சுனாமி

கடல் அலையென குதித்தெழுந்த மலைத்
தொடர்களின் மத்தியில்,
அலை நனைத்த மணல் போல மனம்
சரிந்த வேளையில்.

The King Kong story

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Ever since Albert Einstein uttered this, a vast majority of dumbheads have been using it to escape from the burden of knowledge.

Here is a story unrelated to the above quote.

The lazy photographer in me has always wanted to venture into the wild to capture the wildlife in its blissful glory. Every time when there is an urge to capture moments and show the world that they don't see very often, I pick my camera and rush to the.......Zoo! That is where you don't have to wait patiently for hours for the right action and capture it skillfully because the moments don't freeze for you. For those who are skill wise handicapped and impatient, a Zoo has its rightful place.

Animals in captivity make me sad though. I comfort myself that at least the kids get an opportunity to watch those animals outside the TV.

On a recent visit to a zoo with family, I went around looking for interesting actions in vain. After cage hopping for hours, we ended up with the last couple of cages of monkeys. With the frustration of having captured no real pics to satiate the inner urge, I stood watching the monkeys.

One of those monkeys was as frustrated and bored as I was. She was just sitting motionless and gazing hopelessly.

It looked like she was posing just for me. I continued taking more pics going around knowing well that most of it will be redundant and end up in the trash.

And then she let out a wild yawn, bored of boredom. That was the wildest thing seen the whole day and I captured that too.

She went back to her Buddha pose and we moved on to the exit.

While at the editing table, sifting through the pile of stale pictures, I thought of giving a little twist to the yawn by cropping and obscuring the context to make it look more like a war roar to reclaim the planet of apes. 

With this little tweak, our furry friend turned into a fiery beast with frightening fangs. Now that was good enough for social media.

Titled 'King Kong', this was the most deceiving picture I have ever posted on Facebook besides my heavily edited selfies ;-)

Acting and Dialogue Subtlety

After watching the teasers of Neethane En Ponvasantham (Tamil and Telugu) sometime back, I have had a few questions at the back of my mind regarding the acting choices and dialogue delivery.

Consider the clips below, it is a good case study to me because so many things are common. The actors (at least the males) are quite decently skilled too, but the performances are so different for the same scenario.

Why shouldn't it be so? It is not necessary to make the same acting choices after all. But if we ask the other question, there is more to ponder.

'Why so?'...here are some of my questions to ponder further.....

Is it...

1. because of the acting choices of the particular actor ?

2. because of the director's choice ?

2. because of the language and target audience ?

Before I try to find the answers, let me say what is different in the performances in my opinion.

In the Tamil clip, I thought the acting choices were good and subtle. When the heroine speaks of the hero's singing and after a deep breath, says '"Anga naan kaali!", the expression is cute and original. The choice of words are beautiful and simple. The better part is when the hero responds saying "Ilayaraja " - Just one....ONE WORD! perfectly works for me! We know exactly what he is trying to say. With the camera tight to the face, with no big facial/bodily movements, the acting is so subtle and it sinks so well in to us. We could feel them getting very close to each other without being physical.Well done!

Now in the Telugu clip, with the same heroine, the acting seems a bit cliched. I miss the deep breath and expression is flat and not so cute. The 'resting-on-the-shoulder' does not work at all. I am not sure if its the actors choice here. Again, with the hero's response, the big hand movement and the facial expression seems to have all the stamps of a 'telugu hero' that we are used to- cliched to the core. Again I doubt if it is entirely the actor's choice.

Looking at both clips, I think its the director's calculated choice of acting. The framing of the shots has also been tweaked to accommodate broader movements in the Telugu clip.  I suspect the choices were driven by the target audience. I would like to know if it does really work for a Telugu person. But, if what I suspect is correct, Gautham has made a mistake in tailoring scenes to the audience rather than giving what comes right out of his gut irrespective of the language. The director will be lost if such tweaks had to be done.

NEP - Tamil

 NEP - Telugu

Thekkady Munnar Trip

Thekkady Munnar Trip

A little trip to Kerala to attend a friend's marriage turned into a photo tour. Accompanied by another photography enthusiast, it was a great learning experience and a very memorable one.

Short Film - Complaint Kandasamy

This was my first attempt at making a short film, back in 2008, for a competition at my work place. The topic given was 'Accountability'.

Without getting too much into the nitty gritty of professional accountability, my take was that we could learn a lot from our Moms in this regard. The idea was to keep it superficial and light hearted.

It was shot and edited hastily. It would have not been possible without the support of all those who have worked on this. Many thanks to the team ( Gauthaman, Jayakumar, Bala, Meena kumari).

Constructive criticism is most welcome.

RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Very interesting and TRUE!

வில்பர் கில்மாஸ் !

இப்படியும் ஒரு மனிதரா ?


Please check his blog !!!!!



Wilbur Sargunaraj பற்றி மேலும் தெரிந்து கொள்ள....
http://www.wilbur.asia/

அறிமுகம் செய்து வைத்த நண்பருக்கு நன்றி ! சிரிச்சி சிரிச்சி வயிறு புண்ணாயிடுச்சு !