D : The Story Of A Director >Amatuer~

7 o' clock . That was a time unheard of. But they woke up early for the D day . JB woke up early that day , so did bleak , shank and AJ . They began to trickle into JB's shack from fifteen minutes past 7 . Bleak reached there by 7:30 . They tried to tape a soundtrack onto an olympus microrecorder . But that having failed they tried with a regular tape and recorder , and that suceeded . Now everything was ready , the guitar , the keyboard , the backup power , the Sony Handycam , all the right wires , the screenplay board . Everything was loaded into Bleak's M800 , and AJ and JB clambered on top of AJ's Hyosung GF170 . The journey had begun , with Bleak at the wheel of the M800 . They first stopped at JJ's house and picked him up in his "cochin hanifa" costume . Well that would have to suffice they summarised and got on way . Bleak being new to the arena of 4 wheeled vehicles , was a bit slow which suited everyone fine since the destination was high range , Ponmudi .

Most of the drive up the hills was uneventful , except for tons of goals self inflicted by Shank , mildly hurting his pride . Then suddenly they ran into a ceiling , a ceiling of fog or clouds . They could'nt see even 5 metres in front of them . But they carried on , and on the first scenic location jumped out of the car and setup for a shot . JB's was the first , with bleak behind the lens . JB poured out his heart in front of the camera and then JJ joined in with something resembling the wail of a mortally injured donkey . AJ rocked with the slash act , staging it , faking it perfectly . They had got their shot and it was a wrap . Next up , making their way slowly and steadily up the hill they proceeded onto top station . There the mist intensified , and the bearing to the hill or the risky path leading to the top was hidden . Suddenly to top it all off came the rain . The cold cut them like daggers , tearing at their skins , the winds threatening to blow them off the mountain . Finally when they reached the top of the mountain , the fog was so thick that much of the shots taken were threatening to go wasted because of the lens fogging up .

With Ponmudi in the bag , the team started on way to Kallar . There they descended down the steps to gushing waters , with force enough to wash away anyone in their path . The team threaded among the slippery rocks in knee deep gushing mountain stream , bone chillingly cold , waters , sometimes needing a lot of persuation from the director to make it across a slightly riskier stretch of water . Finally the shot was done . A few shots of JB's vocals were also taken . Kallar was a wrap too . The team now moved to Aruvikkara , where a few shots were filmed between rock walls . So finally the day was over . And there was almost half an hour of video . Everyone was happy . They all went home happy .

Now poor director needs to turn editor and learn Premier to edit out the video into a 5 minute rock video .

Shoot To Kill

Well its been almost three years in the works now . Actually it started years back , within the person himself , within the budding artist . My friend Jonathan Bruce is the person under question and his quest to make music , and that too a pretty good specimen of it , has been a continually devoloping story in itself . In the beginning it was amatuerish , but still fresh and catchy . Basically snappy tunes , hoards of explicit lyrics and a lot of fun : that would be how I would classify the first tunes , which included the funny 'Karuthamma' , and such other atrocities against common taste ( they were actually quite good !!) . Then started the age of favorites , with each new song being written quicky catching on in the circle and becoming favorites fast . Personally my favorite is a song called 'Wanna get down' , with its own hip-hop and rock versions both equally good . But what caught everyones fancy was another funny song 'Mood' ( the title being in malayalam ..LOL) . So that was going on great with everyone who listened to it going home humming the tune . But then suddenly everything changed . Thats where another great song , 'Swachamaya' made its debut . It was a crowd favorite , allegedly bringing tears to Ajmals's eyes the first time he was subjected to a vocal reproduction of the touching but somewhat simply prosed lyrics . Anyway , the execution was in a class of its own , with no current malayalam song coming anywhere close to it in its setting . Well , one would think that was the end of it , but no , thats when the artist's fancy brought to life another funny song to strike ' Mood ' off the popular charts . That was the witty and extremely catchy ' Da aval po'onnu' . The lyrics would probably send everyone tearing their hair out on listening to it for the first time , but still send them back to it out of sheer curiosity . The offbeat and simple lyrics would send anyone into peals of laughter . And here too the execution is perfect , and its obvious too .

There are other great songs too , thus sending the total count of good songs to about 10 . And each is unique , with a classical song 'Shruthiyay' . Well , now its upto producer Phillippose Kurian to decide which one is going to be made into a full budgeted music video . I strongly suggested 'da aval po'onu' . Well we have started shooting "Thalarathe" video with an amatuerish Sony Handycam and an amatuerish , poor old , me as the camera man . God what all do I want to do in this world :) .~~~

Gods Own Country

Well , since I have been out of the blogging scene for a while now , its high time I redeemed my presence in the cyber world . Many things have happened in the little while I was away . Maybe one event worth mentioning would be my ascension to the higher rungs of the gaming world with the purchase of a Gefore 5200 fx Agp card and an overclockable ASUS p4ge-mx to boot .

Well I can understand a lot of readers' faces going suddenly into grimaces with the usage of computer digits . Jargon it indeed is , a lot of it to me too . So what do I write about this time .

Well yesterday I was at the traffic stop at pattom and beside me was parked an autorickshaw full of some southeast asian tourists . What was amusing both me and the tourists was the auto driver's continous blabber in 'manglish' about tourists and his apparent grasp of current affairs . Well I could not understand what he was trying to convey to the confused yet amused tourists , but I think I heard a few words being exchanged about Daewoo motors and its managing director being fired of something . But anyway the tourists had no idea about what he was talking about , and neither did I . And he went on to elaborate to the them that he knew all this from newspapers and the news . Well the point being , the common people of our state would be the most well read and the most up to date in the current affairs of the world .

Politics , terrorists , business , whatever be the topic kerala commonners seem to know it all . Well that oughta be ironical to someone . With majority of americans reading only the sports page and highest viewership for maybe hbo and espn , in the "Centre of the One World" , the Usa and here the local ammavans memorising the precise words that come out of Kofi Annan's mouth . It is infact not surprising of keralites . How can we expect less from the people who have one of the most versatile and modern languages in the world . We have one of the most varied , colourful and amazing arts . Maybe other cultures could boast of , maybe two arts which are truly amazing . But kerala is different : kadhakali, kalaripayattu , ottamthullal , and a lot of other things i have never even heard about earlier . Well maybe we are a special breed . Who knows who's gonna be here in 5 years among those who might read this . Think about what you are leaving behind . Think about what would remain when you come back to this world . Make your memories now , treasure them ....