Rockstar Is Ranbir's Film. All the Way.

Quite less often you come across Fridays that leave you with a mix of emotions when you exit the theater after the film is over. Expectations were a bit low after ‘Love Aaj Kal’ but Imtiaz Ali definitely impressed more than it was expected of him with his new film ‘Rockstar’.

AR Rahman’s music seemed to complete the eye candy cinematography with Mohit Chauhan’s voice filling into your ears at the perfect moment(s). An amazing job at editing that lived up to the demanding screenplay did the wonders for this film which otherwise could have been taken as a plain candyfloss romantic comedy which turns to be a..(err, treat yourself). Ranbir Kapoor’s elastic performance throughout the film complemented with crisp and witty lines in the first half that will have you in splits establishes the fact that Imtiaz Ali is one of the finest writers when it comes to street-smart dialogues and your typical ‘Dilli waali’ humor . Despite all this, you might just end up noticing that the movie has a feel of ‘Jab We Met’ to it which conveniently establishes another fact that Imtiaz Ali is yet to get over its hangover.

A still from the film

Coming to individual performances, Ranbir Kapoor pulls off a very impressive job with his metamorphosis from a nerdy DU student to a larger-than-life music star of his time. Nargis Fakhri who plays the Kashmiri girl Heer Kaul fared well. All this apart, it was breath-taking each of the six times when Shammi Kapoor appeared on the screen.
Now go, get your girl along and watch this movie. Might just help you make up for the not-so-great experience of watching Ra.One together.

All In a Day!

Edit, Check. Sound sync, check. Color correction, check. Mastering, check. I'm happy, check.
Whoa, what a day today was! All that took to make me make a short film within 12 hours time was a mere deadline. From stratch, I shot today morning on Bhanu's Nikon (sans a tripod) as I was awake. Trust me guys, its real fun when your home happens to your shooting set/ location. You have a lot of props, extras, added lighting which means that you can even shoot sunrise scenes from inside a room in the dead of the night. (Hell yea, that is absolutely possible. Try standing with a couple of CFL lights on the other side of the window pane and point it towards the room where you want sunlight. :] )
You know what the best part is? All of this you get for free.
So where was I? Yes. After the morning, I had a nice small lunch and straight rushed off to the edit with the footage I had shot. The edit began with the usual conversions, aligments, cuts, et al. Finally, a music piece that me and Samit had mutually selected was introduced to the timeline and the real pain began here. Syncing music with picture can be a prick in the ass I tell you. It is all upon your intuition to determine the right beat for the right picture/scene. That apart, the syncing was managed and the color correction was also done in a nick of time.
Why I'm writing all this? because I still use a Pentium Four processor. Because, my CPU does not have an extra cooling fan. Because, both of these factors sum up to the fact that the final cut is rendering real slow and I'm waiting for it to finish so that I can see it. But hey, do I sound like I'm complaining?
Come on, it is not everyday that you get to make a movie in 12 hours flat.