Books during Winter Break

Three books I am reading during winter break:

1. Understanding Exposure : Revised Edition , Bryan Peterson

2. The Complete IDIOT's guide to Drawing Manga , John Layman & David Hutchinson
3. The Lord Of The Rings : Gollum - How we made Movie Magic , Andy Serkis

Well, I thought I'd learn something exciting and new during the winter and something that will sharpen my creative skills for which I haven't paid much attention lately.

The first one, by Bryan Peterson might help me improve my photographing skills. The second should probably improve my drawing skill and the third will definitley inspire any kind of artist in the world.

I'll let you know if the books did some good to me.

Of Pirates, Chip valleys, Jobs & Fortune

Have any of you watched "Pirates of the Silicon Valley"? I really didn't know there was such a movie until my friend Dinesh showed it to me last weekend. Previously I'd tried to read Bill Gates' biography or do you call it autobiography? Never got to more than 2 pages.. Then, I'd heard of Steve Jobs too (and fascinated that he was behind Apple Computers & talked about karma). Well, eventhough I was skeptical when I first started to see the movie as soon as I started watching the lives of two very important guys in the last 3 decades maybe, It really kept me hooked. For some reason (maybe that's not so unknown among the industry), I liked Steve Jobs better, maybe because he was more of the fighter type than Bill Gates who was the more of the successful/lucky type. There might be people who completely disagree with me.. but as far as I saw, and have heard and read.. just off the top of my head I think that.
And I had to write this blog mainly because I was blown off, by some of the presentations that Steve Jobs had done previously. For example, I think the 1991(I think the year might be a bit off) presentation for the Next Computers' OS. He was describing about features that are part of MacOSX now! And I especially loved the part where he runs Lotus 123 in DOS (in the OS itself) and uses a /f command in the command line interface in Lotus and comments "great user interface" (or somethin' like that) with sarcasm. The other reason was the commencement speech at Stanford in 2005 which was quite inspiring atleast for me. It was surely interesting looking into the lives of both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. More interesting was the relationship between them. Eventhough I am not sure how far there is truth in that movie, I would recommend watching "Pirates of the Silicon Valley" for anyone who wants an inside look on the lives of both the gentlemen.

Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away & Cars

Today, I saw "Spirited Away", by Hayao Miyazaki (hope I got his name right the first time I'm typing it out). It is a fantastic animation movie, which deserved the oscar it earned. This is 4 weeks after I saw "Howl's Moving Castle", which permanently made me a Miyazaki fan. Then 2 weeks ago I saw Pixar's Cars. All three are great animation movies. In Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away the imaginative genius of Miyazaki just steals the show with stunning visuals and well thought out scenes. In Cars , you could definitely feel that John Lasseter (who coincidentally starts off the DVD version of Spirited Away introducing Miyazaki and those who don't know who that is.. go and watch Luxo Jr. by Pixar) can make any movie scene with just cars in it, like for example a courtroom scene.. If you notice closely even small insect cars make a cute appearance. After watching "Howl's Moving Castle", I was simply mesmerized by the music/OST that the movie has. I've been hearing the theme song every night since that day before I sleep( or maybe repeat it as I sleep) .. Simply amazing and fits the story/screenplay perfectly. The characterization in all the three movies leave you with memories of characters which are not human/not of this world etched forever in your brain. Lightning McQueen, Mator, The Doctor and those 2 Italian cars (I loved the one which I put up in the above image, go see the movie and you too will fall in love with that) in Luigi's tires just steal the show from "Cars". Calcifer (and Billy Crystal who voices him) , Sophie and Howl just keep you mesmerized in "Howl's Moving Castle".

Just watching these movies gives me inspiration and gives me enormous hope when I think about my future in the same entertainment industry, be it games / animation / movies.