The pursuit of contentment

In the words of Alfred Pennyworth ‘Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.’ This rings true for every time we mess up, get rejected or even when circumatances outside of our control makes us fail at something or fail someone.
Every obstacle is a learning opportunity but we sometimes get so jaded and cynical that, in our resilience, we just push through, forgetting to stop and recenter ourselves and being mindful of why/how that obstacle was there to overcome.
How do we learn if we just keep moving forward? And how do we move forward if we keep having to stop and learn?
Happiness as a concept is abstract, as a feeling its fleeting. Can we always be happy? I’d venture no, we have moments of happiness, an event, a person, an act of kindness can make us happy for a moment but we don’t remain elated, that isn’t possible and clinging on to that moment may even potentially stop us from further moments of happiness.
How about being content? Being content as a default setting is a much more realistic endeavour. We can be content in life and have fleeting moments of happiness mixed in with fleeting moments of sadness, all necessary and healthy ingredients to life’s delicious recipe of zanyness.
We all have goals, short, medium, long term that we would like to fulfill, things that would ostensibly make us ‘happy’ but the pursuit of happiness can leave us blind as to what we already have.
Be content with what you have, strive to do more, to better your station in life but remember that you are already in a better position than you were before. Be good to yourself for what you have already given yourself and be grateful to those who have contributed to it.
Didn’t think I’d ever write such a short post and still think I could illustrate my point better but its 2 a.m, I wrote a post after months of silence so I pat myself on the back and say Jolly Good!

Hoo boy! Its been a while.

Where to begin? Its been practically two years since my last post. I’ve clearly been busy with personal and professional ‘things’. I joined a meetup group called lets make a scene last year and participated in a number of fun short films, I even got to act in a couple of them, granted I was typecast as ‘Thug #1’ but I liked it and made plenty of friends along the way. Some have gone on to make some amazing shorts, others realised that filmmaking wasn’t for them. We all got something out of it. Thank you Mandana for running a tight ship!

The group was on hiatus for a short while but has now started back up with a new leader at the helm, I haven’t attended any sessions yet but I hope to do so soon. You can check out the group here: http://www.meetup.com/LetsMakeASceneLondon/

Or have a look at our past films on vimeo: https://vimeo.com/groups/266496/videos/136675324

I also had a small part in a Tinder related short from the West London Film Group, it felt good to act again. I produced a short comedy written by Chris Waller: Counsellor(s) a few weeks back which is now in the editing stage (set photos embedded). I cannot wait to share that one with the world, Chris is very talented and I look forward to reading his future scripts. The team got along very well and we all hope to work together again soon. Thank you Chris, Richard, Ranmal, Tugba, Ed & Ed for a great shoot!

A la prochaine, les amies…

Remember Hopscotch?

In last year’s creative collaboration post, I mentionned Old Mauritia. I have since worked on a short video with them and that has given me a reason to dust off the camera. I tried my hand at a different kind of filmmaking: Visual comedy.

This term bring to mind Charlie Chaplin, Benny Hill & many other classics. This often dialogue-less form of entertainment is the hardest to pull off in my opinion as with a reduced amount of words, I find it hard to convey meaning and comedy across. When I started on the script, I felt very much out of my comfort zone and after a number of attemps, I decided to only write an outline and to wing it on the day of filming.

I would never recommend winging it at all when it comes to filmmaking but old habits die hard. Turns out that improvising the scenes and character actions worked much better in this case than what I had attempted to write. The shoot was done at short notice (read 1 day notice), therefore we didn’t have much time to find actors so I put myself in it alongside Goolshun, the founder of Old Mauritia.

I would also never recommend directing and acting at the same time because the last time I tried this (my first attempt at filmmaking) ended up in abject failure in terms of delivering a decent film. Although a lot was learned from that project. I brought my tripod, setup the camera and started filming from a shot list that was mostly in my head. Credit to Goolshun for putting up with my dictatorial directing style and my budding staging skills. I would have strangled me if I was working with me…

Early on in the brainstorming process, we decided it was going to be a mix between thriller, comedy & musical. It turned out to be a riff on all three. My days as a Tenor in my college choir are well behind me so I resolved to do a dance only number rather than singing. A decision very well received by Goolshun. I picked a Salman Khan dance video (Dhinka Chika) from the film ‘Ready’ and put us through the paces of learning a choreography that neither had seen before. We shot the dance part at the end of the day and were running out of sunlight very fast. I am not-doing-that-again (he says…again).

We think it turned out pretty well but you, our audience will either confirm/deny that. Please do watch it with your mates and let us know what you all think!

Adults & Videogames

I wrote this post 3 years ago but never got round to publishing it, I found the draft while going through my music folder. I find my writing style to have been a little juvenile and passive aggressive at the time but I thought best to post this as it was written then without any corrections. Please note that some of the figures below are now out of date.

“I’m writting this piece so I can express my bewilderment as to the general public’s ignorance in regards to modern videogames and the people who play them.

As a proud console owner, I sometimes feel that adult gamers are often the subject of ridicule due to their purportedly childish hobby. Those jokes often come from people who haven’t touched a console since they were what? 12?!

Lets start with a couple of facts about the gaming industry:

• The commercial videogame industry has been around for close to 40 years.

• The global industry is worth £35+ billion pounds.

• The industry directly provides 32000 jobs in the US alone and a lot more in peripheral companies.

The industry has yearly trade shows like TGS and E3 where gaming journalists (yes these are journalists that report on games similar to those that report on films).

The ‘playstation generation’ as we are sometimes referred to, has grown up in parallel with the growth and maturity of the games industry. I started in the late 80s playing on my dad’s Amstrad PC. Graphics weren’t much but gameplay was solid on games like Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon. I moved up to the Atari console which had many more games and then onto the MegaDrive where I was introduced to Street Fighter. When the 16-bit era started, SOnic the hedgehog and other staples of the videogame industry were born. The games were targeted to gamers under 18 as they likely were the only generation that had grown up playing the earlier videogames, therefore it was assumed that only they would be interested in the industry.

Lets not forget though that the games were being developed by adults for big companies and those adults had probably not played many if any video games during their youth simply because they didnt exist at the time. Mortal Kombat was released in arcades and afterwards ported onto consoles. MK was definitely not a kids’ game and featured violence and gore in a very surreal way but this gave us gamers an insight into the future of gaming as we journeyed into adult life. As violence became mainstream thanks to movie franchises like lethal weapon, Terminator, Die Hard, Predator, it became acceptable to have violence in videogames as long as they were properly labelled. This was another phase of videogames maturing with the gamers and the society around them.

A few years later came the Playstation, fathered by Ken Kuturagi. The console was groundbreaking in terms of technical ability giving developers the possibility to build interactive 3D worlds for gamers to do battle in. Videogame realism further improved giving opportunities for games to try and emulate the special effects found in movies. The improved memory capabilities of Compact discs also allowed for better story telling in games. As gamers were getting older and more educated, their tastes were changing and growing progressively. They didnt just want to shoot monsters, they wanted a reason to shoot the monsters, they wanted to know their character’s backstory so they can relate to them. They wanted believable enemies so they could understand why they had to shoot them. The playstation has sold 102 million units worldwide since its release.

Gamers and developers of every calibre embraced the console and the industry giving rise to developers who would specialise in certain genres of games, some would specialise on a specific franchise and others on specific gamer age groups.

The original amstrad PC gamers were now in their early 20s and going into the employement world (to which many a gamer was to be lost and never recovered). Those who did stick to the hobby, used their hard earned cash to purchase consoles and games. With the advent of the internet, gamer communities were created around forums, people sharing walkthroughs, writing reviews and creating mods for PC games. The advent of the Playstation also brought in better FMV (full motion video) support, CD music and VCD playback, bringing games a tad closer to the movie entertainment industry. Games now had intricate plots, characterisations, voice acting, drama (see: Metal Gear Solid).

The latter elements of a game were created not just because the technology allowed for it but also due to the demand from older gamers for…well ‘older gamer oriented games’. We wanted stories that would rival the ones we read/watch on television, special effects that would rival Sci-fi blockbusters  and characters/worlds that would be easily recognisable as a brand just like other parts of our life was similarly branded: NIKE, NISSAN, SONY, NOKIA etc.

Gaming was always part of pop culture but it has now become even more prominent and dare I say …mainstream.

If you’re curious about this hobby, please ask a friend who has a console to help you play one of their favorite games and ask them why they like it so much. You never know, you may have a hidden talent at a particular game!

Rambles about depression

We’ve all suffered from depression at one point or another of our lives, we may not have known it then and chalked it off to a monday morning blues or post holiday blues or even PMS. For the majority of people, depression can be shrugged off but there is a sizeable % of the general population who cannot just drop it.
According to various sources, as many as 121 Million people worldwide have some form of depression and only 30 million of them have access to an effective source of treatment.

‘What is depression?’ is a question I’m often asked. The true answer is I wish I bloody knew. It can be characterised by deep sadness, lack of energy and will power to do even menial tasks or even getting up in the morning. Some people finds that if affects their devision making ability. The above are only the most common symptoms, there are so many variations that it would probably take a mainframe to list out the permutations. infinity sign.
A biological explanation could be: the chemicals that keep our brains functioning and keep us ‘sane’, tend to balance themselves out naturally, when depressed, those chemicals are produced in fluctuating amounts, therefore causing the brain to act abnormally. Blah! Maybe that’s why there are meds for depression, to regulate the flow of chems in the brain.

It is a legally recognised as an illness, which is awesome coz now if you have depression, people can’t say you’re just CRAZAY! Although you’ll probably think of yourself as just CrAZAY!!!

Who suffers from depression?
Everyone…although those who have a history of abuse, whether physical, sexual or emotional tend to be prone to it. Women are twice as likely to suffer due to having higher levels of estrogen than men. People who have participated in substance abuse are also known to suffer from depression.

The reduced confidence that comes with depression is perhaps what causes the latter. If i’m not sure of my own ability then I can’t put any weight behind my decisions so I just don’t decide.

Is depression fun?
NO.

What is happening with PFZ?

How long does it take to edit this bloody thing? Our main edit has been completed for just under a year now. In order to fully realise our vision, we wanted to add some animated transitions between the scenes to add a bit more originality to the episode. The preferred method being rotoscoping, check out the Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr film ‘A Scanner Darkly’ for an example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E9zMVocnys.
Rotoscoping on a budget is a right pain in the **** in that it takes a lot of manual effort to produce just one frame (there are 24 frames in a second of video). So for a five second transition, you need 115 frames and if it takes half an hour per frame, it would take roughly two whole days of work to produce 5 seconds of footage.
It took us a whopping 6 months to find someone who was interested in working that hard on a lo/no pay basis and the reason why they came on board is that they thought the PFZ story is one worth telling.

You can see our animator’s blog here: http://denisantanasblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/last-project-of-year.html

The talented Deni Santana has spent the majority of December working on our transitions, half of them are done and she is currently working on the other half. Thank to Deni’s dedication and creative flair, we have also asked her to be involved in creating the Title Sequence once the transitions are done. Deni is juggling our work among other paid work, check out her blog for more on her current projects.
To be frank, it sucks to have a great piece like PFZ in hand and not be able to share it with the world ASAP, sucks to have to spend so much time on post production, it is downright depressing when i think that we finished shooting this in 2012 and its still not out in 2014. But it will be done, we won’t give up.
I would like to thank everyone who has worked on this and is currently working on this on top of their full time job and family responsibilities, your help is really appreciated.
PFZ will be worth the wait.
Your’s,
Zaeem

Not a film review: Hitchcock

I wouldn’t call this a film review, rather a random collection of  thoughts on a film I saw over two months ago. I hope to write more of these though, if I feel they’re any good.

I haven’t seen silence of the Lambs, in fact the only film I’ve seen Anthony Hopkins in is Thor. I’d heard of his legendary acting chops but hadn’t seen him in action. As for Helen Mirren, I’d seen RED, National Treasure, heard samples of her voice work but nothing of substance. I’d like to think that my being unfamiliar with the actors’ past performances gave me the ability to enjoy the film without thinking of them as actors but rather as the characters they portrayed.

Come to think of it, I haven’t actually seen Psycho, which is the backdrop on which this story is played out. We’re introduced to Hitchcock unceremoniously as he is coming down from the high of his latest release North by Northwest. He seems in equal parts a bumbling fool, an intellectual and a mischievous child.

I found myself distracted by the details put into the sets and costumes of the golden era of film. Studios were at the forefront of the economy, raking in the cash and creating jobs but film was still a risky business and studios rarely took chances even back then.

Hitchcock and Vera appear to live a nice cushty life in their mansion but we get a sense of unease in the marriage as Vera appears to be quietly suffering in the background but of what? The film misdirects us constantly when it comes to Vera, showing her as alternating between the stand that hitchcock constantly leans on to keep him going and as an adventurous free spirit who is always only a moment away from packing her bags and leaving for good.

Helen Mirren manages to convince us that Vera was as multi-faceted as her husband, and in a way, she was much more ‘real’ than the larger than life Hitchcock character. Vera was unwavering in her support for her husband but he was always too busy fussing over his leading ladies, fighting the censors, bargaining with studio execs to ever notice how essential Vera was to his accomplishments.

Hitchcock, ever stubborn, takes on the studio system when they refuse to finance psycho, he uses his mansion (re-mortgage or some other term that I don’t understand) to finance the film and he still manages to spend time ogling at buxom blondes. All the while noticing that his wife is drifting but he still chooses to focus on his film.

This is a biophical story after all therefore the audience wouldn’t be faulted for expecting a dull tale but the filmmaker manages to make the private side of the protagonist’s life just as exciting and thrilling as the bombastic scenes set on a film set (pun not intended) or within production/censorship offices. There are a few wink & nod moments but they’re done amusingly enough so as not to induce cringing.

Watching this made me want to go and purchase a Hitchcock boxset to see what all the fuss is about when it comes to his films.

Verdict: Watch it in cinemas if you’re into any aspect of filmmaking (acting/directing/writing/producing), otherwise rent it.

I’ve got mail!

          A month ago I posted yet another ad on Mandy.com for a 2d animator, I didn’t have much hope as previous ads hadn’t generated any replies at all. You can imagine my surprise when I received 20+ replies to this ad. 20+ Applications to become PhatFyterz’s(?) 2D animator, that’s what I call a result. This weekend I will be going through the various showreels on vimeo and youtube and selecting a few for an informal chat.

Although I am pleased by the popularity of the ad, it is also concerning that so many of the applicants have around a decade of experience in the industry and are still struggling to find work. I suppose with the pervasiveness of visual media these days, a lot more people are interested in getting into that industry, demand for animators is short but supply is very high. I will be ’employing’ one of the guys/gals at no fee as it is a not for profit project at this point.

However, after seeing so many experienced artists out of work, it has renewed my interest in turning this project into a commercially viable one in the near future so that I can actually employ one of these people without the air quotes. What’s also cool is that the artists are from all over the place, some in London, Birmingham, Ireland, Spain and even Georgia! I didn’t realise mandy.com was so commonly used.

I look forward to watching your work and speaking to you all very soon!

Your’s,
Z

Creative Collaboration?

I recently sat down with Goolshun Belut, one of the founders of the Old Mauritia facebook community page. We were shooting ideas back and forth regarding the variety of posts on the Old Mauritia page.

I felt that it needed more multimedia content to compound the amount of news links that were being posted. My favorite idea to come out of this discussion was that of producing short videos to hype up the community page. Creating a bunch of memes inspired by mauritian culture was also a strong contender.

Incidentally, two, as yet, unnamed members of Old Mauritia produced a short vidéo titled ‘Bus Beaters’. The latter is a transliteration of the ‘Battere Bis’ expression used in Mauritian Creole to signify ‘scroungers’.

They had unintentionally amalgamated the video and meme idea. Here it is:

Right,  so how do you follow that up? I suppose you could attend a Sega Festival and then sing (shout) at the top of your lungs: http://en-gb.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152679912785385&set=vb.349501278499910&type=3&theater

A New Hope?

A friend and supporter of XtinctFilms recently started a small venture. And that venture is ‘Old Mauritia’. An old continent was recently discovered by researchers and it turns out that its sitting directly under the island of Mauritius.

Who knew?

A couple of people then decided to raise awareness about this discovery by linking to news articles on a website. What started as a news portal about the discovery soon turned into a rallying point for the mauritian community on Facebook.

On 30.03.13 a month’s worth of rainfall occured in just under 2 hours in the capital city of Mauritius, Port Louis. The flash flood caused irreperable damages to houses, stores, roads, schools and also took 11 lives.

Neither city nor country was prepared for such a disaster hence why public services did not manage to act on time to warn the population and avoid casualties. The death toll rose as the water subsided, bringing to light the extent of the damage. There was another light however, one which arose from within the people, in a rare act of solidarity, people from all communities banded together and started a clean up operation alongside government employees.

From all over the country, donations were coming in, food, clothing, domestic appliances and funds. People were checking on their neighbours, elders and youngers, the spirit of unity and patriotism was overwhelmingly felt by the population.

Mauritians abroad started getting the news, the OldMauritia facebook page was bustling with activity as the updates kept coming in regarding the flood. One of the OldMauritia team members was on the ground at Le Caudan Waterfront as the events unfolded. She managed to escape to safety but not before she took some striking images of the events unfolding around her. She was a changed person by the time she made it out.

The next day, she took it upon herself to post a short video about what she had seen in order to get more people informed. She then joined the clean-up operation and has been keeping us up to date ever since.

A candlelit vigil was held in Trafalgar Square on Saturday 6th April, attended by Mauritians from all over London and outside. It was a time for reflection on the deaths of our fellow contrymen and on what we can do to help our country in these dire circumstances.

It gives one hope to see us all united in facing this act of nature, I continue to hope that this unity remains, not only in the face of adversity but also in times of normality.

Un Mauricien avant tout,

Zaeem

Photos courtesy of http://www.euronews.com and http://www.facebook.com/OldMauritia