Friday, October 1, 2010
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
When the skies turn.
Hamburg
It's been 10 weeks on since my first advance to Europe. The air was colder, drier than I remember. The first time I put on a sweater without a struggle, without worrying about eczema. My beloved chappals cautioned away giving way to a socks' warmth.
It's surreal to step into a world where the power of the spoken word finds new meaning. Where twenty years of habit now needs repeated thought before release. Where this habit seldom finds audience. It's a stark reality and it puts you at unease when only one language puts your thought into word and suddenly, that's of little use.
School
One reason alone finds me out of my bed every morning here. A place where I've encountered brilliant minds, sporadic brainchildren, and the, now irreplaceable, brain-fart.
Miami Ad School was so different from anything I'd seen or experienced. Like a tiny train station where people roll through from places abroad, only to return later, slightly altered. There are days when you can almost visualize the transfer of thought from one to another.
I've come to the end of a quarter here, crawling through hours at lab or slaving through craft. But the challenges lie not in renewing perspectives toward design and advertising but in working endlessly, with the absorption of ideas and opinions from lives far from your own. It's probably the novelty of a school such as this but it's no fault of yours if someone doesn't follow the intricacies of a good game of cricket.
The hope is all this absorption snowballs into something magnificent.
People
The possibility that my harshest opinions on the people I've met may curb progress is known.
Diplomacy was a chosen path when things began. I'm grateful that I've found people, teachers and colleagues alike, who shake off the niceties and save me time with some constructive criticism. But that's often a minority. The silver lining - I've worked the past weeks with some of the best around.
Of the locals, my sentiments are strong and I can only hope, premature. I study in a multinational school and for that, at this juncture, I'm greatly obliged to the administrators.
Work
At a school like this, the work is not so much over-bearing as it is constant. The quality is sometimes questionable but it escalates. And you churn out better work as the nights draw shorter and the sun sleeps at half past 9. Your eyes stay open longer than you'd hope for and your mind struggles with ideas, often, even as you feign sleep.
EU Lab. I think it's probably some of the better work I pulled off this term. While the class itself had its ups and downs, I think the projects made for some great practice. These include covers for Crichton's Prey and CSNY's Daylight, Again, a campaign for Adidas celebrating their 15 years in India and a tour poster for Wilco.
Photography. Topic: Jump. Courtesy an allusion to a T.S. Satyan photo at the start of the term, I ended up with the keyword "Jump" through the quarter. These are some of the photos I captured as the weeks went by.
My model refused to sign a release on my final photos. Woman always gets her way.
Concepting. Practice. That's what this class was all about. The ability to think like a factory. I think therein lies the hardest part about Ad School. To think when you're told to. No exceptions.
Design and Layout. A personal favourite. Vibrant, inspirational and a real education. The first time I went through an actual process in ideation. Some of these are still in production.
Soccer Poster. An exercise in some strange in-house humour. It's fun for a quarter, I suppose. Gives you something to throw the sink at. Paired with a steadfast Hungarian and we managed to pull some winning ideas out.
All in all, it's been a fair start to the new world. The sun is finally out battling endlessly against rain clouds. The city is green and alive. The beer flows in high tide. Now if only they'd stop eating so much fucken bread.
It's been 10 weeks on since my first advance to Europe. The air was colder, drier than I remember. The first time I put on a sweater without a struggle, without worrying about eczema. My beloved chappals cautioned away giving way to a socks' warmth.
It's surreal to step into a world where the power of the spoken word finds new meaning. Where twenty years of habit now needs repeated thought before release. Where this habit seldom finds audience. It's a stark reality and it puts you at unease when only one language puts your thought into word and suddenly, that's of little use.
School
One reason alone finds me out of my bed every morning here. A place where I've encountered brilliant minds, sporadic brainchildren, and the, now irreplaceable, brain-fart.
Miami Ad School was so different from anything I'd seen or experienced. Like a tiny train station where people roll through from places abroad, only to return later, slightly altered. There are days when you can almost visualize the transfer of thought from one to another.
I've come to the end of a quarter here, crawling through hours at lab or slaving through craft. But the challenges lie not in renewing perspectives toward design and advertising but in working endlessly, with the absorption of ideas and opinions from lives far from your own. It's probably the novelty of a school such as this but it's no fault of yours if someone doesn't follow the intricacies of a good game of cricket.
The hope is all this absorption snowballs into something magnificent.
People
The possibility that my harshest opinions on the people I've met may curb progress is known.
Diplomacy was a chosen path when things began. I'm grateful that I've found people, teachers and colleagues alike, who shake off the niceties and save me time with some constructive criticism. But that's often a minority. The silver lining - I've worked the past weeks with some of the best around.
Of the locals, my sentiments are strong and I can only hope, premature. I study in a multinational school and for that, at this juncture, I'm greatly obliged to the administrators.
Work
At a school like this, the work is not so much over-bearing as it is constant. The quality is sometimes questionable but it escalates. And you churn out better work as the nights draw shorter and the sun sleeps at half past 9. Your eyes stay open longer than you'd hope for and your mind struggles with ideas, often, even as you feign sleep.
EU Lab. I think it's probably some of the better work I pulled off this term. While the class itself had its ups and downs, I think the projects made for some great practice. These include covers for Crichton's Prey and CSNY's Daylight, Again, a campaign for Adidas celebrating their 15 years in India and a tour poster for Wilco.
Photography. Topic: Jump. Courtesy an allusion to a T.S. Satyan photo at the start of the term, I ended up with the keyword "Jump" through the quarter. These are some of the photos I captured as the weeks went by.
My model refused to sign a release on my final photos. Woman always gets her way.
Concepting. Practice. That's what this class was all about. The ability to think like a factory. I think therein lies the hardest part about Ad School. To think when you're told to. No exceptions.
Design and Layout. A personal favourite. Vibrant, inspirational and a real education. The first time I went through an actual process in ideation. Some of these are still in production.
Soccer Poster. An exercise in some strange in-house humour. It's fun for a quarter, I suppose. Gives you something to throw the sink at. Paired with a steadfast Hungarian and we managed to pull some winning ideas out.
All in all, it's been a fair start to the new world. The sun is finally out battling endlessly against rain clouds. The city is green and alive. The beer flows in high tide. Now if only they'd stop eating so much fucken bread.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Blank.
The world quietly disappoints most, I think, when it comes to the lack of glamour and drama in what we look forward to on a Monday morning. It's the sort of thought that makes you stare vacantly at roadsigns or those massive alien power transformers, from a clear complicated black to a grey haze in the distance and then heave your chest slowly and let a sigh escape only to have yourself turn unconsciously back to where you really are.
It's not like we all want to be movie stars or musicians, or even their PAs, but nostalgia plays in your head with film grain, and slow-mos, and diffused glows. It's the sinful escape of a part of you that wants to be bigger than your body.
And then it applies to everything else. You aren't angered or any emotion so strong in sound or might, it's dreamy dismay. You probably never even wanted to be a movie star, perhaps an air force pilot or truck driver or just wanted to pull through a masters degree in something average and commonplace, most conventional, normal and yet even now, there lies a reluctant sigh. Not in what could have been, but really, in what is and much to your calm unease, in what always will be.
There stands only one thing in between the foreboding silence and quiet appreciation (and often, relief in what, thankfully, still is). And that, I find, is love. And its opposition.
Love brings in all that is perhaps missing. Sure, it still lies in eyes of the beholder. The drama of romance, the passion of yearning is often lost on those that refuse to want to see it. But it seeps in through the cracks in moments of introspection. Stand and stare. Breathe. Deep. Take a bite out of it all and you probably find yourself in appreciation, smiling, glowing, even. The eyes won't lie.
Hate, even, is a strong, overpowering emotion in its many degrees. I think people refuse to admit to hate. Diplomacy closes a door, struggles against it, like shoulder on wood thudding against intermittent forces of expression. And hate is so strong a word. We don't want to hate. Dislike, maybe. But hate, no. I've hated. Most dearly. Senior supervisor in school. I'm most certain it took a lunge past dislike. And I don't mind it. It makes me no lesser of a person. No more of it either. I've also loved. Chunks of you and someone else, dancing in limbo till there is a mystifying imbalance persisting to see-saw through its existence. It's no form of idealism. But it is real. It isn't a sigh.
It's not like we all want to be movie stars or musicians, or even their PAs, but nostalgia plays in your head with film grain, and slow-mos, and diffused glows. It's the sinful escape of a part of you that wants to be bigger than your body.
And then it applies to everything else. You aren't angered or any emotion so strong in sound or might, it's dreamy dismay. You probably never even wanted to be a movie star, perhaps an air force pilot or truck driver or just wanted to pull through a masters degree in something average and commonplace, most conventional, normal and yet even now, there lies a reluctant sigh. Not in what could have been, but really, in what is and much to your calm unease, in what always will be.
There stands only one thing in between the foreboding silence and quiet appreciation (and often, relief in what, thankfully, still is). And that, I find, is love. And its opposition.
Love brings in all that is perhaps missing. Sure, it still lies in eyes of the beholder. The drama of romance, the passion of yearning is often lost on those that refuse to want to see it. But it seeps in through the cracks in moments of introspection. Stand and stare. Breathe. Deep. Take a bite out of it all and you probably find yourself in appreciation, smiling, glowing, even. The eyes won't lie.
Hate, even, is a strong, overpowering emotion in its many degrees. I think people refuse to admit to hate. Diplomacy closes a door, struggles against it, like shoulder on wood thudding against intermittent forces of expression. And hate is so strong a word. We don't want to hate. Dislike, maybe. But hate, no. I've hated. Most dearly. Senior supervisor in school. I'm most certain it took a lunge past dislike. And I don't mind it. It makes me no lesser of a person. No more of it either. I've also loved. Chunks of you and someone else, dancing in limbo till there is a mystifying imbalance persisting to see-saw through its existence. It's no form of idealism. But it is real. It isn't a sigh.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
You don't let me speak.
I've never particularly understood the idea of going into a movie with high, or low, expectations. I don't think I do. I mean I find myself watching both inane and considerably better movies on the same night. I believe you probably need to give it all a chance. Even Ram Gopal Verma. Maybe.
I think Hindi cinema today needs a couple of chances. What with the herd of newbies on the block. Amazingly, most of them don't seem to be finding their way through the ropes and trials of an otherwise unforgiving industry.
First with Ayan Mukherjee and Wake Up Sid, then Abhishek Chaubey and Ishiqiya, both comfortable performances by debutants. In strolls in another.
Vijay Lalwani, the story goes, spent some time on his script for Karthik Calling Karthik before the likes of Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani garrisoned the troops for him. The key to the movie, now that I've seen it, is not just the story, but its treatment.
Karthik Calling Karthik is an almost surrealistic exploration of the life of a psychologically-challenged protagonist. This is no spoiler, mind you. If you are not capable of catching this bit at the very beginning of the movie, the treatment of the rest of the story is probably not for you. It is never a well kept secret that Karthik Narayanan has problems. The story keeps you hovering over all that unravels and slumps due to the illness. Lalwani's intention, from my understanding is to keep you on Karthik's toes. His highs, his lows and else, from his eyes. The screenplay paces itself most uniquely, dragging through the inevitable rings of the phone and racing through his love for Deepika Padukone's character. Allowing to wallow in the lows and never allowing the freedom to dance in the highs, a strong reminder, which you'd probably catch while viewing the movie, that you're always expecting the next call. Always.
Do not go by what anyone tells you about this movie. Not even me. You need to watch this one for yourself.
Personally, I'd ask Vijay Lalwani to take a bow. Farhan Akhtar leaves me in awe. He is, most surprisingly, an actor of amazing depth. I dearly hope he keeps at his directorial skill but in no way is he letting anyone down, leave alone himself. Deepika Padukone, I add, looks better with every movie and more significantly, has shown she can do what she's put out there to do. And well.
We are in quite the era of Hindi cinema, transitional, reformative and daring even, and no one seems to notice.
(Credits: Tarun Menon)
I think Hindi cinema today needs a couple of chances. What with the herd of newbies on the block. Amazingly, most of them don't seem to be finding their way through the ropes and trials of an otherwise unforgiving industry.
First with Ayan Mukherjee and Wake Up Sid, then Abhishek Chaubey and Ishiqiya, both comfortable performances by debutants. In strolls in another.
Vijay Lalwani, the story goes, spent some time on his script for Karthik Calling Karthik before the likes of Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani garrisoned the troops for him. The key to the movie, now that I've seen it, is not just the story, but its treatment.
Karthik Calling Karthik is an almost surrealistic exploration of the life of a psychologically-challenged protagonist. This is no spoiler, mind you. If you are not capable of catching this bit at the very beginning of the movie, the treatment of the rest of the story is probably not for you. It is never a well kept secret that Karthik Narayanan has problems. The story keeps you hovering over all that unravels and slumps due to the illness. Lalwani's intention, from my understanding is to keep you on Karthik's toes. His highs, his lows and else, from his eyes. The screenplay paces itself most uniquely, dragging through the inevitable rings of the phone and racing through his love for Deepika Padukone's character. Allowing to wallow in the lows and never allowing the freedom to dance in the highs, a strong reminder, which you'd probably catch while viewing the movie, that you're always expecting the next call. Always.
Do not go by what anyone tells you about this movie. Not even me. You need to watch this one for yourself.
Personally, I'd ask Vijay Lalwani to take a bow. Farhan Akhtar leaves me in awe. He is, most surprisingly, an actor of amazing depth. I dearly hope he keeps at his directorial skill but in no way is he letting anyone down, leave alone himself. Deepika Padukone, I add, looks better with every movie and more significantly, has shown she can do what she's put out there to do. And well.
We are in quite the era of Hindi cinema, transitional, reformative and daring even, and no one seems to notice.
(Credits: Tarun Menon)
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sun and moon.
So I watched An Education last evening. And wow.
A couple of weeks ago I was pleased to note that The Hurt Locker was a really well made movie. Tight edit, well shot and streets ahead of the much hyped Avatar. Thankfully.
I love my share of CGI but it will never make a great movie. And 3D cinema is most certainly not the future of cinema as many enthusiasts have blurted in their adrenaline-ridden reviews. Avatar is an experiment, and a good one, in CGI and art direction. But James Cameron's argument that critics fail to pay heed to his actors because they are blue, is probably true. They are blue. And it's for the better, Mr.Worthington, it's for the better.
While The Hurt Locker breaks you in its quiet and tense deliberation, An Education picks you up and swings you about, gay and excitable. I'd go as far as saying, it's the best movie I've seen this year.
As always, I give nothing away from the story, but watch it for the delightful Carey Mulligan. To keep it simple, it's a great debut. And she's effortlessly placed on a pedestal by the support cast of Peter Sarsgaard and Alfred Molina, in particular.
Also caught Moon with the lovely folks in the next room, and it is a most intriguing film. I don't believe the sci-fi bits of Moon are of much significance but what is, is what it stands for with its existential undertones and almost anti-establishment cries for help. That it all happens between one man and one computer makes it all the more compelling.
When I watched the Grammy Awards being dealt out this year it was a harsh reminder of some horrid music. Even for the otherwise incomparable, U2 and A R Rahman. If and when the Oscars reluctantly offer an award to Pocahontas, remember those that fought and lost.
Footnote: Installed a little sitemeter at the bottom of this page. I hear I actually have readers. This isn't forced humility, it is a genuine shock albeit, pleasant.
That said, drop a comment if you read any of this. Would love to know what you think of it all and everything else.
A couple of weeks ago I was pleased to note that The Hurt Locker was a really well made movie. Tight edit, well shot and streets ahead of the much hyped Avatar. Thankfully.
I love my share of CGI but it will never make a great movie. And 3D cinema is most certainly not the future of cinema as many enthusiasts have blurted in their adrenaline-ridden reviews. Avatar is an experiment, and a good one, in CGI and art direction. But James Cameron's argument that critics fail to pay heed to his actors because they are blue, is probably true. They are blue. And it's for the better, Mr.Worthington, it's for the better.
While The Hurt Locker breaks you in its quiet and tense deliberation, An Education picks you up and swings you about, gay and excitable. I'd go as far as saying, it's the best movie I've seen this year.
As always, I give nothing away from the story, but watch it for the delightful Carey Mulligan. To keep it simple, it's a great debut. And she's effortlessly placed on a pedestal by the support cast of Peter Sarsgaard and Alfred Molina, in particular.
Also caught Moon with the lovely folks in the next room, and it is a most intriguing film. I don't believe the sci-fi bits of Moon are of much significance but what is, is what it stands for with its existential undertones and almost anti-establishment cries for help. That it all happens between one man and one computer makes it all the more compelling.
When I watched the Grammy Awards being dealt out this year it was a harsh reminder of some horrid music. Even for the otherwise incomparable, U2 and A R Rahman. If and when the Oscars reluctantly offer an award to Pocahontas, remember those that fought and lost.
Footnote: Installed a little sitemeter at the bottom of this page. I hear I actually have readers. This isn't forced humility, it is a genuine shock albeit, pleasant.
That said, drop a comment if you read any of this. Would love to know what you think of it all and everything else.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Goan sunburn.
More photos. These from my two day beerfest in Goa. Good times.
Got lots more photos from the trip put up in my gallery. Have a look here.
Got lots more photos from the trip put up in my gallery. Have a look here.
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