Sunday, April 15, 2007

Seek and you shall find more than you bargained for (sometimes)


I thought I'd post a post about my guitar today, so I looked online for a decent picture of it. I ended up finding this image. Of course, I don't have any of the stuff in the picture, save for the beautiful Les Paul Special II guitar (and some assorted plectrums from a lot og non-gobson brands) in the middle (which is not bad at all I think). I presently play the thing off my computer speakers in my room. I have this Korg AX100g processor that allows me to do so. Of course, I'd love an amp like the one in the picture above; the kind that will give the neighbours hell.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

My new Poinsettia


The new Poinsettia with the other plants on my windowsill. The Hyacinth on the left also flowers with beautiful bluish-purple flowers once in a while.

My friend Poonam gifted me this plant a few days ago. Its called a Poinsettia and belongs to the Euphorbia family. It has bright red leaves which look even brighter when lit from behind. It reminds me of the beautiful bright red tree from The Ring (2002, Dreamworks SKG).
The tree in the film is the Japanese Maple, whose fruit is called Samara. Incidentally Samarra is also my niece's name. The tree they used in the movie though was apparently fake, made with metal and plaster. The leaves were made of painted silk.
Credits for identifying the plant (and the Carpenter bee below) go to my Mom.

Desperately seeking someone

The girl I'd asked to act for me in my film backed out last minute. I can't really blame her, since she's bogged down with a ton of work of her own. The thing is that the sequence for which I needed her was actually based on a conversation I had with her. It would have been a the most natural thing. Now I have to look for someone else. The easiest thing would be to ask one of my friends on campus to act for me.

It would be nice to have someone with some real acting experience to work with. Anyone?

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Carpenter Bee rescue


I swim every day at the swimming pool on campus. As the summers approach the pool seems to be only getting more crowded. Somewhere around my 12th lap I swam into a big Carpenter Bee (quite like the one above). I assumed he'd already drowned by the time I caught sight of him. On my return lap though I saw his (or her) legs flailing around helplessly in the water. So I swam up to him (or her) and picked him up with my swimming goggles (which in case you were wondering, were in my hands and not on my face) and dropped him off on the side of the pool. A big heavy hairy bee that was.

Incidentally, the last sequence of my animated short for this sem takes place in the pool. I've spent a good portion of the day figuring out how I'm going to go about creating and animating the pool. I'll upload images from it as soon as I put them together. I'm not sure if this is going to get seen at all by many people, but I'm sure its for the best.

Music recommendation of the day: Through, by Edith Pijpers. I caught a few songs by her off the Zerophilia (2005, Microangelo Entertainment LLC & Scrambled Eggs Productions) Soundtrack. If you're into retro and have an inclination towards 80's music, you might just like this. She's got a touch of early Sinéad O'Connor, Heather Nova and Sarah MacLachlan in her voice and music. Worth a listen. She hasn't got a Wikipedia entry yet though.

I think this point size of text is much better. Its more readable. Readability wins.


Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The Great Deluge: Day one Post one


After a lot of people suggested/coaxed/insisted I start off a blog of my own, I finally decided to go ahead and actually do it. The image is from an animated short I made last sem here at IDC, IITb. Its called The Great Deluge. Its loosely based on the few months I stayed at this insane house at Lokhandwala in Andheri. The house (which was a little shoebox of a house; probably an illegal construction on someone's terrace) used to soak water like a sponge during the Monsoons and the false ceiling used to bend and buckle with the weight of the water that would seep through the porously tiled roof.