Happy 124th birthday the silent tramp who always makes us laugh

Sir Charles Spencer  Chaplin singing the "Nonsense" song from the movie "Modern Times"

"The Great Dictator" speaks (The music has been added but it says a lot)

Its Micromax Vs Samsung Ad War

Its Micromax VS Samsung ad war now back in new avatar. Not long time back it was Pepsi Co and Coke that started making parodies of ads with sprite vs 7up. This new ad campamgin which has sparked a debate on web 2.0

Making Cinema

Cinema is an art. It is just like any other art form like painting, sculpturing, and photography. The only difference between cinema and other art forms is that cinema is a visual medium. It is not like literature or a book. Cinema borrows from all art forms of the world to the screen by incorporating drama.

Cinema in the west can be categorized into genres whereas in the Asian sub-continent a narrative is considered according to the 9 rasas given by Maha Rishimuni in the book Natyashrastra.

There are two types of film forms:

Fiction (Not Real/Imaginative):
Example:
Feature films, Ads, short fiction films

Non-fiction (Real):
Example:
News, events which are real which are documented not acted out are called documentary.

Cinema should never be categorized but now days some consider cinema into categories generally in India:

A. Commercial Cinema
B. Art Cinema

You should consider that cinema is challenging like any other art forms. Art takes its time but there accidents and geniuses. Film making is a different ball game is not home videos on 8mm camera or high definition handy cam it has deadlines, require money and skills if you want to be professional in some aspects of film making. It also requires dedication and lots of practice to be good at it. Every one is not born creative some have to learn to understand there gut feeling it takes time to understand an art subconsciously to develop them. It’s not about good or bad cinema some make it big at first film and some have to make innumerable numbers of tries to succeed.

You can not make films just to be famous. A person has to have an agenda or message to convey to the world. Some of the world’s greatest artists or personalities had a tragedy which made to share the world a story like the Harry potter author J. K Rowling after she lost her close family, her mum when she was young.

There fore,a film maker should find a reason to make films and not go for money or fame.

Also Read:
Film making as a Career
http://utsabnov.blogspot.in/2009/02/talent-matters.html

10 steps to make films on zero budget

1.Shoot something with anything (quality does not matter)

2.Ask your family, friends Dad or Mom even your grand parents for funding or make a ppt and upload your business plans on net to get funds
 

3.Once you get the funding after you beg, steal,borrow get a camera and ask your friends or family to act.

4. Find a editing software and edit it and add some sounds

5. Export it in best possible quality

6.Now Market it! upload it on you tube and other websites 

7.Tag your friends and family and ask them to like and share

8.Note the comments and reviews 

9. Now send it across film festival circuit on DVDs or to friends and circulate it.

10. Make a better film and re edit your previous film for funding.

Congratulations you are a film maker..! :)

Color correction with Apple color

Recently,  I used Apple color for my mise-en-scene exercise at my film school at Whistling Woods International, India for color correction. As a student we were supposed to shoot a long shot and multi-cam with two cameras where two different formats on film and digital which was used on aweek long workshop which was a collaborative exercise with different departments in my film school.

The formats used for the long shot was shot with 16mm arriflex (with 500T 7219 Kodak - 400 foot) on single pref on a collapsible set which could be easily customized to suit the narrative and on day 2 we shot with Sony D50 on DVCAM tapes.

As editor,  I was expected to edit the film shot on 16 mm and the Sony D50 rushes on a 4 day shift in the Edit lab and sound to be designed by my dear friend Rahul B. I was shocked to find that the colors were extremely warm. The lighting had dominant reddish-orangish-yellow look which looked very bad on the Panasonic broadcast monitor. I edited the multi-shot exercise on final cut pro 7 gave it for the sound to my friend Rahul but I didn't feel right to just submit the assignment without proper visuals when as film student who has to show his work to the get jobs in future commercial projects.

Few months ago as a student of editing specialization in film school.  We learned to use apple color by my professor Vivian Sir and few months ago we also had learned to use 3 way color corrector on final cut pro from David Hover's editing workshop. To get the optimum visual quality I sent my video to apple color via round tripping and corrected the black and whites of the luminance and the selected portions of highly lit areas on the frames affected due to lighting exposure issues. First few hours was difficult as I was not familiar with the color software as we didn't give a seriousness to it but as the project progressed I was able to master apple color with tracking and manipulating the selected areas of frame with secondaries on apple color after doing the color correction by setting the hue, saturation of the shadows (Blacks) and highlights (whites). I was even able to remove the camera markers recorded on the frame accidentally on one of the clips. 

Only bug this software has is that I had to make new files to save color files to make sure that a new render files was to created with all the preferences of the render settings in the project set prior to the creation of apple file color project or sending it from final cut pro to apple color. The other bug is the codec preset and the pixel size always changes to NTSC setting so I had to do again and again reset the project setting of the color project file from original format to apple pro-res and back and then back to original format may be it has been fixed in the newer version. 

Apple color is a best starter tool as a editor and colorist which gives you basic touch up features on your frames for films and television and even for low budget film makers which even lets you highlight a specific character on screen to enhance narrative with the vignette.

Steven Spielberg Partners with Reliance ADAG

Steven Spielberg Partners with Reliance ADAG

Film making as a Career

Nowadays there is a media boom. Every alternate day, if you tune into your television you will not be surprised to find out a new news channel. Gone are the days of “Saas Bahu” family melodramas sagas which ruled our minds. It’s all about reality shows now. Such reality shows are giving young stars and strugglers a new platform to showcase there skills to masses all over the world.

The new technology and inventions in science have also let to creations films which are filled with mind blowing visual appeal and sound effects. Recently 3 dimensional movies like Avatar are one of the best examples which has been directed by James Cameron the veteran directors of movies like Terminator and Titanic. Right from the beginning actor/comedian/director and the founder of United Artist Charlie Chaplin have used many visual effects and techniques out of the box with their imaginative skills to make audiences laugh even though during his earlier times when the films didn’t have sound films were still made. Later on the sound came into being in the movies but still film makers like Charlie decided to make films in silent. When others started to make films with sound which was then been called “talking movies”.

Film making is not about having an expensive camera with film making degree and a big budget props and crew. The film making is an art of converting what you see around, to be converted into a vision, to be dreamed then to be conveyed the story to the masses.

Before making a film you should have a fire within you. You should first believe in your self in whatever you do. This applies in every field. If you are a sweeper you should have a mind set to be the best sweeper in world. The mantra is simple whatever you do believe in it. Don’t do what others do.Do what you like. Every individual has a unique talent you just need know it. Do not choose a career which is being enforced on you by others. Do what you like.

A recent phenomenon has been seen where many new college pass outs (10+2) are opting for new fields like film making as their career. Many new career opportunities have come in recent years like fashion designing, product designing, automobile designing, animation, journalism, bio mechanics, Nano-technology rather than traditional fields like doctors, lawyers, engineers, academics.

In these new fields too an individual is required to poses similar skill sets equivalent to traditional fields to succeed. So the work pressures are present here too. Talent and skills is just a small part of the hurdles. You also must have commercial “know how’s” to sell your ideas in the competitive market.

Many people have a misconception that this new careers are done by people who are poor in academics. But as the time passed many people are open to such new careers options. Yes it is a high paying salaried jobs but there are many hurdles and hardships which everyone has to face in their early careers. Now if someone when asks a media person “What do you do for a living?” the individual assumedly may reply “I am working in a media house” first thing the person who asked the question will reply by saying “Oh! Animation” without having the knowledge that there are different fields in media houses which could be video or sound editing, event management managers, creative writers who writes scripts for a ad films known as the “copy writers”, graphics designers, 3 D modelers or animators, Art directors for production (D.O.P- Director of Production), the cinetographers (Camera person) even web designers who design web pages and many such professions yet to be discovered which is still unknown to many.

Even the photographs that you click can lead you to jobs be it fashion photography for clothing line or you could be a photographer for movie banner and ads which could give you fame and steady income.

In today’s world there is also a boom in digital films shot from Digi-cams, Handy cams or even your hand held mobile phones in HD Film format which has apperception all around the world. Paranormal activity is an example of digital films. You may have heard about the films uploaded on you tube that has gone viral and films shot on mobile which is called Mobile film have won awards in film festivals and even earned millions.

There is too much demand for young professionals for films, ads, media houses of news channels, TV serials (Sit-coms) if you have the talent, skills and dream to do something big why not try film making course you may not be an actor but you will get the equal respect in the industry and feel the sense of achievement.

The audience may not recognize you. They may only recognize the actors, the directors and some extent the producers. But the only thing that matters is the final product. The audiences are lease bothered with your hard work and dedication goes on to the film making process. Just feel when someone criticizes a film like we all did to Aurang's "No Smoking” and RGV's Sholay remake "Aag". No filmmaker makes films to fail but just wonder what they feel when they fail. Whatever! The outcome may be. We should only remember that old success mantra “Failures is the Pillar of Success”. Talking about failures a question arises in my mind. How many names do you know of spot boys who take care of celebrities tantrums, bring water, hold there umbrella in the hot sun. Answer to the question is none. Yes! I know one of you knows the answer. But you must be from a production unit or you are a star. Good for you. But the truth is none of the junior actor’s, spot boys, drivers, technicians and others are house hold names. But still they are the back bone of a film industry.

Please do read my articles which I wrote for my college magazine.
Utsab Bandopadhyay © 2010 

What is film making

What is film making?
Film making is the process of making a film, from an initial story idea or commission through scriptwriting, shooting, editing and finally distribution to an audience.

What is Animation ?

What Is Animation?
Animation is a process of giving movement to still images in sequences in which series of minutely changed still images,objects or elements are changed in the frames which is known as frame rate to give characters life.

Principal of Animation : Series of pictures that are changed slightly or rapidly which creates moving presentation.This is called animation.Animation is possible because of persistence of vision.An object or or image seen by the human eye retains there for a brief time (1/10th of a second) after the image gets disappeared.Combination of series of images & imaginary action creates an animation that means moving effects of the object.

Types of Animation:

1. Cell Animation
2. Computer Animation
3. Morphing
4. kinematics

Various Film Making Institutes In India

Various Film Making Institutes In India

http://filminstitutesinindia.blogspot.com/