BookWheelz.com

Freedom Or Cowardice ?

admin — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:35:21 +0000

Husband: “Honey, pull the plug”

Wife: No I can’t

Husband: But you have to do it. Not only for me, but for you, our kids and their future

Wife: It’s not easy for me and besides I am no one to have this right

Husband: Today if you don’t do it, tomorrow as it is it’s going to happen. Better it ends happily. Throughout my life I lived for you, our kids, chasing my dreams, running in the rat race. And today I am here, laid heavily on my back which once used to carry tons of bricks and sand. I have shaped many buildings but could never shape my life. Now is the time when god has given me an opportunity to choose my end and carve my grave. Please don’t stop me from making this choice

Wife: I have never seen you so weak. I guess we should wait for expert opinion. You know in today’s world things can be worked out beyond our imagination.

Husband: Even if there’s something that can help me or rather “US” to get out of this dam situation, it wouldn’t last longer. It would be a cycle where I would get some days or if miracle strikes some months, then again I will be standing at this transition phase of making a choice. Then why not do it now?

Wife: Think of the time you escaped death by an inch while working on skyscrapers, think of the time you were tired back home yet happy to ride the kids on your back, think of all those things in your life which made u think you want to be immortal and live a moment forever. Even if this doesn’t spark the desire, then I will have to give up my loath to make this decision for you and for “US”

Husband: yes my dear, in fact keeping all those things in my heart, I want to depart from this body. I still wish to be immortal and you can help me by allowing my soul to live forever in your heart, in this world and as a gift to our kids, who are going to step out tomorrow in this world and do only what they want to do unlike us; who had to make sacrifices at every stage of our lives.

Wife: Yes I appreciate your sentiments but you could do that by fighting against this and giving the same moral.

Husband: That wouldn’t be a fight, I would call it reluctance and a delay to accept my end, and I don’t want a fight with a definite predictable end. I believe honor lies in this and I call it MY FREEDOM. Since years, people have been fighting for it; here I am, getting a definite chance to escape the bondages of all slavery, austerity from materialistic pleasures and indulge in my chosen salvation. Please do it fast honey, before my oxygen fades out and before the moment where I begin crying out of pain and just wished that I could have altered this ending. I don’t want to go in this way. I hope u love me enough to give away your selfishness of being with me and give away my life for my happiness.

Wife: yes honey, i will do it.. I love you.

Husband: I love you too, take care.

Euthanasia ….

Freedom Or Cowardice?

-Dhairya

Cinema Unplugged !!

admin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:41:41 +0000

It was a Sunday evening, was raining heavily, I was feeling too lazy to do anything and that moment I got the idea of catching up a good classic title. So then I was lucky enough to finally watch the Indian epic movie Mughal-E-Azam; reminiscent of the older style of Indian cinema which took almost nine years for its completion. But today the covert of movie-making is far less strenuous and due to the various technologies, it’s possible to make a movie almost 10 times faster then earlier. So everyone reading this article put everything aside and gear up for this one because I am going to explore the world behind the making of magnificent sets of jodha akbar, the transition of technology from dubbing to sync-sound, the gen-x technology used for making of robots, the mechanics behind the great adrenaline pumping action scenes, I am in short going to brief you up with the aspects of movie making.

Movie-making today postulates combination of many steps and various synchronous processes. It comprises mainly of three steps

1) Development

2) Pre-production

3) Production

4) Post-production

Development:

The producer of the movie will find a story, which may come from books, plays, other films, true stories, original ideas, etc. Once the theme, or underlying message, has been identified, a synopsis will be prepared. Then it is followed by screenplay writing which id the soul for starting any movie. Screen-play is completely different from story writing because it involves aspects like how a particular scene will be shot, what way the actor is going to walk and in what fashion is he going to deliver the dialogues. They are actually a written form of what is going to be shot during production segment.

Pre-Production:

In this stage the technical team (read director, asst. director, cameraman or the director of photography (DOP), the music director, etc.), the budget, the locations and most significantly the suitable cast for the film. In this stage, the screenplay is again revised keeping in mind the cast and crew of the movie. And then the platform is set to start production part.

Production:

The director here plays the most important part because he is the one who puts everything onto screen that was just on paper till then. It is mainly about shooting the raw part of whole film or footage incase of a documentary, which is very sweetly slaughtered by at the editors table in the later stage. The movie many a times undergoes various changes in terms of story and technicalities. Considering the making of songs and shooting videos for it, no longer the musicians have to run behind actor and actress of movie and play the instruments, which used to happen earlier. Thanks to the high end technology of recording songs before hand in state-of-art recording studio with the team of sound engineers and musicians which create a great symphony appealing to the masses and classes.

Today dubbing is replaced with sync sound technology which helps to record dialogues live during the scenes, hence making the scene excellent. Sync sound (synchronized sound recording) refers to sound recorded at the time of the filming of movies, and has been widely used in movies since the birth of sound movies. The first animated film in which sync sound was used is Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie. Now considering the making of movies which put in a lot of special effects the first thing that comes to my mind is the 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick, who assembled his own effects team (Douglas Trumbull, Tom Howard, Con Pedersen and Wally Veevers) rather than use an in-house effects unit. In this film, the spaceship miniatures were highly detailed and carefully photographed for a realistic depth of field. The shots of spaceships were combined through hand-drawn rotoscopes and careful motion-control work, ensuring that the elements were precisely combined in the camera– a surprising throwback to the silent era, but with spectacular results. Backgrounds of the African vistas in the “Dawn of Man” sequence were combined with soundstage photography via the then-new front projection technique. Scenes set in zero-gravity environments were staged with hidden wires, mirror shots, and large-scale rotating sets. The finale, a voyage through hallucinogenic scenery, was created by Douglas Trumbull using a new technique termed slit-scan. Even today, the effects scenes remain impressive, realistic, and awe-inspiring. When it comes to knowing what exactly it takes to make a movie with great special effects we definitely conceive George Lucas’s Star Wars ushered in an era of fantasy films with expensive and impressive special-effects.

Now to support the above thing lets exactly get an insight on special effects. Special effects are traditionally divided into the categories of optical effects and mechanical effects. With the emergence of digital film-making tools a greater distinction between special effects and visual effects has been recognized, with “visual effects” referring to digital post-production and “special effects” referring to on-set mechanical effects and in-camera optical effects.

Optical effects (also called photographic effects), are techniques in which images or film frames are created photographically, either “in-camera” using multiple exposure, mattes, or the Schüfftan process, or in post-production processes using an optical printer. An optical effect might be used to place actors or sets against a different background.

Mechanical effects (also called practical or physical effects), are usually accomplished during the live-action shooting. This includes the use of mechanized props, scenery, scale models, pyrotechnics and Atmospheric Effects: creating physical wind, rain, fog, snow, clouds etc. Making a car appear to drive by itself, or blowing up a building are examples of mechanical effects. Mechanical effects are often incorporated into set design and makeup. For example, a set may be built with break-away doors or walls, or prosthetic makeup can be used to make an actor look like a monster. So now you don’t have to get amused if you find HULK growing up more by ten feet and 200 pounds in its next sequel.

Anyways our bollywood has also entered this race of making movies with SFX and has proven successful too. Because turning Mumbai into sanghai might practically not be possible but a movie like love story 2050 definitely shows this with an ease with the help of sfx. Also adding to your surprise a very special mention about a movie which paved its way in golden words in the history of Indian cinema and that’s Lagaan - a lavish epic, a gorgeous love story, and a rollicking adventure yarn. Larger than life and outrageously enjoyable, it’s got a dash of spaghetti western, a hint of Kurosawa, with a bracing shot of Kipling. The special camera work used in this movie comes to light when we come to know the very fact that many of the characters in this movie didn’t know how to drive a shot using cricket bat, still they looked so convincing on screen as if they are genuinely trained for the same. In this case the camera angles works wonders for the director’s vision.

Also Lagaan is very special because of its cinematography, which is different from normal shooting of film. Lagaan was a movie completely shot in sepia mode to give an authentic look, keeping in mind the era in which the story was based on. The mechanism behind this is the art of cinematography, which is responsible for the technical aspects of the images (lighting, lens choices, composition, exposure, filtration, film selection), but works closely with the director to ensure that the artistic aesthetics are supporting the director’s vision of the story being told. The cinematographers are the heads of the camera, grip and lighting crew on a set, and for this reason they are often called directors of photography or DPs.

Post-Production:

This includes mainly editing, background music score and sound designing.

Talking about film editing, it is an art of storytelling practiced by connecting two or more shots together to form a sequence, and the subsequent connecting of sequences to form an entire movie. Because almost every motion picture is shot with one camera per take, every single shot is separated from every other single shot by time and space. On its most fundamental level, film editing is the art, technique, and practice of assembling these shots into a coherent whole. However, the job of an editor isn’t merely to mechanically put pieces of a film together, nor is it to just cut off the film slates, nor is it merely to edit dialogue scenes. A film editor works with the layers of images, the story, the music, the rhythm, the pace, shapes the actors’ performances, “re-directing” and often re-writing the film during the editing process, honing the infinite possibilities of the juxtaposition of small snippets of film into a creative, coherent, cohesive whole. Film editing plays a pivotal role in making of short films because in that case many things are to be covered within small amount of time.

Now sound designing is relatively a newer venture for bollywood films mainly because of the stipulated budget under which the films are made. However it mainly involves recording all the sounds in the movie which people don’t tend to notice but absence of it would be noticeable, they mainly include chirping of birds, crackling noise of footsteps changing continuously with the distance and many such detailed sounds. It’s a part of pre-production because recording such sounds while shooting a particular scene is practically impossible with the latest technology.

So friends this was all about movie making and the wonders created by it. I hope the next time you watch tom cruise fighting with aliens, rajnikanth crusading with ten people single handedly, superman and batman flying in the air, you would be able to guess which technology is used. So this takes your cinema experience far more then just watching superheroes flying and you munching popcorn on your seats.

-Dhairya

Start-Ups & Entrepreneurship

admin — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:29:46 +0000

When it comes to start-ups and entering into the business world, the first thing that comes to my mind is about making those special efforts and walking an extra mile.

And this reminds me of a very famous quote by Benjamin Franklin: Up, sluggard, and waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough.

The most basic thing required for a new business start-up or entrepreneurship is having a will power “To-Do Something which is different” and things like initial capital investment, resources, time, chances of success and failure; come secondary as compared to the former. Now let’s talk about some of the factors which are essential for any new start-ups.

1) The first thought/concept/idea: It’s very important to first think of an idea (regardless of it’s feasibility in terms of its application). The idea shouldn’t aim on cutting down existing markets or challenging market leaders (E.g. making another social networking website with a thought of banking upon the success of orkut and facebook isn’t worth even calling an idea). Just scratch your head and look out for very basic things around you, which could turn up into a brilliant business idea because someone has aptly quoted “The world is more malleable than you think and it’s waiting for you to hammer it into shape.”

2) Instigating your ideas into actions: “If you don’t act now while it’s fresh in your mind, it will probably join the list of things you were always going to do but never quite got around to.” Paul Clitheroe. So this what you exactly got to do, once you come up with an idea i.e. start implementing it, to come across the hurdles and flaws in your concept, which you might have never thought of while you were busy developing the concept in first stage. Also innovation in your idea is very important, since being a fresher and a start-up venture, establishing contacts with companies for investment, venture-capitals, etc, the only thing that’s going to work in favor for you is the credibility of your idea and your presentation skills. Also be ready to face the worst fear of being turned down by almost all contacts for getting their investment money in your venture.

3) Talking serious business: The idea you planning to enter with; as your start-up venture, must now be thought in terms of market it belongs to, current market leaders, the size & scalability of market, potential risks involved, time frame for launching of your product/service, the team you going to work with, USP of your product/service, in short you are now into serious business and drawing a sketch of above factors is nothing but drafting a Business Proposal. Here’s your quick guide to start writing a simple Business Proposal/Plan:

ü Defining Market: Firstly check out to which market/sector/area your business falls into. E.g. internet, media, healthcare, etc.

ü Current Market Leaders: Start up looking for companies/corporate bodies that has the largest hold in the market your planning to operate in. e.g. lays for selling chips, big bazaar for economical daily domestic products, dairy milk chocolates, etc.

ü Team: It’s very essential to have a team before your core process of implementation starts. You have to build a team, not according to your friend list or people you know, but truly on the basis of requirement for your venture. It’s very important to distribute the work according to each individual’s caliber and also see it that you don’t involve people at an earlier stage, whom you actually need at the later stages of your venture, because that can create un-necessary differences of opinion and delaying the hence project time frame. Your team depicts your ethics, management and your strength to turn your ideas into reality, which would be looked upon as pre-requisite by any company before you approach them.

ü Size and scalability of market: We will try to put this in a simple way by giving an example. Suppose you plan to operate in internet providing services type of market, you need to find out things like: How big is the online market in terms of business? Try getting statistics with regards to actual users using internet as a medium to get services like book shopping, tickets reservation, etc. That will also indicate how much your business can grow (this is what we mean by scalability).

4) USP (Unique selling proposition): A Unique Selling Proposition definition can be summarized in one short sentence; why buy yours instead of the others? The USP is basically what sets your products and/or services apart from your competitors. The catch is that the proposition must offer your potential customers a specific benefit that they see as attractive. It’s an especially critical marketing tool for small businesses that are forced to compete with both other small businesses and larger retail chains.

E.g.: One of the famous Unique Selling Propositions that Rosser Reeves created was for M&Ms: The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand.

Hallmark: When you care enough to send the very best.

Now the question arises as to how we know all this?? This is not something that has been picked up from the net or a variety of books. This has risen from our very own experience of starting a venture, a website www.bookwheelz.com . We did not know head or tail of the business world. All we had was a simple idea which arose from a very basic need – Books. We toiled day in and day out to turn our idea into a business venture and this is what we learnt. We hope our experiences can be of use to all of you with an entrepreneurial bent of mind.

- Founders of Bookwheelz.com

Will you be my Valentine..??

admin — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:08:26 +0000

Will you be my Valentine..?? I’d rather call it VALIENTine..cuz obviously it takes sheer guts for a guy to ask a girl out or in some cases another guy..!!

We say we have become “modern”, “influenced by western cultures” and what not..but have we really ?? Even today when a guy asks a girl out, he’d probably get one of the following responses:

Huh ?? Umm..i dunno..m kinda busy..got plans with family..!!
Huh ?? Are u nuts..?? Get lost…Cheapo..!!

Or the eternal..very famous and my personal favourite..

SLAP !! tere ghar pe maa behen nahi hai kya ??

Chalo considering nothing of this sort happens..and the girl agrees..the famous proverb..”Man proposes..God disposes” comes into limelight..!! Dint get it..?? Arey SHIV sena..!!

So either which ways asking a girl out on this day is pointless..cuz the end result is the same.. CATASTROPHE..!!

Any which ways I dun see a point in considering only this day as a special day to show your love becuz if d rest of the year u dun show any..ur pretty much gonna have to make love to yourself on this day too..!!

I believe that if u truly love someone then the time and day tat u choose to tell her/him about it is THE PERFECT TIME..!! I’m sure a lot of u committed guys will agree with me..!! If u dun..God save you and ur relationship..!!

Finally one last question to all the beautiful and cute girls around..Will you be my Valentine ??

— Aashish

I Vote Not to Vote

admin — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:33:56 +0000

Constitution Allows “I Vote Not to Vote”

Did you know that there is a system in our constitution, as per the 1969 act, in section “49-O” that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey the presiding election officer that he doesn’t want to vote for anyone!

Yes such a feature is available, but obviously these seemingly notorious leaders have never disclosed it. This is called “49-O”.

Why should you go and say “I VOTE NOBODY”… because, in a ward, if a candidate wins, say by 123 votes, and that particular ward has received “49-O” votes more than 123, then that polling will be cancelled and will have to be re-polled .

Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since people had already expressed their decision on them .

This would bring fear into parties and hence look for genuine candidates for their parties for election. This would change the way, of our whole political system… it is seemingly surprising why the election commission has not revealed such a feature to the public….

Please spread this news to as many as you know… Seems to be a wonderful weapon against corrupt parties in India … show your power, expressing your desire not to vote for anybody, is even more powerful than voting… so don’t miss your chance. So either vote, or vote not to vote (vote 49-O)!

Voice your opinion on this article.. Are you still going to neglect the issue or will bother to step out of your house and use your right to say I VOTE NOBODY. Because its rather good to vote then to pick up a newspaper after election results and say “YEH DESH KA KUCH NAHI HO SAKTA”

ENGINEERING-”4 years”-worth it OR waste ??

admin — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:23:39 +0000

Guys very often than not, we wonder, what are we doing in four years of engineering. Having some of the subjects which are no more in practice and topics within them which are completely out of technology. After all when we took admission into this engineering colleges (read MU colleges), for sure we had high expectations and after 4years when w pass out, how of it is actually going to help us. So please share your view and opnions if $ years of engineering “WASTE” OR “WORTH IT” ??