3 pics with Nanaji

He is your fav companion - he ties strings to various carts so you can drag it around. Then you puncture polythenes and feel the air on your face.

You would take him out and pluck flowers and bring the flowers up for Pooja for nani ..

It was a fun break.

Make no little plans

They have no magic to stir men's blood.

Mie-nai-oshareh

Birthday

Dear Yooki, 

So this month was my birthday and I decided to improve myself in 3-4 ways right from internal to external. I felt what's the harm in trying to be better.

A) Attitude - Self reflection and self communication

So I saw few talks about being very creative and being very particular about your work. I am a precision freak but soon I realized that sometimes my team would lag and my initial thing was to motivate them but gradually by the end of shoot I would also lose my patience on them for not being precise in their work.

Overall I felt in retrospection that I should try to handle it better.

So I researched a bit on behaviour sciences. 

Few things that helped me in that is:

Being in other person shoes. It's a very simple thing but we fail to get there.

There is a very nice chair theory by Louise Evans- I really reco her TED talk to you (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BZuWrdC-9Q) or any book she has written 5 chairs and 5 choices . In any situation we can sit in probably 5 chairs:

1) Reactive and judgemental (angry) - attack - the jackal

2) Reactive and defensive (play victim card) - curl up in self-defence and get into self-blame - the hedgehog

3) Wait and watch (this is when we start getting better) - wait - the meerkat

4) Wonder what is wrong with the other (so we change outlook towards solving) - detect- the dolphin - having a calm third person perspective..where if the otehr person is wrong acknowledge it calmly

5) What's going on with their life and how do we make it better for them - connect - the giraffe - this is when we try to understand them invest in their long term development and motivate them to be better

The other thing I learnt was power of humour in making our lives better.

soem scientific proven advantage of humour:

1) Gets people to listen

2) Increases long-term memory retention.

3) Improves Understanding

4) Aids in learning

5) Helps communicate messages.

6) Improves group cohesiveness.

7) Reduces status differentials

8) Diffuses conflit

9) Builds trust

10) Brings people close together

11) Boosts brain power

12) Triggers new connections

13) Enhances problem solving skills

14) Increases attractiveness

15) Prevents long-term burnout

16) Improves productivity

17) Increases happiness

B) Weight loss

For weight loss, I am trying out two things. Intermittent fasting and other is mindful eating. Actually we all know what to do for weightloss. It's a simple maths of calorie intake versus calorie burn but we dont do it. Idea is to be healthy too and be happy and yet control portions and IF recos that fast for 16 hours in a day :P.

It's also scientifically proven that 30 minutes of exercise 4 times a week increases your life span and makes you are happier healthier person. So everything in interrelated. Physical fitness and mental fitness.

I also love running so I will try to do it more often.

Apart from that I am getting my various tests done that will help me with calcium and other supplements.

C) Skin Care

I am not sure whose skin you will inherit. Hope not mine.

All of us (from my mother's side) have a skin that burns in sun. Result major freckles and hyper pigmentation. I had ignored it most of my life and have done permanent damages to it. This shoot specially when I saw making videos I realized that I should intervene. I spoke to Niv masi (my dermat cousin)who  has exactly the same skin and growing up had exactly the same problem as me. And she prescribed me betnovate-n for 5 days after seeing my post shoot burns.

After that she put me on a regime -  - sunscreen UV Doux spf 50 that I used to not use very regularly but itsi so good and so non comodogenic that I love it. And for night a Roc procorrect cream.

Mummy has suggested using besan, turmeric and honey paste on face everyday for 15 mins post steaming it but I am thinking of using it on you :PP.

I have also taken to lots of oils from kama ayurveda and some organic coconut oil from a cheaper company as I hate creams. I use something called miraculous beuaty fluid for night. Lets see no miracle has happened till now though !!

Anyways - my biggest challenge is eating healthy. I still nurse you so i get major bouts of hunger whenever I feed you milk but I hope I can manage those cravings and substitute them with healthier stuff like yoghurt etc etc :P. This was birthday week though so I ate lots and lots of cake. If we cut out sugar they say our life becomes better as sugar is as bad as cocaine.

Anyways - one postive step at a time for a better me :).

How to overcome cravings

Cravings of food, tobacco, sugar, anger, love, or anything...

I just heard a TED talk and it spoke about first noticing the cravings. And not avoiding it but noticing it. The act of noticing it will give you a gap when you will be able to intercept the craving otherwise most of addictive habits work on autopilot. 

So you have to first get yourself out of that autopilot. Once you notice it - maybe it will take you a week to start noticing but notice you must.. take a pause and counsel yourself the way you would counsel a friend in similar situation.

It's ok you want to have the cookie even though you need to lose weight or it's ok you want to be angry at that person because he really fucked up and made your life inconvenient but in both the cases it is important that you react wisely as the moment will be gone but the ill effects will be longer. If you act wisely, the moment will be gone too but there will be no long terms ill effect.

Just two cents as I am into ted talk these days...

Pooran poli ice cream recipe

Ready to travel

Early birthday celebrations 🎉

Watching 3 billboards down the ebbing steet

Freaks and Geeks

How my mother was

I want to be the same for you

The team you need

A line producer who has contacts and can bring down costs
A production manager
A data manager
2 runners

Chief Ad seasoned
A second who handles backroom and manages schedule and lines up the next day requirements
A sincere person who handles actors
A very good clapper
A person who manages continuity
A DA

1 on set photographer


Apart from that you need to create a culture where people are watching your back. For that you have to watch their back as well..

You need to make sure that your other team heads are respectful of you. If they are not then it doesn't work.

You have to learn to not be emotional and develop a very very thick skin.
You have to be super professional with people you work with. And not be too personal.
You need to play up your strengths.
Above all find a confidant or bouncing board who is outside your team and work. Find a best friend outside work and outside immediate team.

Over the years improve the team and not just your work. Improve the concepts. Focus should be on what you are creating. Very few people in the industry focus on creation and its uniqueness. They only care for gadha-mazdoori.. hire people who are fired by the ideas and not people who only see you as a stepping stone..

Learning from cargo

1) design all your shots have all your references
2) incase need to throw all be prepared to re think and innovate
3) force yourself to come up with a master that is intelligent and has elaborate blocking
4) bring in nuances cover well
5) go for complicated blocking with many moving parts
6) make per scene notes and when you do - - write about actor emotional continuity
7) don't say negative about anyone in the team to anyone else in the team
8) be objective get your work
9) keep Critics and highly opinionated people away
10) work with polite respectful people
11) have good relationship with your dop
12) work on colors and stick to them
13) good cinematography - good production design
14) good cinematography - good lighting good time of day
15) work on light patterns - talk to your dop about it ..
16) control colors as much as possible

Average bustly mornings

Got this message from my ad

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to make an impact with words, paintbrushes and emotions but I've always kept myself busy with something because I couldn't face my fear of never being able to create something visually until you took me on board without having a look at my carefully articulated resumé. The last three months have been a whirlwind and without a doubt, the greatest learning experience of my life. When I look back, I realize I could have done things a lot better and faster if I just did them by myself without relying on someone else or trying to follow someone else's path instead of creating my own and that has been one of the harsh truths you've unknowingly passed on to me in this wildly unexpected journey. Thank you so much for allowing me to be a small part of this humongously magical piece that you've created against all odds, you're an insanely fiery force of nature that I've been so fortunate to witness! One would say movie but I'm sure you're going to make many many more thought and emotionally provoking works of art and I hope you get all the praise and love in the world for it. You're my inspiration muse and guru. Thank you for believing in me or even allowing me to believe that you do because sometimes even years of watching and obssessing over movies and passion is not enough. Love you!!

Shoot lesson

Shot breakdown on location

Action scene out of order should be story boarded

Also meanwhile

You were taken for chRostand celebrations by nani and Papa and they said you had lots and lots of fun ..
And we stole a winter morning with you too

Did I tell u that Juno thinks you are a boy ?

The look test happened

It was madness ! We had designed special patches to embroider on the sleeves and the chest (replicating a nasa spacesuit patchwork) and they weren't ready ... but yest it was lots of fun ..

We are having maid crisis back home.. but anyways my hope is to spend this weekend just going through shot breakdown - now that I know the layout of set better ...

The art of persuasion

Persuasion is about connecting to values, cultures, world views.

Times litfest with nani and Mummy 2017