From arunrocks.com:

Unfortunately, there is no way to escape the tremendous hype surrounding the latest Batman film ‘The Dark Knight’. It spoils a viewer’s experience by raising the expectations to an unrealistic level. Unbelievably, just after I saw the film yesterday, I realized that even the hype couldn’t prepare me for such a fantastic experience. Christopher Nolan’s creation not only appeals to the average film goer but also to the critics establishing a new benchmark against which comic book films will be judged against. In fact, the term ‘comic book movie’ will no longer be understood as a euphemism for ‘bunch of crap appealing to the comic book fans’ anymore.

This multi-climatic, multi-layered, and multi-thematic film is an excellent cinematisation of an epic struggle between good and evil. Through excellent dialogues and almost heart stopping action sequences, the story unfolds rapidly and constantly keeps you guessing. While most action films try hard to come up with one clever climatic arc, Nolan’s Joker gives the audience a maddening parade of climatic moments one after another.

Joker - Best Villain Ever

The biggest highlight of ‘Dark Knight’ is undoubtedly the character of Joker. Though many phsychotic characters have appeared in Hollywood, Heath Ledger’s Joker is path-breaking in many ways:

• He is an absolute. There is a no background story. He himself gives multiple interpretation of his disfigurement. No attempt is made to humanise or even demystify the character.
• His disfigurement makes him a freak, which he further relishes and emphasizes with make-up. His unkempt and battered appearance is hardly scary, but add the body language and intonations of a psychopath and the result is disturbingly real.
• He is arguably not an evil character simply because he has no moral compass. He master-minds situations which involve dire outcomes yet leaves the details to chance. He, in his own words, is Chaos. He proves that sanity or civility is based on the illusion of order that humans have created. The absence of order brings out the latent insanity in everyone. It is in this chaos that Joker thrives.

As Joker aptly tells Batman in a memorable scene - What would I do without you? You complete me.

Note this currently works only if you have Firefox installed

The Hindu is is one of the newspapers I have great respect for. I am allergetic to fresh newsprint, so I have no choice but to read their online edition even if I have subscribed to the print edition. But their website badly needs a redesign. However, in this Web2.0 era you are not at the mercy of the site admins to do something about it. You can improve your browsing experience in 2 steps:

1. Point your firefox to the Greasemonkey add-on page and install the add-on. Now restart Firefox before you go to step 2. Don’t worry all your open tabs will be restored.

2. Go to the Hindu Printer Redirect Script and click on the Install this Script button

Voila, start browsing Hindu, for example this page and enjoy the difference!

Sometimes the biggest reason people choose Linux is that they can choose to change Linux they way they want. However, majority of the people believe that no matter how much you change/customize Linux it will never match the eye candy of other desktop OSes. Frankly I never thought that the font rendering in Ubuntu can match that of OSX or even Windows.

Until I came across this tip in Ubuntu Forums. I would say this is the single biggest improvement in the appearance of Ubuntu desktop. By just one command, you can improve the font rendering of virtually every application on Linux. Check out the following screenshot after implementing this tip:

The command is simply:

sudo ln -sf /etc/fonts/conf.avail/10-autohint.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/

Thanks to this tip I am still ogling at my Linux desktop

Please note that all the jokes below are in Malayalam. Salim Kumar is a Malayalam film comedian who often pairs with Dileep with a knack for witty one-liners. These jokes are mostly from the Salim kumar communities in Orkut. Many thanks to all Salim kumar fans

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Thilakkam
onnam class muthal kanjavu valichirunenkil
chalpalannu ippo english parayamayirunnu…

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madhya tiruvathankorile oru rajavu .peru sasi

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KalayanaRaman
Trying to break the coconut besides the lady and the lady falls to the pool of water and SK says
‘Yenta oru shabdham ketathu???’
‘Thenga odachappo oru piece vellathil poyathaanu’

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“njan advocate Mukundan Vakkeel. da coat-e”

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Thilakkam
Salim Kumar: njangalkku aliyanum aliyanum koody kurachu talks nadathanundu………..cashine kurichulla talks …Casual talks…….

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Chadikaatha chandhu
“Im Micheal Elias ,JAckson Elias,Vikram Elias”

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Thenkashipattanam
salimkumar to dilip:
nammal kaanaan pokunnath devootiyeyalle allathe mammotiyeyallalo.

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Salim Kumar is reading the classifieds section in the newspaper…”Varanmaare aavashyamundu……………………AASHWAASAM KANDAAL MAATHRAM PRATHIBHALAM. Eh?? Ithu veraiy parasyamaanallaiy…oh..thetti vaayichu”

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“Iyaal enthu pani aado e kaanickkunne…Thanne kondu njan thottallo..I ALL SO FAILED OF YOU.”

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nee sahakarikukayanengil ee kalavara namukoru maniyarayakkam…

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VAYARINTE VALATHU BHAGATHU KARUTHA MARUGULLA STHREE AANO EE KUTTYUDE MUMMY…..

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Pulival kalyanam
Nammal Nalu perallathe moonnamathoral ethu ariyarythu. Nee vichal aval erangi varumo?.

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dileep: entha ithu???

salim: welcome!!!
dileep: ithu welcome alla… melcow…
salim: oh anganeyum vaayikkaamo???
puthiya lipi aayathu konda…
pazhaya lipi aayirunnengil njan kalakkiyene….

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THILAKKAM
salim kumar : entha ithu?
bindhu panikar : athu unni valicherinja chora
salim k : ho!! njan vicharichu ente thala choru purathu vanathanennu!!!!

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While in a boat
” Sidesitil irikam inale kattu kollu “

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Ee Dharmendrayude chila samayathulla COMEDY kettaal, chirichu chirichu kakshathu neeru varum… hu hu hu

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CHESS
its a dialogue to dileep
sirine njan ente ammaye pole snehikum….

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Don’t dooo, Don doooo

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Salim asking: perenthaanu?
Other dude: Pesatheda Porukki
Salim :Pesatheda Porukki,haha.. Peru kettittu cinema peru poley irikkunnu.

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wen salim kumar signs on d document harisri asokan asks
ithenthina
ningalkku njan kaashu thannennullathinu enikkorurappu vende.njan aara mon

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Kaanan valya lookilla enne ullooo…pakshe bayankara budhiya

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Dileep : Pani theernno
SK : Pani eppozhae theernnu..innale 12 manikku.. heart attack aayirunnu…
Dileep : Athalla, ninte pani theernno-nnu
SK : Pani theernna njaan ivide nikkumo, mookkil panji vecchu evideyenkilum poyi rest edukkoolle…

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Thenkasipattanam
Dilip: Nee enthanda kudikkunnathu?
Salim: Ithiri barley vellam…
Dilip: pinne,athinentha oru brandiyude manam?
Salim: Athalle paranje.Barile vellamnnu…………..
Salim: Da ee cycle rally aano,Hercules aano?
Dilip: aalkkaru purake odivarunnathu kandille? Ralliya……

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angu dufaiyil ee shakkinte idam kai aanu njan…avide ellam edathottanallo

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Pulival Kalyanam
Salim Kumar: Rathri entha kazhichathu?
Cochin Haneefa : Chapathiyum Dal Curryum
Salim Kumar :Paranjathu Nannai..Risk edukanda…

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Kannimasam vanno ennariyan pashuvinu calendar nokkenda aavashyam illa (Dileep was trying to flirt with Navya Nair and denying the relationship to Salim Kumar and Innocent).

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Pulival Kalyanam
kallavandi keran polum kaayill kaashillaathathu kondu njan oru taxi vilichu angottu varam..

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after relesing dileep frm police custody…….”NANDI UNDU SIR NANDI UNDU….”…. blows into his pocket…..”NANDI MATHREMEY ULLU ALLEY????????????????”

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Thommanum makkalum
When Lal Mammooty & Ranjan. P.D came 2 Tevar’s house
SK tells 2 them
“Nigalkariyamo pandu kolum kulayumulla tharavatille avaasaanate kanniyaa njan epol kollillanee ullu baaki ellam undu .(kulaa)
Njgal parampragathamai Gunda-kalla
ente acchan gundaa,amavan gunda,apuppan gunda
Enthinere parayunnu entee Bhariya vere aaa naattille ariyapedunna GUNDI YAYIRUNADAA GUNDI…..”

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Pulival Kalyanam
Salim kumar as manavalan & Madavan as manvalans father
manavalan: odivil kuttasammatham nadathi alle.achan anatre achan
dashhhh…(Adi) ithu nhan ente ammaku kodutha vakka
ningal ariyamayirunoo cherupathil nhan achane kananam
achane kananam enu paraju vashi pidikumbol palliyil
achan mare kanichu samathanippikumayirunu ente
ponnamachi…hmmm enittu ippom vannirikunu
Madavan: Edo njan ninte achan onnum alla
manavalan: pinne njan engane undaiiii?

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Kalyanaraman
“keep it up”…”keepayi irikkan thatparyamundennalle?”

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Thommanum makkalum
when mammooty comes to see layas father
salim kumar:(deshyathode meesa pirichukondu)
“njan ivente kayyil ninnum vangum”

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andhayaaya navya naayare nokki..SK..
daivame enikke kaazhcha illa yirunnenkil ivalkke oru jeevidam kodukka mayirunnu..
daivame ennode enthine ee krooratha cheythu..??

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Pulival Kalyanam
“angana padakka company khudaaa gava…”

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enikku ee vishappinte asukham undey, unakkameen vangikkan poya ente murappennu loriyidichu marichu
aaa pinne annu njan unakkameen kondu adjustu cheythu

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ammavan marichathode utharavaditham muzhuvan ente eee tholilayi,,
athenikishteppettillaaaaaaaaaa

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entha kutta praayamaayavare kaaliliruthi mullikkamo kaalil rogam varille california!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Pulival Kalyanam
harisree asookan : kalyanam kazhicoo…
sk: illaa naan bachelaraanu
ha: kuttikal…
sk: illa ningalkoo
ha: athee ollu
ha: sarinte achanoo
sk: addehavum oru bachelor aayirunnu
ha: appo muthachanooo….
sk: chrooonic baachelor……

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Chess
Pachakari medikkunnathu kuttkaram anennu enikariyillayirunnu sir…

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dharalam mudra patrangal vendi varum ..
namakku documentry thayyarakkande…

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the home appliances of the two families u r the link………………..no…….. no………… no…………u r the link of the link. the two families attached to hte bathroom ur families food and accomodation. wat do u mean……………oh angnonnum illa ……….neymeen…..chalameen…….ailameen…..silopimee……..emmmmmmm………poor boy english polum arinjukooda enittu ennodu speachan vannirikkunnu………..malayalees………………

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End of the first night
salim: ho neram velutho,itha cash
wife: muzhuvanum undallo alle…

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“ITHAVIDE, ITHATHINTE DHAPPURATH”

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” ITHA LADU LILEBI..”

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In pulivaal kalyana
“sangeetham padikanamenna mohavumayi njaan chennu kayariyathu oru singatthinte madayilayirunnu….- usthad alavaladhi khaan
avasaanam guruvinte vaayil oru pidi manal vaari ittu yathrayayi…by the by njaan vishayattil ninnum pinmaariyo…where is the lyrics….gagapamaaaaa….ahah subash subash…..idadanakkam…gujarathi kalthala kettyiya malayalee pennanu njaan panjabiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…..

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Ee Bloody Indians and malayalees pranchu nadakkunnu..enikku dufaiyil kooli paniyanennu…
nattil oru image undakiyedukkananu MANAVALAN N SONS enna ee boardum..Eee nhanum ..pinne ee pipe um

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Thenkashipattanam
sk: da!! aa kaalede nottam athra sheriyalla..
dileep: athinu ninakkentha??
sk: ninakku prashnam onnum illallo, njan alle purakil nilkunnathu…

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NINGALKU AVISHYAMULLATHU PANAMANU
ENTE KAYYIL AVISHYATHINNU KUDUTHAL ULLATHUM PANNAMANU

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salim: ee manushyarokke janikkunnathinu munpu aadine(goat) theettichirunnathaaraa??
mammootty: athu………..(thinking)……..ithu orumaathiri mattedathe answeraanu
salim: che njaanathu chodikkan paadillaayirunnu

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Bus stoppil ninna bussu kittum , full stoppil ninna fullu kittumo.. potte oru pintengilum kittumo???

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Hallo
Aarum pedikkanda… odikko…..!

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Arabikkadha
Somebody : woh kidhar gaya?
Salim Kumar : Kidharooooooooo gaya……….

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Arabikkadha
shumin: where’s mukun.tan
sk: enthu kundan??

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Thenkaashipattanam
Ishwaraa ivide aarum illalo ithonnu paranju chirikaan

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Thenkaashipattanam
Dileep : Mindaathiri!
Saleem : Saamoothiri namboothiri ennoke keetitundu…Ee mindaathri etha jaadi?(Serious)
Dileep : Parajnu tharaam….Dishhomm [Saleem in pain]
Saleem : Ohh…Sorr..Jaadi choothikhan paadillale!

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Thenkaashipattanam
When Lal gets admitted to the hospital
Suresh gopi : Evide?
Saleem : (In a sad tone) Athaayghraha vibhagatillaa!!!

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PACHAKUTHIRA
kazuthu varae perumbambu vizhinkyante thalayil aann chaviti ennu parnna polla aayye

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Rajamanikkam
Mammotty: nammal entreyum nallu pothu kachavadam cheythittu ithuvareyum stay onnum vannittillalooo…..
SK:Poothinte kaathil stayothiyitenta karyam????

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Salim Kumar : Ente aattukaal bhaskara
Dilip : anganeyum oru daivamundo ?
Salim Kumar : Itharam sandharbhangalil illatha daivathine polum vilichu pokum

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Ottakathe thottu kalikkaruth…Ottakam njangade desheeya pakshiyanu…Kettittilley ottaka pakshi…Buhuhahaha

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Ee Lekha…….
Ivalo Vanchana…. alla vanaja

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actor:(Tohis dad) Venda pappa.
Salim:O sarinte peru pappan ennano Ente perum pappan ennanu.Nice to meet u

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Thommanum makkalam
ee kadhina pottana kanumbo.. enikku ente achane orma varum…
ente achan oru vedikkettapakadathila marichathe.. (laughs)..entha cheyya..achante oru kaaryam

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Chocolate
ninte vishamam parayeda….
njangalonnu santhoshikkatte….

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Paandipada
dileep: Vandi speedil vidu
SK: Ippol thane vandi hanumaan gearil aa pogunne

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Ushnam Ushnena shanti krishna…..enn alle??
Ithu pudiye pazhancholla…. kazinja azicha release ayitte ullu…

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CHOCOLATE
“MAHALAKSHMI AUTO PIDICHU VARUMBO VAHANABANDHU PRAKYAPIKALEDA”..

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CHATHIKATHA CHANDU
Lal: Shhe!!! CUT.
Sk: Entha sir cut paranjathu, kooduthal nannayo?

Web Development is now getting dominated by frameworks. After the initial hype of Rails, Python based frameworks are getting more popularity especially after the release of Google App Engine. Nobody seems to be interested in building websites using PHP, even if they are highly experienced in PHP. This could mean two things:

1. There will be more demand in Indian IT companies for PHP skills similar to Perl scripting skills these days
2. There will be soon be a viable competitor to the immensely popular Wordpress blogging platform from the Python/Ruby world

I have nothing against Wordpress. In fact, it is one of the easiest tools to deploy. But with tools like cPanel, deployment could be no longer a deciding factor for blogging platforms.

Coming back to the topic of Python Web Frameworks, there is a multitude of options. I have used some of these framworks and found them to be ‘pythonic’ in different ways:

• Django Well documented. Tightly Coupled and ‘Batteries Included’
• Pylons Extremely flexibility to Plug and Play components. ‘Fun to Hack’
• web.py Great for beginners. Entire framework ‘fits in your head’

Pylons looks most appealing to me. So far it looks like the underdog largely overshadowed by Django’s presence lacking the marketing or love it deserves. A few weeks back I would have complained about the lack of Pylons tutorials on the web. A google search brought up several links pointing to the wiki tutorial. As many have pointed out, the wiki tutorial is too long and complicated for beginners. It would easily put off a beginner. It took me quite some time to realise that the best place to start learning Pylons is the Pylons Documentation itself and the best Pylons tutorial is the Flickr Search. Going through the documentation is almost feels like reading a book with every concept explained in detail.

Pylons currently seems to the having an edge over Django for enterprise application due to its well tested interface with SQLAlchemy. Django seems to be having a fairly recent branch for SQLAlchemy integration. Pylons typically uses Python eggs and VirtualEnv for deployment which is might seem a little complex to beginners, but once you try it once it is actually quite convenient. Most of the installation can be done from the command-line and it will be nearly an independent sandbox for Pylons development. However it might take sometime to understand other aspects of using python eggs such as uninstallation and creation of new eggs. I haven’t had much success with making a portable version of my Pylons installation on Windows though

My favourite templating engine is Genshi because it is very designer friendly(which also means it works with the tools a Designer has, not just that it is easy for a Designer to learn). I can easily do all HTML designing directly on my Genshi templates because they are valid HTML or XML documents. Almost all of Genshi’s logic can be hidden away as attributes which is a great idea. In fact, the templates are even valid XML which makes the creation of valid HTML pages a much more natural experience. Almost all XML tools and even HTML tools like Tidy will work flawlessly on Genshi templates due to these reasons.

Once you get used to Genshi’s templates, you might even use them for static web site designing. I am sure it will save you a lot of time whenever those last minute ’sidebar redesigns for every page’ pops up.

I noticed that four out of the ten richest people are now Indians. Is this is a sign of India’s growing economic power? Is this an indicator of the overall economic disparity in the country? Has this happened before? Am I asking too many pointless questions? Maybe.

Here is the billionaires list from Forbes website as of today:

The list features many Indians like Nandan and Azim Premji. Hope this is a growing trend

Dasavathaaram or Dashavathaaram or Dasavataaram has a premise that could have worked. Kamal’s retelling of the 10 Avatars of Vishnu to the modern audience (if you think I am crazy, please click here ). Each Avatar (like the legendary Avatars) contributes to the sustenance of the universe (ok, just Earth in this case). It would have been a classic, but here is what probably happened over a plate of idli and filter coffee:

Kamal: I have written a rough script that will be the mother of all scripts. It will be my biggest project of all time and it will have the budget of a Hollywood movie…ummm… around 70 crores.

Aascar: 70 crore? (Stops chewing) Sounds huge. But why 70, sir?

Kamal: I dunno. 70 crore sounds really big, you know.

Aascar: Yeah, good point.

Kamal: I mean, it will be colossal. Should take at least 10 years in the making and I should have 10 different roles, more than anybody else has ever tried before.

Aascar: Errr… 10 years? what will we do for 10 years!!!?

Kamal: Makeup, of course

Aascar: Oh, that’s true… but, err…. we would still have time left!

Kamal: Build some hype around for a long time. The buzz will be good for the publicity.

Aascar: Hmmm, ok…. but we might still have little time left

Kamal: Oh, then postpone the release a couple of times. Tell them its Post-production delays. Filling in jazzy visual effects and stuff, you know

Aascar: (Chuckles) Yeah. I like the sound of it. Sounds like a Sooper Dooper Meggga Hit already. Lets work out a rough budget for the producers and finally we can figure out the visual effects budget.

Kamal: Oh, I almost forgot. We need to hire only Hollywood folks for all the lead technical stuff. This one is for the Oscars. They might be a bit pricey though.

Aascar: (Face brightens when Kamal says Oscars, but saddens when he hears Pricey) hmmm… okay

(Several furious punches on the calculator later)

Aascar: (Yelling) Got it, sir! The Visual Effects budget figure is also done.

Kamal: (Excitedly) Really? How much do we have? 30 Crore?

Aascar: No, sir!

Kamal: 20 Crore?

Aascar: Nope!

Kamal: 10 Crore?

Aascar: No, no, no….

Kamal: Huh? (Angrily) 1 Crore? 10 Lakhs? What is it?

Aascar: No, dear sir… its only 1 Lakh. These days even Tsunamis can be created on laptop computers. Besides, due to our global offshore animators, the entire film can be done in India at low cost.

Kamal: But thats the budget for a TV serial’s special effects these days. I wonder if the output will be any better. Isn’t there any other area where we can cut costs?

Aascar: Hmmm… well sir, then there is your pay package….

Kamal: (Interrupts) Oh… 1 Lakh you say? That’s should be fine, then.

Yes folks… the visual effects are an eye sore. Even a 2 year old will be able to make out that the stadium was computer generated, the ship carrying the idol is a 3D model and Kamal is not present in many of the stunts. The grotesque makeup of some characters have tones that remind you of plastic and dough rather than skin. The only saving grace is Kamal’s rendering of some characters by imitating their accents and body language (Bush was truly delightful ).

In short, don’t have any (Hollywood? ) level of expectations.

Dasavathaaram - Meaning of 10 Avataars

This is copied from a forward and I lay no claims on the authenticity of its contents. But kudos whoever wrote this, he understood more than I understood in 3 hrs and 10 mins

One thing we had noticed is why people didn’t get the real subtext and reason for the various roles and hence the title. If you knew the real dasavatharams of Lord Vishnu and their characters you can appreciate the script more.

Let me explain, starting with the best adapted role:

1. Krishna avatar - Vincent Poovaraghavan Lord krishna is actually a dalit, he is dark-skinned [shyamalam]. He saved draupadi when she was being violated and he was the actual diplomat in mahabharatham. Lord krishna dies of an arrow striking his lower leg. Now look at how vincent was introduced.. he appears when asin is about to be molested and he saves her like draupadi. Vincent is the dalit diplomat, fights for land issue [soil issue to be exact] and dies from the metal rod striking his leg. Oh even five of vincent’s men are drugged at P. Vasu’s.. sounds familiar???

2. Balarama avatar - Balarama naidu This is an easy given. as the name suggests and the role personifies you can easily get it.

3. Mathsya avatar - Ranagaraja nambi nambi is thrown into water in an act of trying to save lord from being thrown into sea, though vainly. what more clue do you want?

4. Varaha avatar - Krishnaveni paatti During the mukunda song, krishnaveni paatti does varaha avatar in the shadow puppetry. The frame freezes on it for a second. there is the clue. Moreover, in varaha avatar lord actually hides earth so as to protect life forms. Here too krishnaveni hides the germs - life form inside the statue so as to protect.

5. Vamana avatar - Kalifulla khan remember in vamana avatar, lord vishnu takes the vishvaroopa, that is the giant form! Hence the giant kalifulla here symbolises vamana avatar.

6. Parasurama avatar - Christian Fletcher Parasurama is actually on an angry killing spree and killed 21 generations of the particular kshatriya vamsa. Hence the real KILLER… Guess what thats what our Fletcher is! He comes around with the gun [modern upgrade for axe] and kills everyone around. I have to check if he kills 21 people though.

7. Narasimha avatar - Shingen Narahashi first of all the name itself is a play on the words singam [means lion in tamil] and narasimha [the avatar being symbolised]. Lord Narasimha manifests himelf to kill the bad guy and he also teaches prahaladha. In the movie, he shows up to kill the killer fletcher! and is also a teacher.. Lord Narasimha had to kill the asura with bare hands and hence the martial arts exponent here.. get it?

8. Rama avatar - Avatar Singh Lord Rama stands for the one man one woman maxim, kind of symbolising true love.. Here Avatar portrays that spirit by saying that he loves his woman more than anything and wants to live for her.

9. Kalki avatar - Govindaraj Ramasamy As you know, the hero in kaliyug can be none other than the Kalki avatar!!!

10. Koorma avatar - Bush This is the most loose adaptation I couldn’t clearly comprehend. But if you look at the real koorma avatar, the lord is the turtle/tortoise that helps in stirring the ksheera sagara and bringing out the amruth. This essentially creates war among the devas and asuras. Similarly today Bush facilitates war between you know whom… May be Kamal also indicates that this avatar is a bit dumb like the tortoise…

If the over-descriptive title was not enough, this is another one of my tips to use my favorite editor - Emacs. Some of you really liked my earlier post on Emacs tips on Windows, so here is one more tip to improve your productivity.

Most of the time while editing a document, we need to quickly browse the folder of that file. Add the following lines to your .emacs files and so that by just pressing function key F12 you can immediately view its corresponding folder:

A nice extra is that the opened explorer will have the current file automatically selected. Press F12 once in a while, it quickly becomes addictive

Ittesbin is truly a spectacular time each year. It feels like college all over again. And many would swear that’s not always a pretty sight. Sleep deprived zombies can be spotted around the campus at midnight tired from practice sessions. There are also the worker ant types who would be trying to collect every scrap they could get their hands on for making variety of props. And there are also the insomniacs who are just there to have a preview of the show and blabber some profane advice under the pretext of ’suggestions’.

Whatever it is, Ittesbin has always been an explosion of homegrown on stage entertainment within Infosys Mangalore. However from this time on, they introduced a new off-stage event called ‘Video Making Competition’. The theme was ‘My Infosys, My Mangalore’.

I took charge of our team and penned and directed a video over a period of three weeks (yes, almost whole of April!). It was a massive covert operation to shoot almost all of Mangalore without other teams getting a whiff of it. To see the result click on the link that follows

Click To Play

It was a fantastic learning experience and I felt it would be only fair to share my production notes for all those aspiring film makers out there. Here goes my post-mortem:

• When I started I just didn’t want to make another documentary video, I wanted to make a movie. Slowly everyone got excited with this idea. From church scenes to playing cricket, people pitched in a lot of very filmy but very large scale ideas. We were basically a bunch of movie crazed folks.

• I invented some camera movement using a tripod and paper sheet to create a dolly effect used in movies. Worked quite well

• We didn’t want blood to look like ketchup, so we did a lot of research. I tried different easily available chemicals due to non availability of corn syrup. We ruined a couple of vessels at home in the process. But in the end, with lots of food color and cornflour the effect seemed to work.

• The crab was spotted in an unexpected place. I had picked the wrong angle to shoot the bridge scene and it was near a open field. I came across this crab on my way back. I followed it for a long time while the rest of the crew was waiting for me to shoot the sunset at the bridge before the sun sets!

• Voice intonation is never right because its very difficult to emote with voice more than with the visual. Voice is mostly too loud like a studio recording due to suppressing lower freq by an inferior mic. This stands out.

• Made a evening shot look like a night shot by color correction

• We faced a lot of problems while shooting:

  • Bharat Mall people refused to permit us to continue shooting without a letter. we got the letter but only 3 days later
  • At the beach the camera and backup camera failed 3-4 times due to various reasons and the sun was setting fast. It was Murphy at his best.
  • Getting hospital ready with no white bedsheet, we got a towel to cover the person and the nurse helped us to setup the drip and stand
  • Takes and retakes especially for the emotional, angry scenes. Most of the time the entire crew will be in a jolly mood and I will be brooding.
  • Getting all the people on location. Sometimes we need to revisit the site because the people are not there. Sometimes because I got too carried away after the last shot and blurt out “Its a packup, folks!”
  • Very little time to experiment with the equipment. I had started shooting the very next day I got the cam. I was learning as I started using it.
  • The video cam (JVC Everio, world’s first hard disk drive camcorder) is not good at low light. we used still camera in such cases and it shows
  • Shooting in a non std video size. The 16:9 video size was not supported by many encoders and applications.

Movie making is like Software Development. The final product is purely dictated by time, there is never a perfect release. Everything has to be managed to fit in the available time without compromising the quality. There are lot of areas where I feel I could have improved like lighting or visual effects. But the shoe string budget and lack of time (almost all of us were slogging with aggressive deadlines at work) were the constraints. But the constraints themselves led to creative ways to overcome them.

In a way the language of cinema requires a different way of thinking. The shots, scenes and transitions are the alphabets, words and punctuations of the language of movie making. I was surprised I was able to almost easily pick it up. The end product rarely deviates from the original written script. But I do realise that there is still a long way to go. And this is definitely not my last attempt

Bonus Tip: Uploading to Youtube

The videos produced by the JVC camcorder are in .MOD format which are nothing but .MPG files. The finally edited MPG file was too big for upload both in terms of video file size and resolution. But if I compressed it to say Xvid it would be recompressed by Youtube. Also they don’t add the black bars automatically, making my 16:9 videos squashed to fit the 4:3 aspect ratio.

In the end I had to download the latest windows build of mencoder and use the following 2 commands which resized the video, added the black bars, gave me the best results:

As you can guess from the length of the commands, it took me a long time to figure out. So its worth mentioning it here for reference

Some good links on transcoding

1. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9005
2. http://forum.videohelp.com/topic346256-240.html
3. http://forum.videohelp.com/topic345987.html
4. http://dinsdalepiranha.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/how-to-make-a-video-for-youtube-with-linux/
5. http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/MeGUI_H.264_Conversion_Guide_page1.html
6. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Convert-Movies-with-subtitles-for-your-PSP-on-Ubuntu-67806.shtml
7. http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Mencoder_Introduction_Guide
8. http://web.njit.edu/all_topics/Prog_Lang_Docs/html/mplayer/encoding.html
9. http://videogeek.shacknet.nu/index.php?entry=entry070930-082742
10. http://mcebuddy.com/forums/p/312/1259.aspx

AccoladES is a labour of love (and a little boredom) for the past one year. It is a website that I have be designing for the HR department of ES, the largest unit within Infosys. Yesterday it was inaugurated by none other than Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy. Infosys doesn’t have a 20% rule like Google, but sites and solutions like Accolades are getting more and more recognition these days. It is great for Innovation at Infosys and I hope will go a long way in helping Infy move up the value chain.

Sorry for the poor mobile-cam quality! NRN is on the projected screen (top-left). I am behind the lectern (top-right)

Some of the features of the site:

• Accolades has a Web 2.0 feature called Peer Appreciations for facilitating online appreciations.
• It runs on ASP (vanilla not .NET) and IIS which can scale up to hundreds of simultaneous users.
• It has an aesthetically pleasing and minimalistic design

Coincidentally, I was the MC for the event from Mangalore. People seemed to enjoy the way it was presented. Designing websites which was initially just a hobby of mine is already becoming a hot skill these days. I have designed several static and dynamic sites in the last 9 years and consider myself to be fairly good designer. But the real deal seems to be the dynamic aspect of it. Already almost the entire software development community is moving towards web based development. Soon all applications will be purely web based. Developers would be required to be skilled in managing web servers and/or Javascript. Personally, I see a tonne of work coming my way

Not that I am complaining but I also see a lot of MCing coming my way as well!

The views expressed on this website are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer