Competitions are just another kind of cinema

I am a huge fan, no a frantic a fanatic or whatever u call, of tamil cinema from my childhood. I love to watch movies and during my early teens I used to think myself as the hero of the movie, how will it be to bash the goons, have a big opening, be more charismatic and so on. Max extent I went in that dream is I acted in a major role in two skits during my college and of course I directed it, who else will give the lead role to me.

I used to wonder when heroes get all the attention and fan following, why these directors slog behind the cameras. One reason could be they are not good looking, but neither are some of the current heroes. But yes, there is also some pleasure in creating a product. Handling or Supervising story, screenplay, music, editing, camera and so on is real fun. I loved to do them when I happen to be part of video making recently.

But making videos or films is not my job and can pursue it only as hobby. In the hectic schedule of b schools, even when some necessity things are skipped, how to pursue a hobby?

Today morning I thought isn’t submitting entries for a competition more like releasing a film. I have been recently participating and submitting entries for few competitions and I feel (though in retrospect) that it is like being a director. I couldn’t be a film director, but if I can compare that to what I do daily, then at least it would be like I am doing what I like or admired more. So here are my opinions on how competitions are just another woods industry

1. You are the first fan of your product: In a recent interview by a celeb, he said that they want all movies to be successful and only after getting fully satisfied with the product, they release a movie. It is same in competitions too. First you should like what you are going to submit and you should be fully satisfied with your submission. There should be a sense of feel that yes our product is good.

2. Success or failure depends on X factors: Sometimes I have wondered why some great movies were not successful. Yes there are lot of different factors like tough competitions and other mysterious factors which are not under your control. So don’t worry much about the result, after all there is no producer here and no one would go bankrupt if you lose. Having said that, it is not easy to practice.

3. Be a critic of yourself: Again many celebs have said that after watching the film they thought few scenes could have been better. Even after a competition you feel in the same way. Being fully satisfied before releasing the product doesn’t mean fully satisfied even after releasing the product. There will be lot of feedbacks and analyze where u went wrong.

4. Competitions are Masala films: Competitions are not art film. You have great content, but just write it in paragraphs and make presentation. There is a high chance that you will not be selected. We need item dancers in the form of smart arts, 3 dimensional charts, mind boggling numbers and glittering fonts.

5. Release date is fixed: In cinemas no one would come and force you to release a film on a fixed date. Unfortunately in competitions, submissions deadlines are there and your bad luck after sending your submissions, deadline will be extended.

6. Creative and innovative: Last but not the least (this is to say that I am running out of ideas and I am ending this blog with this para), you have to come up with new story lines, new scenes. If you make film with same scene which has come before (though it happens in most commercial movies) people may not like it. Here also they want creative, innovative, out of the box every time and please someone tell me how to get such ideas. After thinking for two full days for a B-plan, I just emptied few chips packet and biscuits and I couldn’t even get started. I have to recently take a presentation on ‘creativity is a skill that can be developed and not a talent that is innate’. Throughout making the presentation, I was telling to myself, why are you lying so much Vadivel.

Analyzing the problem and thinking of logical solutions comes to me I guess rather than these jargon solutions. On the whole, I love to be a part of these competitions, winning or losing doesn’t really matter.

It's not about the sleep anymore

It’s not about the sleep anymore!

- An IITian shares his first two weeks of experience at the campus

Prologue: Ha ha. Doesn’t the tagline look like the ones in national best sellers?

Do IIT’s offer MBA? Not again I thought. To how many more of my relatives and friends should I be repeating the same slogan again? Should I be happy that most of them knew the college where I am going to pursue my MBA or sad that they don’t know IIT’s offer MBA? Hundreds of thoughts darted through my head before joining IIT Delhi. No, hundred is not an exaggeration. Though I didn’t count I am sure the count would have exceeded.

I have lot of nightmare points in my list about joining IIT Delhi. But to be optimistic, I mostly pushed them to some corner of my brain. I am going to be part of an institute which is world famous for its technical potential and a part of an institute, about which lots of novels and movies are made. Thanks to Chetan Bagat, Amir Khan and Tushar Raheja, I do know about DISCO and more such stuff before joining here.

Sometimes my thoughts will not listen to me and pop out the nightmare points, time and again…Hmmm No, it doesn’t listen to me most of the time. First point on the list is sleepless nights. This is not about IIT Delhi, this is about pursuing MBA itself. When some of my MBA friends told that they sleep 4 hours a day, I thought they must be kidding. I didn’t know at that time that there will be lot of ankurs, sarthaks, aneeshs and sanjeevs in all b-schools awaiting to open the gates of whatever you may call in the name of induction program and they will ensure that you burn your midnight oil till it gets drained.

First nine days of unimaginable happiness. For those, who are still blinking like the tube light in my room, ofcourse I am sarcastic here. One day I wanted to shout ‘Happy like Hell! Happy like Hell!’. The reason being I went to bed at 2 am in the morning. As a punishment, I missed by laptop charger and had to pay a hefty price is a separate sad story.

Assignments knock your door after ghosts go to sleep and you have to submit it well before the roosters wake up. Reading room is as busy as an opening show of a rajni movie all through the night. Even with little work, I can be a topper, I thought. Come on, Vadivel… This is not Thanjavur… Toppers from all over the nation have clogged here. How much ever you slog there will be half the number of class who do it better than you.

There was a model interview on the last but one day of the induction. In feedback, seniors told interview went very well. I could see angels flying along with me amongst the clouds. After a pause seniors continued ‘if we had come for a software engineer interview’. Back to ground again. Lack of reading Hindu or bitter pills as I call them, began to show. How many times had I ignored my dad’s friendly advice to read Hindu. Actually I didn’t ignore it completely. I did read the headlines of sports page. Today ET has to be eaten and digested. What should be done after that? Lot of names and numbers would bemuse you and make you score an egg in the daily ET Test.

People here have forgotten the shape of television. My mom said someone has been eliminated in the reality show ‘Super singer’. Now I remember television existed in my life few weeks back. I pity my roomie. Big follower of rock music has got one who doesn’t know abc of that genre of music as his roomie. Poor guy, he was into music more than 12 hours a day it seems. He brought his guitar, amplifiers, woofers and lot more. Now all of them are full of dust. He has his share of fun by pulling my legs.

Why do we have potatoes 3 times a day and 7 day a week? I asked my friend. He curtly replied ‘Welcome to North India’. When am I going to have the kothu parotta, pongal, idiyappam and lot more of those dishes. But having said that Mess here offers nutritious food which is good for health. So not much concerns in this part.

Street Selling, Market Survey, Poster Designing, Business write up – tried my hands in lot of new things. Of course I was forced to. But I am not bad. I am quite happy with my works so far though it has to scale its height many folds to compete with my peers. How much time had I wasted in learning Hindi before coming here? I could have chilled out a bit more rather than going through those books. Believe me ‘kurchi per baitiye’, ‘ jameen per math baitiye’ stuff don’t work at all. Learn it by just listening others.

My facebook status tells ‘Vadivel lives in Delhi’. I seriously doubt. I have never crossed the campus gates so far. I should change it to ‘Vadivel Lives in IIT’

I want to talk to my close friends. But no time. I heard someone saying only those who cannot manage time will say that there is no time. May be he should be asked to study an MBA. I am feeling sleepy. Let me not bore you and me anymore.

Oh… I thought of jotting down the events and nightmares point wise. But I couldn’t find anything more than the first point above. I was lost somewhere in the middle. Didn’t I tell you my thoughts won’t listen to me…

Now I am going to my office without id card, playing with the little kid outside my home… snap...oh sorry.. I am already in my dreams… good night…

Epilogue: Thanks to seniors for giving assignments in new forms like writing a blog J. Thanks to Pranav for suggesting the title. I am really bad at it. Miss you venkat ramakrishnan, who usually does the proofreading and editing of my articles. So this article comes without editing. Forgive me if there are errors.

Manmathan ambu strikes heart...

Manmadhan Ambu is overall a nice film to watch for all kinds of people. One can really enjoy a movie when ulaga nayagan is a part of it and it is once again proved in this movie. From his intro with the song ‘who is the hero?’ starts the game. Agility that he showed in the first fight sequence is simply amazing. I just wanted to scream ‘I am a big fan of kamal and I am proud to be so.Undoubtedly kamal is the master of cinema’. Since everyone was involved in the film, I didn’t want to disturb them with any such noises.

Kamal need not do anything special, just watching himself is a pleasure. I was little unsatisfied with the first part for the only reason that kamal had little screen space in the first half and his dialogues are less. Nevertheless first half is gripping in its screenplay. One of my friend said ‘I would give a five star rating for the first half and a three star rating for the second half’. May be I would also go with him.

Madhavan has done a neat job. He has proved his acting mettle once again. His character has little grey shades in this film. Though I was little unhappy for that, later he compensated it by his beautiful portrayal of a rich businessman who is always drunk. I think finding a replacement for his character would be tough. His dialogue delivery and acting as bacchanalian in the second half is especially humorous.

Trisha is awesome in this movie. I think it will help her to retain the good name she had earned in vtv. She had played her role itself. She comes as a actress in the film and her portrayals are so realistic in few scenes. Her own voice is a real surprise and lends credibility to the movie.

Sangeetha has done a fine job of playing Trisha’s school friend and a mother of two. Her acting is intriguing and her acting potential has come to the fore once again after pithamagan. She fits the role to a T.

This completes the four lead characters in the movie. All of them have done their job well and the film can be watched one time for each one of them.

Coming to the story, rich businessman Mathan(Madhavan) and ambujam(Trisha) are in love. There is some difference of opinion between them. So they are separate for some time. Trisha goes on a holiday trip with her school friend Sangeetha and sangeetha’s children. Major Raja mannaru (Kamal) is sent as a spy by madhavan to notice Trisha’s activities. Kamal accepts to do it for the sake of his friend Ramesh arvind who is suffering from cancer. As he needs huge money for the operation, kamal accepts this and what happens next forms the rest of the movie. The film definitely has few surprises.

Songs are okay kind. No song lingers in your memory after you leave the theater. This is a slight disadvantage. ‘Neela vanam’ song is beautifully choreographed. The whole song runs in a reverse mode. This is already tried in a song in anjathe. Nevertheless it is still intriguing here. This song also tell the whole flash back of kamal which is also new. A theme song for which foreign dancers perform in the ship is just a visual treat. But still DSP should concentrate on producing more melodious numbers in future.

Heroine of kalavani plays a cameo role. Though she has nothing to perform much, being in a kamal film in just her second outing is by itself an honor for her.

We refer item dancers to heroines who come and dance for a song. In this film a hero does the role of item dancer. Yes, Surya has danced for almost one complete song in this film. Even we could also hear jyothika and diya’s voice. My second most favorite hero plays a cameo role in my most favorite hero’s film. Doesn’t it riveting?

Coming to dialogues, Kamal has handled it well. He shows some instances of crazy mohan’s dialogues. This is a film with lot of healthy humor based on word play. So dialogues plays a very vital role and kamal has once again proved he is a king of all trades, atleast with respect to cinema. There are lots and lots of fabulous dialogues and mentioning few is not just. Watch the movie to know it. I liked the dialogues like when madhavan says bajji is fantastic, the girl replies I only made it, immediately comes the repartee from madhavan ‘so what? I will not change it. It is fantastic…’. Another scene where madhavan asks trisha abot the interconnecting door between hero and heroine’s room in shooting caravan, she replies ‘it is for the reason why you have zip in your pant and button in my blouse. It is just for convenience and not to show off’. Reason which trisha says why she speaks more English in her films. There are lots of such intriguing dialogues.

Coming to screenplay writer, kamal could have made it another classic like anbe sivan. He wanted to have all genres in this film and he also succeeds in it. This film has humor, love, sentiments and much more. So somewhere a potential for class movie was slightly degraded to masala movie. Note the point, only slightly. I especially disliked the last part where people interchange doing different roles to deceive madhavan. We have scene lot of such scenes in kadhala kadhala, sathi leelavathi. Personally I don’t have proclivity towards such scenes. It is purely a subjective opinion. It might differ from person to person. But definitely story and screenplay of this movie is closer to some of his his best flicks.

I just wanted to know the list of films scripted by kamal. I searched wiki and I am giving the list here: Raja parvai(1981), Apoorva sagotharargal (1989), Michael madhana kama rajan(1990), Thevar Magan (1992), Mahanadi(1994), Nammavar(1994), chachi 420(1998), kathala kathala(1998), Hey Ram(2000), Alavandhan(2000), Anbe sivam(2003), nala thamayanthi(2003), Mumbai express(2005), Dasavatharam(2008) and Manmathan ambu (2010).

I had little contempt for scriptwriter kamal for dasavatharam, Mumbai express, alavandan, hey ram,etc. But now I had changed my mind. Some of my favorite films like

Thevar magan, apoorva sagotharargal, kathala kathala, anbe sivam, nala thamayanthi had also been scripted by kamal. Manmathu ambu adds to the list.

Coming back to the movie, direction by KSR. In kamal’s film there is a tendency to forget the director. That too in this film kamal fires in all cylinders as a sory writer, screenplay writer, dialogue writer, lyrics. Nevertheless no complaints. Thanks to ksr for producing another good film. Manmathan ambu is not a film which will linger in your memory even few days after watching the film(like madrasa pattinam, VTV, anbe sivam). It is not that genre. Catch up the movie with your favorite buddies, have fun and enjoy the performances.

I would also like to go with kb sir and request kamal to give us more films in a year. We want to see more of him. For film goers it is difficult to see this legend often in screen. He just gives a film a year unlike 20 films a year which he was doing two decades ago. So use the opportunity which he gives us. Not only for kamal, beautiful lady from tamil nadu- trisha is around, enjoyable performances from madhavan and sangeetha, so for what are you waiting more. Have you booked the tickets?

Fuzzball.2.1.0

Snipers - Remix -1.1

Madrasapattinam - Review

Madrasapattinam – Watch it twice for Amy

What a movie sir ji ! Undoubtedly one of the best movies I have seen in the recent past. I can call it as Titanic of Tamil – equal to Titanic in both making and feel. It also had few touches from titanic in screenplay department.

Main Reason why I love this film is Amy Jackson. What a ravishing beauty! She looked like a princess straight out of a fairy tale. She redefined my notion that only South Indian girls are beautiful. When she says ‘maranthuttiya’ to Arya and when the bgm starts, I felt like someone has proposed to me-such is the impact of that scene. Amy’s Tamil is interesting.

Storyline: An old granny comes to India to see her x lover and wanted to give a chain that belonged to him. Story then jumps to mid 1940’s and flashback starts rolling. Amy Wilkinson (Amy Jackson) daughter of India’s then governor was allured by a washerman Parithi (Arya). How love blossomed between them, what happened next and did the granny returned the chain is said in a very interesting way.

Initial scenes of the film resembled like a British film with lot of British people and foreign locales. Soon the movie shifts from London to madrasapattinam and we are slowly taken into a saga of beautiful love. An old lady reminiscing about her lover, still having the chain given by him and the climax lake scene remind us of Titanic. Kusthi scene with the police officer reminds us of ‘Lagaan’.

Dialogues like “We are beating them after 200 years” bring the writer to lime light. Dialogues about Netaji and Kamarajar add credibility to the movie.

Arya is rocking these days. All of his recent films like Naan kadavul, Sarvam, Madrasapattinam are watch worthy. An Engineering student after finishing his graduation entered modeling and then cinema and now he is one of the leading stars in tamil film industry. This film has lot of dialogues in English and half of the film runs in subtitles.

I feel many heroes will fear to accept a role like parithi because they doubt the box office success of the movie especially in C centers. But after seeing the film, most of the heroes will yearn for roles like parithi. Special appreciation to Arya for the guts to take up the role. One more film which had lot of dialogues in other language is ‘Hey Ram’ which was not received well by the audience. The viewers found it difficult to comprehend the movie. This is not the case with madrasapattinam, even if they cannot understand the language; they can definitely understand the undercurrent feeling.

Good show by Nasser. He is one of the great actors who can portray any kind of role. He has fit into the role of ayya kannu ( kusthi master) perfectly. His demeanor is also changed a little to suit the role that it is even difficult to identify him in posters.

Music by G.V is fantastic. I was a fan of ‘Vamma duraiamma’ Song even before going to the movie. Witty lines by Late Haneefa in between the song make it more impressive. One song I loved while watching the film is ‘pookal pookum’ especially the starting music. Now it is the ring tone and dialer tone of many. Bgm is nice and if he continues producing good songs like this, he can definitely top the composers table currently held by Yuvan and Harris.

Special applause to art director and costume designer. When it is difficult to set the back drop of movie 20 years ago, shooting a period film set up in 1940’s is definitely a huge challenging task. With 80% of the film set up in 1940’s, Art director should have really burnt his midnight oil for the film and has come out in flying colors. Bridges, River, Church, Railway station, Amy’s house and lot more are wonderfully created.

Director should have really thought a lot to write a screenplay for love between two person who cannot understand each other’s language. But this idea had made the film intriguing and audience come to see how the director has done this. Communication through clothes and how it was misused later are well written scenes. The scenes where Arya and his friends go to thank Amy tickle your funny bone.

Thanks to director Vijay for giving us such a beautiful film. Narrating a love story is easy but making it appealing to the audience requires screen magic. That magic was wonderfully created by this madrasapattinam crew – Director Vijay, Arya, Amy, G.V.Prakash, Neerav shah along with art director and costume designer.

Love is a great feeling – it makes people go mad about it and make them do anything for it. If you had already experienced one such feel, watch this movie to understand the greatness of that feeling. If you had not yet experienced such feeling, then watch this movie to know how much you have missed in your life so far. A cute princess is waiting to mesmerize you all and make you glued to her through out the movie. After the movie, everyone may yearn for such love or such lover. The crew of the film has tried to show a pure love on screen and guys don’t miss this Tamil Titanic.

Dance_After_Three_Years

Finally After 3 years I had a chance to dance again. It was during my third year in college that I danced before. I was wondering if I would ever dance in my life again. Thanks to Bala(Centre guy in the photo) for making that happen. I can dance but choreography is a complete skill in which I am still an amateur. I need some one to tell me the dance steps, After that may be I can remember them and dance to my best. For my college performances there were great choreographers like manivannan, N.Karthikeyan's friend in Thirumangalam and few more. It is because of them that I got chance to dance in college and now it is because of Bala that I have got this opportunity to dance in office.

Only dance I did without choreographer was for our acumen third year group dance. Myself, Vijay, Rajagopal and Suganth danced . We looked at the video song and copied the dance steps for vallavan song. We also danced for a MJ song and we cant copy the dance step for that, as we were no where near to MJ. So I choreographed that song. That is the first time i tried my hands at choreography. It was full of very simple steps and it will look some what like exercise, if you want to call it technically - break movements, robotic movements. Though they were simple steps and as there were not much competition from other teams our dance group won the first prize. One of the other major contributing factor for it is the scintillating performance by sugu and karthee. Any how my first choreography had fetched me first prize directly or indirectly. You would have thought for getting a prize inside college and within the department , I am creating more scene , it is not like that, I value that prize more considering the fact that is just my third performance on stage. By now I have close to seven on stage performance to my kitty.
The performance which I value most is Third year inter department dance competition wherein we won the third prize. Even now if someone comes to my house, first thing I would ask them if they want to see some dance and show them that close to ten minute dance performance performed by nine of us.

And now, This performance in my office have also become close to my heart. First , it raised the eyebrows of few and others were shocked , no no surprised to see me dancing. However I got a lot of good response from my colleagues and I am happy about that. Myself, Bala and shiju danced for this 7 min fusion of five songs. Bala choreographed for four songs and I choreographed one. Yeah, I tried my hands in choreography for the second time in my life. During our rehearsal, One of my colleague informed me that enthiran songs are released and one song chutti chutti Robo (Robo da) song is very fast and super. I heard the song and tried few steps like Robot. Bala said they are good and asked me to compose for some 1.5 min. That's how I had a chance to choreograph again.

If you can notice one resemblance between both the songs I choreographed(MJ song and Enthiran), I would have used only robotic movements. It needs little flexibility, they look like kinder garden exercises and any person can do it easily. As I myself am not a flexibile dancer, I can only choreograph this way. After the dance, there was showering accolades for Bala . I cannot forget to mention here that he is an amazing dancer far better than me. In the rain of praises to Bala, I also got wet in Bits and Pieces.

Oh, what a bragging post. I just started reminiscing all my dance experiences and I hope i had not blown my trumpet so much...