The wait will be over soon

The wait will be over soon. The day will arrive and I will be back in the queue again but for the sequel. Of all the movies expected this year, this is the most awaited movie all over the world. And its less than two weeks away. When things cant go bad, it gets worse. Darkness encircles the wizard world. But not without an adventure in Hogwarts. Holding the breath to watch Harry Potter and Dumbledore duel with you-know-who.

And there is less than 3 weeks before "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" reaches my hand. Yes. I have pre-ordered it through Amazon.

Superman - Returns better

When "Superman returns" movie was released, the feedback was so bad, that it looked like the franchise was let down by this sequel. Everyone made it appear as if Superman is history. But I liked the movie. It had good graphics, nice dialogues and proper cast. I always felt it was the hype that people created on that movie that let the ratings down. But then I saw the original 1978 "Superman" movie and I wonder what is the hype that can be created for that movie. The "Superman returns" and original "Superman" movie are very similar. Even the dialogues remain the same, may be to create a impression that its the same superman. Other than that, there is nothing great in the movie to make us feel that the latest sequel have let it down. I would say, the new movie has really improved the standards with awesome visual effects and better technology. Superman returned with his best. But the world chose to ignore him. I want a sequel soon.

At world's end.... the party is over!

I am just back from the visit to Captain Jack Sparrow. And yeah! I saw Captain Barbarosa too.. and of course... Davy Jones on the way. Not to forget the coffee I had with Lord Cutler Beckett. Also there was this Will Turner trying to free his father. But he was sailing in the Flying dutchman. While returning I saw Elizabeth Swann with the Locker. I asked her what it is. She said that its her heart's heart. Couldnt understand what she meant. Even Tia Dalma didnt have any answer. One person I couldnt meet was Governer Swann. He was killed before I could reach England. Captain Sao Feng was kind enough to lend me a ship for the meeting of the nine pirate lords. Thats where I met the father of Captain Jack Sparrow. But he did not speak much. Just opened a huge book and read something to the crowd. Atlast King Miss Elizabeth Swann ordered all the pirates to go to war against the British. So they all went to war though only the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman were fighting in the whirlpool. All went fine and while returning back I saw Captain Jack Sparrow again in his small boat with the compass that pointed to his rum and then to a long journey ahead. I just dont want to see more of Jack Sparrow for sometime. Seeing too many of him and with all those weird creatures created by computer graphics makes me sea sick. But I assure you that it was a wonderful adventure being in the Carribean.

Summary: A good entertainer with too many casts put in. Lacks a good story line. But who cares. Be Jack Sparrow. He never cares. Or does he? No one to tell.

Chronicles of Injeria - Squash, lights and the Gym door

It was like so many movies where they show a house which you newly occupy and you thought you know all over the place, but then you find a door which is always rumored about, but you never know till that time. After staying in our house in Charlotte for about 5 months, I always thought I know the apartment well. (Though there is still a path which I have never used. But we will talk about that later) And our apartment complex is a simple one. Mailbox near the entrance. A small gym and a laundry to the left of the mailbox and a swimming pool with 4 feet max depth beside that. Not to forget they are still getting the pool ready for summer though summer is here already. I hope it will be ready when its summer. The office lies behind our apartment in the deisgn of a roman building with pillars and there are apartment buildings all around us. So obviously there was nothing else to see. Atleast thats what I thought before Sripathy called me and asked me for the key to the Squash court in our apartments. Sripathy actually lives in his own house very far from our place. So we were little confused how he would know about our apartment. But I was wondering if the rumors were true and a secret squash court indeed lay hidden. The secret door to the squash court was found behind the Information office and to our surprise it got opened with our key to the Gym. So there really is some conspiracy behind (inside) this place. Then it hit me.

[+/-] Specialis Revelio

There is some reason for that roman pillars. Why would an Apartment office in US have roman Pillars? Also there must be something about the swimming pool next to the apartment office which is always kept dry. But while I was trying to figure out the mystery, Sripathy and Ravinder had already started to play Squash. I understood the game very quickly. All they were doing is hitting the ball on the wall. No wonder, the ball was small. It had too much exercise than the players as it kept running all over the place, hitting all the sides and came back to the player who hits it when it comes to their reach. After watching the game for sometime, I got the feeling that I can become a squash player easily. This is one game where you wont have any net or the umpire calling "out". Its always "in". I like that. Then the chance came for me to play. Once I entered the court and closed the glass door behind, there was this strange feeling around me. A perfectly normal looking apartment having office with Roman pillars and a swimming pool which is always dry and there is a cube shaped room where you look yourselves up to hit the ball on the wall. Thats something like 1+2+3 <> 3 and its a mystery. Thats when Viswa hit the ball on the wall, and it bounced from the wall and came towards me. I have to take that ball now. It pitched on the ground once and came right towards my reach and I raised the racket to send the ball back to the ball. And it happened. The lights went off suddenly before I could hit the ball. There was sudden darkness and I realised that it went past me, because it hit the wall at the back. But the ball was no where to be seen as it was pitch dark. The mystery deepened with all the lights except the ones inside the court lit up and I had to leave the place without playing squash. May be the day has not yet arrived to reveal the secret behind the Roman pillars and dry swimming pool.

My expandable links

INJEY Today now has expandable links!

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Cup Ice!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to my clone a.k.a Iris

Spider man 3 - The dark one

Spidey suffers from the same infection as most of the third part of triology movies suffered. Take X-men, The Matrix, Harry Potter and many more movies. You will find the third part of the movie to be the least favorable one. I am afraid Spidey will be in the same state. But that is just my speculation. We have to wait and see how it goes.

After much anticipation and counting the days for the realease, we booked the tickets for the movie on May 4th 11:45 PM in IMAX theatre. I was thrilled seeing the movie in the huge IMAX screen. So we went to the movie and when we came out of the theatre, I was really irritated not by the movie but IMAX. The problem was that the screeen was so huge and its in the shape of a dome that we couldnt see the entire screen during the fight sequences. It was like being inside the scene where your eye sight is limited to the center alone. So when the spirder man starts swinging from the left of the screen, before I can see him clearly, he goes off the screen in the right and I have to spend most of the time turning my head.

Now lets talk about the movie.
[+/-] Specialis Revelio

Bad things first:
1. Tobey Maguire looks like a kid when he cries. He actually cries like a kid who doesnt want to go to school.
2. Too many characters. So obviously they were not able to give proper time to each character in the movie.
3. Spidey suit looks old. I think they used the same suit that they created for Spiderman 2.
4. They could have left Venom for the next movie with more time given to the black suit. Sometimes you feel, the black suit works only for few scenes. Rest its the same good old Spiderman.
5. Spiderman - Hero of the people????? How did "Daily Bugle" allow that to happen?
6. New Goblin could have lived for the sequel. It would have been cool to see Spidey fighting along with Goblin.

Good things as we know:
1. This spin is really going to make you dizzy. Amazing camera movements.
2. Brilliant action sequences. The first fight between Spiderman and New Goblin is in single word "Awesome"
3. As usual, tried for a good story line.
4. Too many villians. My favorite one too - Black suit. Cant argue with the line "How long can a hero fight darkness until he finds it in himself"
5. Last action sequences. The animators have done the job very well.
6. Promise that there will be a sequel.

Overall, its really a good entertainment movie though they could have done better by reducing the number of characters and more importance to the story line.

And looking at the introuction of Inspecter Stacy and her daughter Gwen Stacy, they better include Carnage as the villian in the next movie.

"How long can a hero fight darkness until he finds it in himself"
Answer: Till the movie ends.
Go! Spidey! Go!

An Interview with Skel - On-duty for 15 days

The earth is symbolised by sand. We are showing sand falling from a hand. Then another person shreds his sweat. That is water. Then someone lights the torch and fire comes out of it. We show houses and buildings blown away by wind to show air. All of them are coming towards each other in the form of hands and joining together. In the middle lies our college emblem. And then its rising with all the elements in it. MCET. We must include all kinds of sound effects from vrooooooooom...... zoooooooom... ddddddddddddddaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam............... boooooooooooom....... doooooooooooooooooommmmm... It will shake the whole auditorium. Everyone will be thrilled. Then the emblem blasts off and then we show the centenary function emblem. Another sound effect like kaboooooooom... dooooooooom... follows. Then we slowly reduce the volume and start the function.

This is what our friend Rupesh told us when we asked him an idea for the multimedia presentation for the centenary function.

I just nodded and went back to room. When I reached the room, Anoop was very happy with his greatest achievement in Maya. He was now able to make a ball hit a wooden plank and then fell down. But he was upset suddenly. He forgot to place the floor. So the ball went on to fall forever. I just compared our current achievement and Rupesh's idea. The time we learn to animate sand, the centenary celebration of our vice chairman would arrive. So we decided to use Rupesh's idea in the future and decided to stick to something simple for that year. Many ideas were discussed like "Showing an animated person from each department working in the lab; mechanical student working on lathe, Electronics student working with CRO and IT student working on internet cables(God knows why) and computer student working on (what else) computers. All the images then combine together to (you are correct) form the college emblem which... (of course) blasts off to show (absolutely) centenary function emblem." Though the idea seemed very interesting, we kept it aside for our HOD's cenetenary function.

[+/-] Specialis Revelio

After a long discussion which took four on-duty days and browsing hundreds of websites from the data center, as time became a major constraint, we finalised upon animating only one person for the show. The script was not created as no one knew what was the story which was because no one knew what we could really do. Even then we started with our task of picking the crew. Seriously, I was overwhelmed by the response I got from the class showing their interest in 3d animations. I thought the success of our 1 minute intro to our Technical Symposium was behind their motivations. But I was proved wrong that the real reason was the 1 month on duty we got for that techincal symposium. But after a big confusion on deciding who will be on the team, we got the list of 10 persons who will be on-duty though how many of the 10 would really be animating the characters was a big question. It got answered on the 5th day when we finalised on an interview between a 3d character and a real human. The answer was 5/10 which included myself, Gokul, Anoop and Naveen.(I know I am missing the fifth person). But he was a visiting professor to the team similar to the college classes. He even stayed in Muthu's house for few days reasoning it as "Story discussion". We are still not sure with whom he was discussing the story and what the story was about. Only thing was he gave us with a script which was really good. So the answer of 5/10 holds good.

The next task was to do the real work. Animate. The time frame of the show went to atleast 5 mins which means we need to make 5 X 60 X 30 = 90000 frames of animation. The infrastructure was provided by our HOD which includes three Pentium 4 systems with 1 GB RAM and high speed internet provided in the data center itself. The next 10 days was a wonderful time as we were utilising the on-duty time perfectly. The day times were used for sleeping and eating. And sometimes to meet new people who are also roaming around in on-duty. Anoop of course didnt went to meet new people. As for myself and Gokul, lets just say we were clicking the mouse most of the time. The night was when we really worked. Rupesh would make use of his complete right brain in making creative ideas for the show and preferred to invent creative ideas while dreaming. And for that, he was in sleep most of the time. We called him as more dedicated person than anyone else around.

When we decided upon the action sequences for our character, we tried to apply them to the 3d character. This is where our whole idea of character animation changed. If you think Rajini diving over the villians is a big task, making a 3d character wave his hands is a much difficult task. All the bones have to be adjusted on the screen to make sure the character waves the hands properly. Our first try turned up as if the character's bones are broken. The second one was much scarier than before. Only the wrist was shaking with the elbow stiff. It took two days to make our character "skel" say Hi to the crowd. And then we have to make our character take his hat off. This was more difficult than saying hi. Dont ask me why the character being a skeleton had to wear a hat. We did not give him any other dress. Atleast no one complained about it. He was just a skeleton. Gokul and Naveen took up this hard task and they went on practising with the tools by imitating the action in real. They would move their hands and try to understand the bones that should be moved and at what times to make the action sequence. Even the finger bones has to be animated to make sure he removes his hat only after the fingers hold it.

The background song was none than "Kaaka Kaaka" special "Uyirin Uyirae" song which we would have run for atleast a thousand times and by the time, we were done with the animations, I became sick of hearing that song completely that I am not able to hear it ever again. After 15 days of on-duty spent, we finalized everything. I gave voice to Skel and Rupesh would be the real person on stage to interview the 3d character. Skel would do Rajini style "ithu epadi iruku", ogle at the girls, take off his head along with the hat, fly like Neo from "The Matrix" and would even say "Poyeaaaa poooooo" like Sadha in Jeyam.

Thanks to Naveen and Gokul who did most of the animations, the character came to live though not at the centenary functions but at the computer lab class in Virtual Class Room. And at the end of the show, Guru commented "Be happy that we didnt get the chance on the centenary function".

An honest comment though. It wasnt as good as we expected at the start. But it gave on-duty for 15 days with high speed internet in the best systems available in college. And whats more, it helped Rupesh to avoid coming late to the classes.

Disclaimer

No skeletons were harmed in the making of this movie except the animator's hands.