My Daemon

Namesake

This past weekend my brothers and i went to watch namesake. Sunday evening, it was a beautiful day in New York, the sun was shining and i finally was wearing only one layer of clothes. I had read the book, and knowing Mira Nair's movies I was not expecting any kind of surprises. The movie was great, money well spent i would say. Jhumpa Lahiri manages to capture her audience with the most mundane day to day things.
The movie began, somehow watching a movie about indians connects you to india, specially when u are living abroad. That is exactly what it did for me. Though it was about bengalis and calcutta (a place I have never visited), i still felt a connection to the story and the characters.
The movie had some really funny moments, about Indians in the US, and as the movie unrolled it captivated my attention completely. So it was a good movie, but why do I find the need to write about it....??? it brought back some memories....some images in my head that haunt me from time to time. Images of my father, when he had a stroke.
For all of u who know me well u know that my father passed away in 2004, very suddenly. He was a man full of life, and lived like each day was his first and last. And by that i mean he lived it to his fullest. Watching Mira Nair depict the daeth of the main charcters father just brought back the whole flood of memories. So i am writing this in rememberance of my father, Mr Ranbir singh Sachdeva.
Like I said before he was a man who really loved life, he was joyful, humourous and above all a very intelligent man. Like everyone struggles in life, so did he, but he made his mark and let a lasting impression on many people. When I was in school, I remember some of my friends being scared of him, with his large frame, his turban and the killer look in his eyes. I was his princess (surprise, surprise). But in truth he was really a gentle man. From all the stories i have heard, he was a great boss and not only did he strive to achieve his own success but also pushed and encouraged his juniors and collegues to do the same. At home, he was a friend, i could open my heart to him about anything and everything. Most of our conversations were on a friendship basis and he always encouraged us to be our own person.
I remember when I started smoking and he found out, he called me into the room and asked me for a cigerette, when i said i did not have any, he offered me one from his packet. He said " i know that you smoke, and if you do, you should have the guts to smoke in front of me, or then not smoke at all". After which, he told me all the reasons why i should not smoke at all.
He passed away suddenly, but he was doing what he liked doing best, enjoying life. I miss him very much, i miss our conversations, our roti with chinese, and above all his belief in all of us. Like anyone who has lost a dear one, i too ask WHY?? don't think I will be getting the answer any time soon, and honestly, knowing is not going to make the pain any less. I know he is always with us in spirit, and I see alot of him in both my brothers, and it is through them that he lives on in my life.

I am his namesake by the sheer fact that I have the same last name, and hopefully i have attained some of his qualities, and his zest for life.

For You PopSingh.....

Mehma Sachdeva Demo

Empowered Women

Women today are extremely empowered, they are not only achieving what they set out to achieve but raising the standards for men to compete with them. Long gone are the days when women could not and would not compete with men, today a woman stands as much a chance of succeeding in a male dominated industry as a man.

You are probably wondering why I am writing about this and what does this have to do with me. Well for one I am a woman....and I do consider myself empowered. Well this whole topic got triggered in my mind a couple of weeks ago, when I was watching this show. Now this show is all about a studio and one of the producers in the show is a woman. I think the actress is Amanda Peet. Well she is this strong, scared of nothing woman executive, who is not only fighting controversy in her personal life but also at her work place. She is pregnant, and she is dealing with slander from newspapers about her drinking habits. Not too go too much into this show....but well one of the guys who writes one of the shows on her network falls in love with her and well starts going after her. She obviously fights it off thinking its absolute bullshit etc. But after one evening when they find themselves locked on the terrace for a few hours, she decides that his love or affections are genuine.

But that’s still not what triggered all this, so I keep watching the show and I realize that she has gone from being an extremely powerful, strong headed, assertive woman to being a wimp. All of a sudden she needs advice from this guy for everything, possibly even what she should be wearing. The relationship is growing beautifully, but for some reason I feel as though she has lost her assertiveness....it’s as though she has lost her power to think reasonably. So I got thinking (yes I do that once in while) what happened?? And whether this happens to all women, or is it a trait only of this particular character. So I started to look around, notice people around me, tried to remember conversations I have had with my married and unmarried friends and of course I had a few conversations with myself.

One of the main questions was, is this a good thing?? Second question being does this happen to men?? Third question being, why do we do this??
From my own experience, I have seen that I become a little of a wimp myself, especially when it comes down to heavy decisions. I don't know where exactly I am going with this....but it’s a thought and I would love to know anything all the women and men know about this particular topic.....

Inspiration

so this blog spot was created purely to post my homework for one of classes at NYU, but now i have been inspired by my boyfriend to put it to better use and record my journey in the US, at NYU and to record my thoughts of having to work and study.

The decision to get back to studying was extremely difficult for me, leave my country, and all my loved ones, what i did not realise that it was not going to be a piece of cake. When I came to the US (florida)to study animation first in 2000, that was a breeze. the life was very comfortable and hassle free. But i have to say that as u get older it gets more and moe difficult to rough it out. No i'm not complaining after all i am adding to my own value.

something about the city, they were not lying when they said this city never sleeps....it really does not sleep. Which is great!! but what i love is that people do not and let me put that in caps DO NOT work on the weekends.....thank god for small mercy's. While i was working in India, sundays were my sacred days, i spent the whole day with me myself and I....got many complaints about it but it was amazing. but if i had the whole weekend, WOW!!! New York is definately a crazy city, and not very difficult to fall in or out of love with.

well thats all for now, but I promise to update this as and when I have different experiances, and sometimes when i just feel like it......

Close but Not Yet Done.....




I replaced the over the shoulder shot, and put one image of a model that the actor is looking at. The track is not quite complete and theother image i will add tomorrow. I did not get a chance to re-do the sound like you told me, but I will do that for the next week's fianl for sure.

Also I had to remove some of my earlier files to make space for me to upload this latest one so some of the other links may not work.

Audio


So like many others I had to reshoot, but this time I was a little more prepared. I like the look I got this time round, though it is a little dark. When switching my shots are matching up and I added a girl checking him out. I still need to tweak the switching shots a bit. The second shot still is from the old footage and I will replace it with the new one with the images of the model.

Effects


I managed to get the first transition even though the pan is not working...but I am going to re shoot and change my camera angle to avoid the pan completely.

Rough Cut

Rough Sound

Animatic Redone

Script Redone

Indecision
Shot List

Animatic

Story Board

Style Frame

Script

Treatment

CONCEPT PITCHES

Theme: Figure Skating
Technique: Cg Water, Green Screen Key
A girl is figure skating on a lake (not frozen). The water will be created, and will react to the skates of the girl.


Theme: Indecision
Technique: Rotoscope
A man is walking down the street, and his suit keeps changing till he reaches his destination. The man will be shot with different suits walking. The suits will be rotoscoped and tracked to the man walking.

Theme: Paint
Technique: Cg Paint Gun, Wall and Paint.
A man shoots at a blank wall with a paint gun. The paint drips to form an elaborate painting. The man will be shot with no gun or wall in front of him. The gun and paint will be created in CG and digitally tracked.

I found this image in the book Monsters from the Id, The H.R.Giger Bestiary. This image is created by H.R Giger as an acrylic on paper. It is titled The Trumpets of Jericho. I’m not a huge fan of his concepts but the art is absolutely consuming. His art is very unique and to me, a little disturbing. But in this image I found a certain feeling of serenity on the characters face, it looks almost angelic. Like Miller his level of detail is very real. Giger was very interested in witchcraft and the occult, which shows in this image. What you see on the side in colour is just some freak of the scanner....looked interesting so I left it.