Someone has made it big?

It looks like our wedding Videographer has finally made it big in the movie industry!

Watched the latest Ajith movie yesterday and it did not impress me. Yes, it is impressive that Ajith (who is a mainstream hero with probably 3 hits out of 50 films that you can name off the top of your head) decided to play an anti hero role in his 50th movie! That still doesn't make the movie good or different.

There are lot many movies today that are more experimental than this one which are not getting the same hype! Most of the scenes that got claps are copies from other movies, even the song in the background score with the movie title sounds like a rip from Kaminey!

Anyways, it is very difficult for someone like me who has seen way too many movies and remembers things to appreciate "imported" scenes in Tamil movies. If you have seen Angelina Jolie pull James McAvoy into a car as she spins it towards him, it is difficult to appreciate Arjun doing the same thing and clap.

Folks who have not seen "Wanted" will jump up and clap. Again, this post meanders into a movie critique. That was not the intent..

There is one song in this movie, which is a take off from a beer commercial where everything except the people builds itself (the walls, furniture , etc. ) in some kind of self assembly format. The focus is so much on the special effects that you miss the song, the actors and everything else.

Classic case of overdoing a special effect.. kind of like our wedding video!

Ajith multiples in much the same fashion I did in our wedding video! That leaves us to the inescapable conclusion...

Wedding videographers, keep practicing your special effects and one day you too can make it big in the movies!

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Drumrolls please..

A sample video with the Canon EOS 5D Mark ii shot with the overhead W light..

The high speed memory card is in the mail, so right now the video resolution is 640x480

You can see the quality is a range apart in low light conditions compared to typical camcorders.

Here is another video of Jr. saying a prayer. Note the bokeh effect of the lights that you only get with high end movie cameras.. Jr. tried to say it fast because she figured out the movie stopped recording after 3-4 seconds . the data buffer gets full on a 2 GB 40x card within 3 seconds. The one in the mail is a 32GB 400x card. The GB is not the issue, the 40x vs 400x is! For those of you with HD capable T2i's it is a good idea to go for fast write speed cards!

Imagine what this could do to improve wedding coverage in India? No hot lamps to light up the groom and bride.. only high ISO!

Will post a HD quality video shot in the night or indoor light next week.

Until then...

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Trailers, websites and south Indian weddings

Over the last few years, have you noticed how every movie that is releasing, has a website and some kind of yahoo or gmail address?

Today the BIL sent a copy of his wedding invitation and what surprised me the most?

There was an official wedding email address on the invitation!!!

The world has come a long long way, from the days where the wedding invitation would say GRAMS : PANDIYA or some such identifier for people to send their wishes through a TELEGRAM, directly to the wedding hall! Even as late as ten years ago, our wedding invitation had such a GRAMS thing!

Today it is www.thesimpsonsmovie.com or thesimpsonsmovie@gmail.com for a movie, and

sundarwedssangeetha@gmail.com !! for a wedding invitation!

Going to suggest to the BIL that he and the would be start a website along similar lines for their wedding and leave it kind of open source for people to post pictures, comments, etc. etc..

Come to think of it, there are actually some nice applications to such a website. All random junta who take cell phone photos and videos at the wedding during the "thaali tying" ceremony can post their videos and photos into this site!

In case the official videographers are all over the place shining their bright handheld lights on the bride, brides dad, groom and surrounding relatives, then screw up, and don't get the 30 seconds of action right, some random audience cell phone or relatives handheld camcorder might have done a better job!

Have you ever wondered why in the odd photo, where you can clearly see the grooms face as he is tying the knot, he has a painful expression on his face? It has nothing to do with the woman he is marrying or marriage. It is literally a look of pain! Chances are the hair on his bare back have started burning thanks to the powerful filament bulb the lightboy is shining, a little too close for the grooms comfort!

We have seen our own wedding video, ONCE! We were shrunk into a small circle covering approximately 1/9th of the screen in an inset, during the 30 critical seconds, and the background of the video suddenly showed the temple towers of Thirupathi and the soundtrack switched from the priest uttering "maaangalyam ...." to "rakkamaaaaa kayya thattu"..

I kid you not. Obviously a lot of bluescreen work and video editing technology, went into that masterpiece. One possible explanation for this is my re-creation of what must have possibly conversed between the video dude (abbreviated to VD in this post! yeah.. that was intended.. I have not forgiven him yet!) and my dad, prior to the wedding:

Dad : Nalla video eduppia pa? (will you take a good video?)

VD : Dont worry Saar. Asaththiduvom ! (we will excel!)

Dad : Mootha payyanoda ore kalyaanam pa.. . (my eldest sons only wedding...) Make sure the video quality is good.

VD : Saar, Sridevi Kalyanaththukku naan dhan saar Stills potten! (I did the stills for actress Sridevi's wedding)

Dad : Enna pa.. wedding photova still'nu sollare!

VD : Film industryla neriya velai panni irukken sir. ( I have a lot of experience in the film industry). That is why I use the terms interchangeably.

Dad : Okay! (possibly launched into his "what is in it for you..." pitch). Will give you the contract for the wedding video. Do a good job and I will recommend you to all the people I know. There are going to be over a 1000 people at the wedding. Lots of eyes on you and your team.

Your work should speak for itself. If people see the good work you do, more people will ask for your business card.. by the way, why don't you give me a few of your cards, so I can recommend you in advance to some other friends whose kids are getting married.

VD : (possible big grin.. I am imagining this of course)Yes Sir. Definitely Saar. Sure Sir. I will make sure the video speaks for itself..

And thus spake VD's Video! The guy thought our wedding video was going to be his resume!

So he pretty much exhausted every menu option on his WedVidSoft Ver. 2.0, within a 90 minute video clip!

First he zooms in on San's face, then by magic, she splits into two, then four, then eight, then sixteen and eventually when we have 65536 San's at a pixel level, and two things start to happen..

a. The eighth graders in the wedding hall watching this feed on the TV monitors on the other end of the reception hall went "Now, that is what the math teacher was trying to tell us about last week in Geometric Progression.. If only I had seen this video yesterday, I could have aced that math test!".

b. The amoeba in the coffee and cooler spills on the floor next to us are going "What the heck!!! No one multiplies faster than us.. NO ONE! These two aren't even married yet and look at them divide on the screen.. God! What will happen after they are married? No one will use as an example of reproductive prowess, in biology textbooks!"

That is when the video goes "cut.. cut.. cut.." and I start to replicate myself on the screen while a frozen San watches.

We zoom in from the left, right, top, bottom, fade into each other, we have vertical and horizontal blinds that come and go only to reveal me change to her and her change to me as the blinds shift, we spiral into the screen as though we are already dizzy after a few hours of marriage, and the list goes on. In short it is an endless fun of various moviemaker options for 10 mintues straight. By this time anyone watching the video (other than us) will be in splits, laughing.

This is followed by me zooming into a freeze frame on an oval shaped inset as I watch San smile and do all kinds of video tricks, which is promptly followed by San looking down on me (yeah, it started right there) as I do cheap tricks that include but are not limited to, me looking circular, elliptical as well as linearly polarized, having a star filter around me, a central me with five mini me's orbiting around the central me(all with star light patterns), etc. You get the picture by now?

All this within the wedding reception! The actual wedding part is of course a combination of "Innerspace", "Star Wars" and "The Blair Witch project".

The camera zooms into the mouth of the yawning guests, clearly revealing the lunch menu on the big screen, so others can be motivated to get in line for the next "pandhi". This is followed by the camera doing a rolling move alongside the dining table with the food served and ready. For some strange reason, the cameras lateral movement close to the table reminds you of the title captions on the Star Wars movie!

The rest of the video can easily put "the blair witch project" to shame. Maybe they got the idea for that movie only after seeing bootleg copies of our wedding video, err, our videographers resume!

Now where was I? Wedding websites, in case the videographer screws up....

A post that started as an altruistic freelance advice to the BIL and his would be, ends up becoming a description of our wedding video. Tsk, Tsk! Deep are the wounds from the one time viewing of that fateful VCD!

It is now time to let the BIL and BILie, write their own video saga!

ps. I will be there with my own camera phone, camera, camcorder, etc. etc. to witness the event, just in case the....

pps. My dear BIL, not to worry. The material scientist in me is going to bring a flame retardant spary for your back, to protect you from filament lamps, as you tie the knot! I got you covered.