The Evil Dead 2013 Drawing post on my site seems to have become one of the most popular pages here, thanks to everyone who retweeted and shared the link at various places. I think it was one of the earliest pieces of Fan Artwork to be put online for the movie, and that’s why it got noticed. Besides, I think that’s a pretty good poster for the movie, if I do say so myself! I did another piece of artwork based on the movie, this one done entirely digitally, on my Micromax Canvas HD phone. Here it is –
This was done using a few apps – the basic drawing itself was done on Sketch Guru (the app seems to have been renamed to Paint Joy now), I then got it into Snapseed and added the textures, grunge look and the frame, and then finally took it into Pixlr Express to add the text.
The drawing is based on the opening scene of the movie, that shows a possessed girl. That scene is probably up there on the list of effective movie opening scenes – it really gets you into the movie!
Here is the drawing sans text, if the language is not your cup of tea –
Many months after I did that early fan art for Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead 2013, I finally got to see the movie. Sadly, the movie was not theatrically released in India, due to the graphic violence and blood, so I had to wait till it was released on disc. The movie is very well done, I will write a detailed review of it in another post.
[UPDATE 13-AUG-13]:
Here is a video showing how this drawing was made –
I filmed it on my Nokia 808 PureView phone. The music used is a remix of “Closer/Last” by Nine Inch Nails.
It’s been a while since I wrote a post on this site, and it’s also been a while since I published a drawing. So I thought I would put up my latest work – one drawing and one photo here. I will write another post as a recap of things that have happened over the last few months.
I watched the Season 5 premiere of Fringe and liked it very much. So, as you’d expect, I drew something based on it –
Season 5 Episode 1 “Transilience Thought Unifier Model-11” was set in 2036 (like the Season 4 episode “Letters of Transit”), and depicted a dystopian future where the Observers have taken over the planet. Over the next 12 episodes of this season, we will see the Fringe team save the world (and possibly the universe). I loved this episode for it’s writing and handling of characters (my cousin’s review is here, but be aware that it has spoilers).
I loved the blue-tinted (sometimes almost monochrome-looking) cinematography in this episode (by David Geddes). On that note, IMDb mentions that Season 4 (and presumably, this present season) of the show is shot digitally, using the Arri Alexa camera and Panavision Primo lenses. This is as opposed to the previous seasons which were shot on 35mm film. This camera was also used to shoot the movie Chronicle, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, and the Sherlock TV show.
The Observers led by what seems to be the new villain on the show, Captain Widmark made for sinister characters. So I drew them – this was done in ballpoint pen (black and blue) and markers (black and red). I added a paper texture for style and the font used is Agency FB (mimicking the new 2036 Fringe opening sequence). You can click on the image to see an even bigger version.
The red background was added to maintain consistency with my other two Fringe-based drawings (both from 2010).
This is my drawing of Anna Torv as Agent Olivia Dunham –
and this one is a drawing of John Noble as “Walternate” –
I am not sure how much the 2036 storyline in Season 5 will make reference to the fictional Massive Dynamic corporation, so I didn’t include that bit of text in my Observers drawing.
I feel a little sad that Season 5 will be the last of this great TV show. But it’s probably for the better, since this would mean that the series would go out on a high note.
The title of this post is a reference to the Green Day song, yes, since it’s being written on the last day of September, but it’s also a reference to the Observer called September (played by Michael Cerveris) who helps the Fringe team.
One more recent work of mine is this photo –
This is a shot of Visakhapatnam, the City of Destiny. I took this photo with my Nokia 808 PureView phone, on my recent trip to Vizag for Campus Recruitment. My colleagues and I visited a place called Kailashgiri, where you can go up a hill on a rope way. From high above, you have a really nice view of the city. As I’d mentioned earlier, the PureView is really nice for taking pictures like this, because the high resolution allows you to show off a lot of detail. You can see the full-resolution (7728 x 4354 pixel) processed shot here. You’ll have to download the file from that page (almost 10 MB in size), and you can zoom in and see small details (like for example, near the bottom left corner, you can read the text “VUDA MARINE DRIVE” on the arch on the road).
I have uploaded an album on Facebook with more pictures from the trip – Vizag Trip – 24-26-Sep-12 (40 images). All of these were taken with the PureView phone. I didn’t have my Canon EOS 550D with me on this trip, since I travelled to Vizag from Chennai, and couldn’t carry too much stuff. The PureView camera served me pretty well I must say!
The next volume of Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad – Volume 8 – is happening at Lamakaan, Banjara Hills on 31 March 2012. The event starts from 7 PM onwards.
When I tell people about this, they always ask me what this event is all about, and so I thought I would write a post about it.
“Pecha Kucha” is the Japanese term for “chit-chat”. A Pecha Kucha Night (PKN) is a gathering where a group of speakers talk about their work, hobby or passion, in a presentation format known as 20 x 20. This means that each speaker’s presentation must consist of 20 images or slides, each of them being shown for 20 seconds. Therefore, each presentation at a Pecha Kucha Night runs for approximately 7 minutes. (more info: Pecha Kucha Website, Pecha Kucha Article on Wikipedia)
The time limit avoids the “death by PowerPoint” effect – and since each presenter is speaking on something they are really passionate about, the talks are always interesting.
Pecha Kucha Nights happen all around the world. Hyderabad has played host to 7 successful volumes of PKN so far, all of them organised at Lamakaan, the open cultural space at Banjara Hills. (Google Maps page)
I was one of the speakers at Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Vol 6, and I attended Vol 7. Here are a few glimpses from those events. Since it’s my blog after all, I fully intend to use this opportunity to highlight my seven minutes of fame all over again!
Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Vol 6 – 5-Nov-11
PKN Hyderabad Vol 6 featured 9 speakers, talking about a variety of very interesting subjects. This was my first time at a PKN, and I had earlier expressed my interest to participate. As it turned out, mine was the first presentation that evening. I spoke about “My Movie Fan Artwork”. The organisers had two Canon EOS 5D Mark II cameras set up to film all the talks. Here is the official video of my presentation on YouTube –
I had my camera with me, and I took a bunch of photos at the event. Above is a picture featuring the other speakers at PKN Hyd Vol 6 (photos by me). These are the talks (all YouTube links) –
I had a wonderful time at the event – and I was totally hooked. Therefore, I eagerly awaited the announcement of the next volume.
Pecha Kucha Night Hyderabad Vol 7 – 4-Feb-12
Volume 7 was held last month, again at Lamakaan. I was present this time as an audience member, and an ‘unofficial official photographer’ (I took photos at the event and sent them to the organisers, who uploaded some of them on their album on Facebook, with due credit to me). Above is a look at the speakers who presented at this volume.
There were seven speakers (so the first image in the collage above is of Harish Krishnan, one of the organisers, introducing PKN Hyd Vol 7) and another interesting set of talks. Here are the YouTube links to the talks –
Here are a few more glimpses from the two events I attended so far –
One section of the audience at Vol 6. If you’re taking photos at this event, it’s in low light, so you’ll either need a flash or a good and fast lens. That’s the reason why I took many of my pics with my 50mm f1.8 II lens.
This is an interesting moment that I managed to capture at Vol 6. Anwar Ahmed is speaking, while Viswaprasad Raju draws a sketch of him! See the full size photo to see more detail.
The presenters at Vol 7 got a copy of Viswaprasad Raju’s Travel Sketches calendar.
Apart from the presenters at PKN Hyd, the MCs are also important contributors to the event. Srinidhi Dasaka was the MC for Vol 6, and Dixith PNP was the MC for Vol 7.
If you want to see still more photos, take a look at these two albums on Facebook (my photos) –
If you are interested in participating (either as a presenter, or as an MC), you can send the organisers an email to hydpkn@gmail.com, indicating what you would like to present on. They would then send you further details and a PPT template using which you can create your presentation.
If you’d just like to attend the event as an audience member, all you have to do is come over to Lamakaan – there is no entry fee. It’s advised that one arrives early, since the seating space is limited and these events tend to attract large attendance.
A few concluding notes
The Hyderabad Editions of Pecha Kucha Nights are organised by the people who run Hands Media and 17d North and a few other helping hands. These passionate people must be appreciated, since it’s not an easy task pulling off events like this when you have day jobs.
I didn’t know till I saw the 17d North website that this firm did the branding for the Rubaiyat and Nautanki Gali restaurants! If you’ve been to these places, you know how creative the ambience is. Also, I find the name of the firm interesting – it’s a reference to the latitude at which Hyderabad is located.
Finally, I have to mention and say thanks to Pratyusha J, since it was she who told me about Pecha Kucha to begin with, several months ago!
M is a 1931 film directed by Fritz Lang. The movie is set in a Berlin terrorized by a child murderer. It has been months since the cops have been on the hunt for this man, but they have failed to find him. As a result, people in the city are constantly afraid for the safety of their children. Not only that, the police’s crackdown is so extreme that organised crime in the city is unable to operate properly. So, the criminals decide to take matters into their own hands and start a search for the killer.
The killer is revealed early on in the film to us, the audience. It is Hans Beckert, played by Peter Lorre. Are his killings premeditated, or does he act out of compulsion? If so, what is justice for such a man?
For the most part, I found M a very nicely done movie. Peter Lorre’s acting was very good as Beckert. The story kept one’s attention, and some of the elements (the killer writing to the press, how the crime syndicate actually implements their search) reminded me of later movies. The scene with the cops deciding to intensify their search and the crime syndicate discussing their plans to apprehend the killer is intercut in an interesting way.
The movie has some nicely designed, very artistic shots. As is common for older movies, most of the shots are deep focus ones (I think the practice of using shots with a shallow depth of field started much, much later).
There were certain parts in the film that tended to drag and some of it was over-dramatized (one scene in the beginning where the crowd panics and almost lynches an old man). Does every lawman in Berlin smoke cigars constantly? The ending I thought was a bit abrupt.
I guess when one watches an older movie in the present day, one tends to approach it with a jaded mind, having already seen elements from it in later movies. I couldn’t avoid this bias. Still, the movie holds up very well and does pose some interesting questions.
The aforementioned scene in which the killer sends a note to the press reminded me of David Fincher’s Zodiac. Also, Hans Beckert whistles the tune of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg, which Fincher used in The Social Network. This made me think, what would it be like if there was a remake of M directed by David Fincher, with music by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross? Or a moody remake by Nicolas Winding Refn. If there was an Indian remake, I guess Anurag Kashyap would be a good fit to the material, and he’d do it in a gritty style like his That Girl in Yellow Boots.
I drew the above image with black and red gel pens and a black marker. You can click that to see a larger image.
You can watch the film below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jewTfVC7XD4
The above video is available in HD (720p) and a great way to enjoy the movie. It appears to be ripped from a BluRay source (I guess the uploader could do this, since the movie is in the Public Domain). It’s a 110 min restored version in German with English subtitles.
If you use Mozilla Firefox, you can download the video if you have a plugin called DownloadHelper. Apparently, on Google Chrome there’s a YouTube downloader in built. Alternatively, you can use an online downloader like SaveYouTube (where you copy the YouTube URL and just replace the youtube.com part with saveyoutube.com). That’ll give you some other options, like downloading the WebM encoded version (which at 1.69 GB is smaller in size than the MP4 file).
While you may be able to get the video using any of the above methods, you’ll still need to download the subtitles. You can search online for subtitles that match this video, or you could use a program called Google2SRT to get the subtitles. This is a very handy program to have, since it’ll allow you to rip subtitles from any YouTube video.
A few days ago, a trailer for the upcoming fifth Resident Evil movie, Resident Evil: Retribution appeared online. The trailer is a clever piece of work, it’s put together really well, and the movie seems like it’ll be a lot of fun. Say what you will about Paul W S Anderson’s movies, the man can put together a slick and stylish film.
This movie’s going to be in IMAX 3D, and if the 3D is as good as it was in Resident Evil: Afterlife, this certainly should be a movie worth watching out for.
So, very impressed by the trailer, I drew this. Click for a larger image.
This is just a quick sketch done with black, blue and red gel pen (and I also used a thick marker), colours, texture and text were added with Photoshop Elements.
Oh, and the trailer is embedded below:
Looks cool, no?
UPDATE 24-Feb-12: I’ve posted the original scan of the drawing, so you can see it without the digital edits.
This was done using a few apps – the basic drawing itself was done on Sketch Guru (the app seems to have been renamed to Paint Joy now), I then got it into Snapseed and added the textures, grunge look and the frame, and then finally took it into Pixlr Express to add the text.
Many months after I did that early fan art for Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead 2013, I finally got to see the movie. Sadly, the movie was not theatrically released in India, due to the graphic violence and blood, so I had to wait till it was released on disc. The movie is very well done, I will write a detailed review of it in another post.
