Anything for TRPs

Working kids

 

Amidst the growing talent hunt platforms of varied genre its easy to catch the road of choice. InĀ India currently, different shows using the kids and teens to get higher TRPs are enjoyed by a huge mass.

 

The youth and kids are captivated by the limelight and glamour of the media. Television Rating Point (TRP) is all about scoring maximum viewers attendance on a show…But nowadays it is achieved at the cost of sacrificing our humanitarian and moral values.Ā What is picturized is adapted by the viewers. To get an applaud the creators compromise the basic instincts.

 

I sometimes wonderĀ that what these young kids are going through. And worried when I read stories, which tells that they are skipping schools and working 8-10Hrs for daily soaps. In some cases, theirĀ parents are responsible to force these kids to satisfyĀ their failed dreams to become a star…

 

Lots of ads and serials are using or encashingĀ cuteness of these little souls to sell their contents or products. One case is with a current running serial, and it’s a story about a small girl who is a talented singer, motherless and an innocent child caught in the circle of cunning, cruel and a hoggish world.

 

The serial has talented actors, but the focus of the story seems more about the pain/torture which an innocent child is inflicted upon by others. Enormous torture, offensive language, humiliatingĀ situations giving sobs to the little child daily…The tears and the sadness of kid character in that serial can make the viewers cry. In another serial which has been stopped now, showed a story around aĀ young boy(9 years) married to an older girlĀ of 18 years…But do you think is it OK?

 

There are a number of talent hunt programmes running on different channels calling for the dancing, singing, acting talents in kids…Their aim is to catch, grab and hold the audience. Encashing the innocence of the children to achieve theirĀ businessĀ goals which may ruin kids future.

 

Neither the parents nor the kids understand the harm of the shows. The glamour seizes the senses and everyone is lost in this business.

 

We all need to understand that where we are going and what we need to provide to our future generations…..it’s up to us…just THINK and Brainstorm…

 

Written with Meeti Kotia

Image courtesy:Ā https://pixabay.com

BAAGHI 2 – Movie Review

Baaghi 2 Review

After a long time, I am writing somethingā€¦ I thought to include all my interested fields and domain under this blog instead of just Technologiesā€¦

This post is about movie review of ā€˜Baaghi 2ā€™.

I have interest in martial arts, and so love martial art action movies. Two action stars in Bollywood, Tiger Shroff, and Vidhyut Jhamwal which attract my attention. Selection of bad movies seems the problem with Vidhuyt. What may be the reasonā€¦he is not making his mark even though he has potential.

But Tiger is having internal/Industry links and support, but his movie like Baaghi 2 was not at all impressive, not due to his efforts but because of a very weak storyline. Letā€™s talk about Baaghi 2, I went with the high hope and lots of hungama about the success of the movie. But even after stellar performances and efforts by Tiger, Manoj Bajpai, Prateik Babbar etc. film is weak it seemsā€¦Hats off to Prateik for his stellar performanceā€¦

Scriptwriter tries to develop a very intriguing story but it seems all went wrong while screenplay. Introduction scenes of Tiger and Disha Patani were weak, it would have been made innovative and effective. The suspense in movie try to bind you but many unanswered questions are also theirā€¦I canā€™t divulge more as this is a suspense-thriller. Research or time does not spend properly during the creation of characters, example, a character of ACP (Randeep Hooda). I donā€™t understand the character of Randeep Hooda, why he behaves weird and openly use drugs, abusive languages even in front of his seniors? Another one, a constable whose face was not shown, an assistant of Randeep Hooda, this constable starts crying when Randeep ask any question to him? God knows why? and I feel itā€™s a kind of insult to Indian Police department upright officers.

It seems, after watching this film that everyone is dealing with only drugs in Goa. While watching you don’t understand where the story is heading. In the climax, we suddenly know that there is a dense forest near the cityā€¦the main villain has a resort there with helicopters (not one, more) and lots of foreign martial artists with lots and lots of guns and ammunitionā€¦. God knows what our intelligence agencies were doing. Director tries to give Rambo like feeling when hero put heroin ka dupatta on his hand. Lots of shooting/blasting/fighting happened in the climaxā€¦. which was not convincing but yes Tiger Shroff putā€™s his great efforts in fight scenes. Interestingly, police party and army etc. were just waiting outside of this dense forestā€¦. again, God or director knows why? Hero, who is a martial artist, who beats 500-1000 people in the climax was easily beaten up by a very weak villain. In one of the last scene, very interesting shot, the hero was surrounded by 20-25 armed fightersā€¦.I was thinking that how the director will move forward from this pointā€¦.Whoop, suddenly shot cuts and next scene startsā€¦..after a few minutes, the director shows again that older spot where all fighters were scattered and deadā€¦.God knows how? Till that time, I had started searching for Exit door from that cinema hallā€¦.

As per reports, the movie is inspired by some south Indian movie. But my point is when you have invested so much money in itā€¦. put some extra time also in research, character generation/creations etc. It seems that director wants to put everything in one movie i.e. Rambo, Ong Bak etcā€¦. Just check commercials hits like Chennai Express, 3 Idiots, Munna Bhai MMBS etcā€¦for screenplayā€¦.Like in Ong Bak they were aptly used Thailand culture/animals and embed fighting around itā€¦as Indian, we have very rich cultural heritage…so canā€™t we create something interesting around it?

Suggestion for Tiger, dear you work hard but be alert on the selection of script. Just learn from Jackie Chan in this matter, he is the best inspiration for fighters in movies, not because he is a great martial artist but he knows the nitty-gritty of cinema and knows how to entertain cinema lovers.

 

Note: Views in this article are just a reflection of my thoughts as a viewer after watching this movie. I personally donā€™t want to hurt anyone/or movie business intentionally or unintentionally…

Image reference from Bollywood Hungama website from the internet…

Donā€™t worry if your child swallowed a coin

Donā€™t worry if your child has swallowed a coinā€¦.

This just happened to me, my eight year daughter was sitting with me studying for her exams. I saw a five rupee coin on the bed few minutes before but didnā€™t pick it up as I was asking her the lessons.
Suddenly she patted her back and said in a husky voice that coin went insideā€¦ā€¦..
Her papa came running, pulled her upside down tried everything he could but the coin slide down the gut. We went running to the hospital did x- ray and showed it to the doctor, who just relaxed us by saying ā€œDonā€™t worry give rich fibrous food, plenty of water and bananas to the child.ā€

But friends it took 14 days to pass out of her bodyā€¦.
My experience says that if the coin has easily slides your esophagus or the food pipe then it will come out through excretion.

But if it goes into the wrong pipe then you need medical aid immediatelyā€¦
My daughter is weak in eating and too much of banana she was unable to eat may be this was also the reason why the coin took so long to come out. Salads helps a lot in sweeping the intestines. So I gave her salads and, in a day or two the coin was out.

Doctor says that our small intestine is very long and the food takes time to travel through it. If itā€™s a coin, then to come out it may take one or two days, eight days and may be fifteen to twenty days but it will pass outā€¦

Just give plenty of fibrous food, salads, fruits, warm water, bananas etcā€¦..
And biggest donā€™t panic, body automatically cleans the unwanted stuffā€¦ā€¦ā€¦..

Article written by Meeti Kotia

Adobe CS5 seminar in Mumbai

adobe-cs5I had been to seminar organize by Adobe on Adobe CS5 launch in Mumbai on Friday 14 may 2010. A great seminar I can say. Very impressive presentation by those three evangelists from Adobe team i.e. Terry White, Greg Rewis, Jason Levine.

Event was organized in NCPA auditorium in Mumbai, which is near to Mantralaya at Churchgate Mumbai. I reached there before time at 8.45 AM on Friday, even though timings are given for the event is 9:30AM to 5:30PM. When I reached to the auditorium it was good to see all old and previous companiesā€™ friends there. We discussed lots about the Multimedia industry and technologies. Good hot tea and coffee with cookies served by Adobe, and also inform that event will start now at 10:00 AM. I passed the time with friends, and on HP, NVIDIA stalls with hot tea.

Event start at 10:00 AM with Terry White session. He took a great session on Design Premium i.e. InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator etc. Personally I liked the Terryā€™s session because he is concentrating on his subject and zooming/zoom out during his activity so everyone can see the menu options which he was selecting. He had utilized his time properly to show demonstration, for which we went to that seminar.

Than Lunch breakā€¦.ohh we were waiting for that. We ran towards food stallā€¦..ahh ā€¦good foodā€¦.than whatā€¦ we enjoyed it thoroughlyā€¦.and not missed any stallā€¦ā€¦..

Again session starts, this time its Greg Rewis turn. Who was an expert in Web Creative Suite. His presentation skill and command over products is great, but he always leave his workstation and come in front of the audience and express his views and again go to his workstation to show something. In this process what I feel that we lost some useful time. If he like Terry sits on his workstation than he can show may be more in less time. Thatā€™s no problem, because he also did a wonderful presentation. He showed all great new features in those products. He also commented on Appleā€™s problem with Flash technologies. He had shown that Flash technologies support touch screen application. He demonstrated that on iPhone and Terry showed on iPad. Greg shown Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks etc.

Greg shown one important thing about Photoshop and Fireworks, which is really amazing, that through Fireworks you can reduce image file size drastically without losing quality as compare to Photoshop. He convert an image from Photoshop to JPEG and size comes to 180KBā€¦.but when he convert same image through Fireworks its size comes to 105KBā€¦..AMAZING!!! and that too without any loss in quality as compare to Photoshop image.

We try to avoid afternoon nap because we donā€™t want to lose any point in between. Many people though enjoyed sleeping. Greg was trying to make his session electrifying and he was successful too,Ā  but you canā€™t control everyoneā€¦.and that too after a delicious food in lunchā€¦.so many enjoyed their sleep. OK,Ā  I want to make clear that I was not asleepā€¦because I donā€™t want to lose knowledge sharing from these experts šŸ™‚

Now after Greg session a short break for tea and cookie. Again we enjoyed everything šŸ™‚ ā€¦yummyā€¦.

Its time for Jason Levine session. Who is evangelist on Creative Suite Production Premium.Ā  His session was also great and he try to cover many topics in video production field. Some problem we faced during his presentation are zoomin/zoomout feature in his laptop. He was not able to zoom-in and zoom-out during exercises because may be his laptop not support that function. So we (viewers) were not clearly able to see what option he is clicking. He sang some Hindi songs also and Hindi dialogue which were liked by the audiences. His language is too fast it seems as compared to previous two presenters, and may be some Indian viewers (who doesnā€™t interact with American daily) may be find some problem to understand some fast wordsā€¦.may beā€¦..

He has highlighted features such as hi speed of video editing work with CS5, Rotoscoping, Glow lines, Color corrections etc.

After that both these three gentlemen showed us some hidden secretes in last, which is none other than some more new features. Than lucky draw event, in which three lucky winner win the Adobe CS5 setā€¦ā€¦ā€¦.uffā€¦.I was not selected in that lucky drawā€¦..no problem may be next time šŸ™‚ ā€¦ā€¦.With a good note seminar ends at sharp 6:00PM.

Some new features which are highlighted during seminar are:

1.Ā  Quick selection tool through which we can select hair strands also. Which was difficult in previous version?
2.Ā  New improved 3D text/modeling tool in Photoshop.
3.Ā  Content Aware option in Photoshopā€¦truly magical tool.
4.Ā  Perspective grid tool in Illustrator.
5.Ā  Gap tools, Auto fits, Online feedback feature, interactivity in InDesign.
6.Ā  PHP, HTML 5 support and Browser lab in Dreamweaver.
7.Ā  Supporting of lots of languages in Flash.
8.Ā  New improved code snippets in Flash. Just drag and drop any prepared script from code snippet.
9.Ā Ā New improved Rotoscoping brush, Glow lines, color correction, color Finess3 plug-in tool in After Effects.
10.Ā And many more šŸ™‚

Project Management Class

As I had learned about the Project Management, here is a short note on Project Management theory and its classes. This article is purely for my revision purpose, so readers may feel it like incomplete article, my apologies for that.

Project Management:
Projects are defined as complex efforts, made up of interrelated tasks, to be completed within a limited time frame and budget, with a well-defined set of objectives.
Project Management is define as the process of managing and directing the efforts and resourse (time, materials, personnel, finance) through the project life cycle to complete a particular project in an orderly and economic manner; and to achieve the project objectives to the satisfaction of the projectā€™s major stakeholders.

A successful Project Manager must simultaneously manage the four basic elements of Project
Ā  >> Resources
Ā >> Time
Ā >> Cost
Ā >> Scope

Project Life Cycle:

pm_img_01

Class:

1.Ā Project Management Overview: Projectisation & Scope
2.Ā Project Life Cycle feasibility analysis & a case study experience
3.Ā Network based Project Planning & Scheduling
4.Ā Resource Allocation & scheduling
5.Ā Project risk assessment & management
6.Ā Project Procurement, Material & SCM(Software configuration Management)
7.Ā Project Evaluation & Finance related issues
8.Ā Project Contracts, Arbitration & Dispute Settlement Mechanisms
9.Ā Project Total Quality Management
10.Ā Introduction to MS Project
11.Ā Introduction to Primavera
12.Ā Theory of Constraints & Project management Experience
13.Ā Project Human Resource Management
14.Ā Case Studies

Learnings:

1.Ā Describe the special characteristics of project, and their implications
2.Ā Describe the major project management functions and the skills required
3.Ā Major project management techniques
4.Ā With case studies, realistic expectation of how to learn to become effective project manager
5.Ā Understand the role of good project planning, and basic planning framework
6.Ā Understanding the common mistakes made in project planning
7.Ā Understanding and differentiate the CPMĀ  (Critical Path Method) and PERT (Program Evaluation Review Technique) technique in scheduling, their development, applications and limitations
8.Ā Prepare a schedule for project activities, with or without resources constraints, possibly using Excel and MS Project software or Primavera
9.Ā Use CPM method to analyze the time and cost trade-off
10.Ā Address some scheduling problems facing task duration uncertainty
11.Ā Define the elements and roles of project control during the implementation phase
12.Ā Describe the frameworks for project control
13.Ā Monitor project progress
14.Ā Use the earned value method to manage projectā€™s cost and schedule

Aptech aquires MAAC

Aptech Ltd.Ā on 28 Jan 2010, Ā announced its acquisition of Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics (MAAC). The acquisition is through the takeover of 100% equity shares of Maya Entertainment Ltd.(MEL) , the parent company of MAAC.Ā  MAAC, one of the largest players in the Animation & Multimedia education industry, is a premium brand with over 70 centres spread throughout India. Aptech has his brand, Arena Animation, the leader in the field of Animation and Multimedia education in Asia. The deal is valued at Rs. 76 cr . In my view a great move by Mr. Ninad Karpe the CEO & MD of Aptech. This move again reposition Arena Multimedia as number 1 in Multimedia, Animation and also strenthen itself in 3D/VFX education market also.

For more details check link: http://www.animationxpress.com/index.php?file=story&id=25611

Life Lesson for 2010

I received an interesting email on new year, through my blog I want to share those interesting points with you. You must read at least once, really useful for our life.

Health:

  1. >> Drink plenty of water
  2. >> Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggarĀ 
  3. >> Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants, and eat less food that is manufactured in plantsĀ 
  4. >> Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm, and EmpathyĀ 
  5. >> Make time for prayerĀ 
  6. >> Play more gamesĀ 
  7. >> Read more books than you did in 2009Ā 
  8. >> Ā Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each dayĀ 
  9. >> Ā Sleep for 7 hoursĀ 
  10. >> Take a 10-30 minutes walk every day —- and while you walk, smile

Personality:

  • >> Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.Ā 
  • >> Don’t have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present momentĀ 
  • >> Don’t over do ; keep your limitsĀ 
  • >> Don’t take yourself so seriously ; no one else doesĀ 
  • >> Don’t waste your precious energy on gossipĀ 
  • >> Dream more while you are awake
  • >> Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
  • >> Forget issues of the past. Don’t remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.Ā 
  • >> Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don’t hate others.Ā 
  • >> Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the presentĀ 
  • >> No one is in charge of your happiness except youĀ 
  • >> Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.Ā 
  • >> Smile and laugh moreĀ 
  • >> You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

Community:

  • >> Call your family oftenĀ 
  • >> Each day give something good to othersĀ 
  • >> Forgive everyone for everythingĀ 
  • >> Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6
  • >> Try to make at least three people smile each day
  • >> What other people think of you is none of your businessĀ 
  • >> Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your family and friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:

  • >> Do the right things
  • >> Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful
  • >> GOD heals everythingĀ 
  • >> However good or bad a situation is, it will change
  • >> No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show upĀ 
  • >> The best is yet to comeĀ 
  • >> When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for itĀ 
  • >> Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

LightWave CORE

On February 4, 2009, NewTek Inc. launched new version of LightWave i.e. LightWave CORE. LightWave CORE is a completely new system offering a unified environment that allows anything to be animated in any number of ways. LightWave CORE is a node-based, multi-processing, unified application, designed to be as future-proof as possible, with a concentration on capacity and performance.

Jay Roth, president, 3D division of NewTek Inc., say that this is based on new architecture, which will be more flexible, forward-looking, high capacity and performance driven system than any 3D content creation environment currently in the market.

LightWave CORE offers a flexible user interface design with general access to most of the UI components available via CSS, including fonts, placement of controls and widgets, down to pixel-level accuracy. Users can also take advantage of snapping palettes to rearrange their screen at will and use the desktop management system to store their preferred layout in a per context fashion: settings for modeling, surface, rigging, animating, rendering and so on, all set and stored separately.

The SDK for CORE is C++-based and is the same for internal development as it is for external development. The architecture enforces full access to C++ SDK and scripting languages, featuring Python as the primary language, while remaining open to connection with a wide range of others through SWIG compliance. CORE is completely multi-threaded spawning as many threads as it needs. The system is both 64- and 32-bit compliant, and is capable of leveraging GPU power where applicable. It will be available on Windows, Macintosh OS X and Linux.

About pricing:
LightWave v9 owners gain access to LightWave CORE with their HardCORE membership for US$395 (charter price) through March 31, 2009. Beginning April 1, HardCORE annual memberships for LightWave v9 owners will increase to US$495.
For more information please visit: http://www dot newtek dot com/core/