Pixar: 100% Genuine Animation!

Just saw Pixar's latest movie, Up (you haven't seen it? You should! rather you MUST). Coming back to my point, i sort of realised that time and again Pixar gives us a masterpiece which has critics drooling and box office register ringing. How does it manage it? After every hit, expectations go up a bar and every single time Pixar meets them! Just have a few thoughts on how it manages (its speculation, i might be wrong)

1. Talent: Pixar has the best talent. PERIOD. Be it John Lasseter(the pioneer is computer animation), Brad Bird or the voice actors (Tom Hanks, Woody Allen, or the people who have the sound effects)

2. Faith of the Leaders: Steve Jobs (Here i am taking a small leap and ignoring that George Lucas sold Pixar) didn't fire people even when Pixar was a loss making company which made computers (yes not animation!) and spent from his personal fortune (agreed he had loads of money, but he did spend it!) to keep it afloat. There was this quarter when these chaps didn't manage so reach double digit growth but he kept them alive.

3. Adapting to Changes: Once they realised people liked animation (some award they won for Luxo Junior) they moved in fast and planned a full length computer animated movie (Toy Story)

4. Partnering the best: And to make their first movie who they went to? Some sidey finanacer? No they went to big daddy of animation, Disney. And they did make history.

5. Self Belief: So you managed to convince Disney who has all the money so this means he can push you around? No way! You have the Brains (yups that does give tonnes of belief). Money can be replaced not brain power! So these chaps (actually Mr Jobs again) negotiates a deal with Disney which had Pixar logo being of the same size and having same visibilty as disney so the film going people remember a Pixar-Disney film not a Disney film. And this self belief also ensured that they could kick out Michal Eisner (the deal was one of the reason).

Now the thing is how can we map these things in our own life and own work? Open for discussion!!

Wordle

Made this from this website since dont have anything to write

E.T. - The Extra Terristrial

I was seeing ET-The Extra Terrestrial (approximately 109th time) and was again struck by the visuals. Usually people tend to do great things once, Steven Spielberg has the knack of doing them again and again, be it ET or Schindler's List or the underrated Amistaad.

Coming back to ET, the robot itself which depicted ET was a masterpiece. The eyes were so expressive you tend to forget it is a machine not a real person(that's the aim of cinema isn't it?). The scene when E.T. says "phone home" is pure magic!

Then the actors. The kids were awesome. Maniratnam in India and Spielberg can extract wonderful performance from kids. For Maniratnam's finesse see Anjali or even the acting of the kid Manisha in Dil Se... or the twins in Bombay.

Getting back to ET, it has been said that this is something similar to the story of Jesus Christ. I didn't realise it initially, but after reading I got it (it happens! I am no Superman!). This chap coming from other world, touching lives of so many people, selects his St Peter (Eliot) and his apostles (the kids on bikes) who fly by magic (holy spirit). Then there is a reference to resurrection also, when ET dies and then appears to his apostles in a almost magical way (glowing heart and liquid nitrogen spewing out from the Van's behind). Wow!

I have been trying to write this small piece for 2-3 weeks and always end up watching the movie when I sit to write and going again :)

One more thing, even though the movie was a superhit and a masterpiece, the game which came with the movie is considered one of the worst ever! And it is supposedly considered to cause the North American Video Game Crash in 1983. So everything was not magical about E.T. :)

Update: The logo for Steven Spielberg's studio, Amblin entertainment is taken from ET only. Look below:

IPL Advertisment

IPL Advertising in India is awesome. However, global advertising is not behind. Here is an example:

Wonder why didn't he learn Hindi Abuses if learnt to eat the hot curry :) Maybe Bhajan might teach him that.....

Google Chrome

When Internet revolution came to me, the browser wars were officially over and IE was the undisputed winner. I used IE for a long time till Mozilla FireFox 2.0 was released with a lot of fanfare. I was a hardcore convert.

Mozilla is really cool! It is made cooler by the plug ins/themes which can be used to modify the looks and functionality and what not! Heck you can make stuff yourself or modify the look yourself if you are too finicky about it!

There were others like Apple's Safari. Safari is the browser used in iPhone and Macs and is supposed to be really good. I find it to be gloomy and clunky looking browser thanks to the grey colored interface. It is light and it is fast but not destined to be used by many, at least on the PCs.

FireFox 3 was launched and made a world record. Yeah it is pretty cool (new interface and stuff) but it takes time to load (maybe something Bill Gates did to promote IE?) but it was the best thing around and was my default browser.

Then came the launch of Google Chrome which promised a "A Fresh take on the Browser". Intrigued, I donwloaded it. I found it is faster, has a sleeker and a cleaner interface and has tonnes of cool features. My favourite Feature is the Create application shortcut feature. Chrome is there to basically screw Microsoft and this feature proves it. You have Gmail, Google Docs and Google Spreadsheet (competition to Outlook, MS Word and MS Excel) and you create and application shortcut feature. Now you double click on it, thanks to Chrome being super fast you get it immediately on screen!

This is going to be a fun battle to watch out, Google vs Microsoft. Wait and watch.

Till that time keep using chrome.. It is pretty cool!