Day 832: Sleep!

Yup, that's what I did today. Just sleep.

I woke up with a bad headache as well as with shooting pains on my back and arms. The body was crying out for some rest. So I decided to take time off work and not aggravate them.

And I slept. The whole day. The whole freaking day!

When I was up in the evening, I felt refreshed enough and the pains were no longer there. So I went for a jog, got back, cooked a bit, worked a lot (there was more than enough office work to last for a few days), meddled around with IOK again (I can't seem to be satisfied yet) and am finally writing the blog now.

Nothing super awesome about the day, as you can see. But sometimes sleeping & resting is just what you need!

167 more to go.

Day 831: Ideation Session!

This whole week, we are to have just what we call, ideation sessions at work. Which basically means just spend time, as a team, brainstorming and coming up with a few kick ass ideas for future initiatives.

This is an annual event here and I enjoy it every single time! Not just because am asked to brainstorm around shampoos and conditioners but because, in the process, we are subject to a LOT of very inspirational stories and brands and products and ads and even things that have absolute got nothing to do with any of the work we do but are still SO exciting!

I can't share any of those here because of confidentiality issues but they completely made my day!

169 more to go.

Day 830: Truly Done!

You know how yesterday I wrote here that Inganeyum Oru Katha was finally done?

Well, today I realized that I wasn't completely satisfied with it. The audio in a particular scene was driving me nuts and I had to get it right. According the hubby, I am just stupid because apparently the audio issues are not that big, and I do think he is right, but I wasn't able to live it.

So I came back home from work and spent a total of 5.5 hours on fixing it. Not just that scene's audio but also fixing all the subtitles because the timelines had all changed etc.

BUT...

But now...

Now, I am truly satisfied!! Yay!!!! OK so now IOK is truly, truly done!

170 more to go.

Day 829: Inganeyum Oru Katha - DONE!

GOD, what a day!

It's like even if it is a short film that you are making, you have all the problems in the world! Never a dull moment!

Maybe because IOK is a zero budget film that the technical issues were far beyond overwhelming! I mean... I literally spent $0 on it and I guess that shows. Looks like there is a reason why people end up spending quite a bit on making films.

Anyway point being, it was quite a struggle trying to get the movie completed. Wasn't a cake walk at all!

But as of a few minutes ago, it is DONE! I have my little Malayalam film, all ready to be screened!

Phew!

More than anything else, I am just SO relieved! Because even this morning I could only go to bed after 9am. That's how long me and my editor and sound designer back in India were working on it. Then the movie was put to render for about 7 hours and another few hours to transfer it online from India to Singapore.

All of that work only to realize there are a few technical glitches. Groan.

Anyway, I managed to fix some of those and overall it is looking OK I guess.

Anyway, it is done.

IOK is done!

And I feel more than OK now!

171 more to go.

Day 828: A Very Happening Saturday!

Yup, seriously happening.

Firstly I ended up going to bed only at 6:30 am after all the IOK work from yesterday.

Then I woke up and immediately started to panic. It was our friend's 30th birthday today and the theme for the partying in the evening was "70's Retro" and I had not idea what to wear for that!

Thankfully, neither did my husband.

So both of us went out shopping for some 70's Retro clothes and accessories.

Then it was time for the celebration itself - which basically involved dinner first and then major club hopping. We were at Amara Hotel, Marina Bay Sands, China One and Rupee Room in succession. A straight 8 hour celebration!

It was quite fun but then I had to leave the party a bit early (at 3:30am that is) to get back home to continue the design work. My editor and sound designer based out of Mumbai were sending me updated materials and I had to review them

That process is still going on - it is 7:21am on 26th already.

If this isn't "happening", what is!

A huge celebration and lotsa work all packed into a day~ I am dead tired right now but I am quite happy!

172 more to go.

Day 827: Farewell, Friends, Salted Caramel & Work!

Today was the farewell dinner of one of my closest friends in Singapore, who also happens to be the hero of quite a number of my films including Mausams and the currently in-progress Inganeyum Oru Katha. He is moving to India to do his MBA very soon and some of us, the common friends, threw him a farewell dinner today.

The venue was Canopy. This time, to get there, I took a nice long walk through Bishan Park all the way from Bishan Junction 8. It was a considerably long walk but I enjoyed it a lot! It was my first time walking through this park post all the construction that has been going on there over the last few years and I was amazed at how much it has changed!

It has a very lovely landscape, great jogging and biking tracks, several eating places and I loved the whole new look with all the bridges, funky seating areas, the stream running through (all man made!), the boulders scattered along and over the stream, etc. etc. It was all very nice!

Then, meeting this friend as well as rest of gang at Canopy and having a long, fun dinner was definitely a highlight! I had the most awesome time ever! There were about 10 of us and we spent a few hours eating and drinking and chit chatting about the most random stuff!

Then we made our way to the Salted Caramel at Upper Thomson road, in quest of dessert when there was none available at Canopy. It was my first time there, but I realized that salted caramel (yes, caramelized icecream with salt!) is indeed one of the most tasty things mankind has ever made! Yummmmmm!

After the dessert, a few of them came over to my place - not for further partying, but to WORK!

Yep, some of these guys are part of IOK, including the friend whose farewell it was, and they had to do a last minute dubbing. OK, I did feel kinda bad about making them do it - it's not exactly what someone wants to do on a Friday night, close to midnight, especially when it was your farewell dinner etc., but one can't help these things you see! So they came over, and while the dub was done successfully, we actually spent more time joking around and laughing so much that I started to tear! In other words, I had a ball!

Post dub, the rest of them left (it was 2am) and I started to work on syncing the dub files, going through some sound design work, doing another round of the titles and credits work etc. It is now 5:57am and I am still not done with all of it.

But I guess that doesn't matter. What truly matters is that I had a great evening with some of my closest friends and had a ton of fun, while discovering the supercool taste of Salted Caramel as well as being incredibly productive!

173 more to go.

Day 826: Titles & Credits!

Do you know how much work goes into making titles and credits in a film? Well quite a lot.

That's all I have been doing this evening - working on the titles and credits for Inganeyum Oru Katha.

We are not doing anything fancy for our credits and titles - we are working with only simple text but even that is more complicated than what one would think. Or maybe it is just my obsessive compulsive behaviour. Either way, it is not done until we have the exact right font, colour, words, duration, pacing, alignment on the frame, transitions, sync with the music etc. etc.

My editor in India is putting in the credits and titles on the video at his end. So this what has been happening. He does the work, sends over to me for review, I give my comments here and there, he would re-work on it, send it back to me, and so on and so forth.

But I think it is coming to a close very soon and in a way that I am quite happy with.

Even such a small thing can give such a sense of satisfaction! Awesome, really!

174 more to go.