull, I have an idea that could potentially rake in millions (no, not just betting on it to go through the said slump). BTW for those of you still interested, some of the latest FICCI figures for the Indian E&M industry do not add up, or are terrible typos, or both.

Since I am not into substance abuse, please tell me how else I could give my wit and spirit a 'shot-in-the-arm' that would last a few weeks at-least. I badly need it. Please do not suggest a holiday as I cannot immediately afford one. So whatever you suggest should be feasible within my current work schedule. Thanks.

Labels: Other

Monday, April 07, 2008

Witchcraft

Once in a while there comes along an interesting project brought to you by some very talented people. Here you can find a set of recordings I made of the very talented Sharanya Manivannan reading from her forthcoming book Witchcraft.

Labels: Audio, Books, Media, Work

Flickr Pro

I've finally decided to pay for something that's an online service. I've gone Pro on Flickr. Check out my pictures here. Having invested in a யானை of a camera, might as well get the அங்குசம்!

Oh! One of the advantages of working where I do is the facility to get pictures of things such as this.



Seemingly innocuous, retro cool even, but certainly, utterly, even meaninglessly fetishistic... a little piece of Tamil movie history. If interested I could actually get you a list of songs recorded on this machine, from the engineers who did most of the recordings.

Labels: Film, Photos, Tech, Work

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

RIP Minghella

The one time I met 'Ant' was when I blagged my way into his masterclass at the Watershed at Brief Encounters 2005. He was scripting Breaking and Entering then. I greatly admire his work on The English Patient and Cold Mountain. Minghella was a close collaborator of my favourite movie geek Walter Murch.

The book I'm currently reading, Charles Koppelman's Behind the Seen is a fascinating look at how Murch worked on Cold Mountain, and provides lots of insights into Anthony Minghella's workings as well. Was also lining up a viewing of Breaking and Entering, DVD courtesy a dear cousin. I shall now read the rest of the book and watch the movie, with a little bit of regret.

Labels: Film, Other

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Shocking

In the absence of technology other than standard definition, static, normal-speed television cameras, when the field umpires refer things like small edges and LBWs to the third, then they are almost never given out.

Labels: Cricket, WTF

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Constructive Editing

David Bordwell writes this very enlightening piece about the history and the practice of constructive editing, and aptly titles it “What happens between shots happens between your ears”. Well worth a read.

Labels: Education, Film, Links

Sunday, February 03, 2008

What are the Pakistanis on?

I know little about self-reported happiness research, but this observation by Dani Rodrik is quite interesting and amusing.

Now what are the Pakistani's on? Bollywood again?

Labels: Economics