Behind the camera

Spending the past three years in the ad industry has exposed me to a lot of things. I’ve learned a lot and hope to put them into good use. I’ve also picked up a few glitches along the way. For instance, what’s it with Sri Lankan photographers and commercial directors?

First let me rant about the photographers.

I think we have some awesome talent when it comes to photography. Most of our local boys and gals can shoot a subject or an object pretty darn well but when it comes to complex shoots (fashion photography,shooting people) they fail. Fail to get the desired expression. Fail to get the body language right. So many things that they get wrong than right. Why? Because the photographer simply shuts himself/herself behind the camera. There’s this massive distance between the two, so the model doesn’t react, doesn’t feel the mood or rather doesn’t know what it is… I’ve noticed when foreign photographers shoot, they constantly chatter, they encourage, they motivate, they criticize hence the outcome is fabulous. Plus the Art Director, model and photographer work together instead of in
isolation. The problem with our Art Directors is that they’re really good at dissing the photographer after the shoot. When I question as to
whether they mentioned their concerns at the shoot, they laugh and tell me that the photographers never listen so they don’t bother.
That may be true but you’ve got to fight for what you want, right?

Second the Commercial directors, I simply dislike working with Sri Lankans because when the script falls into their hands they like working without the writer. That’s why the finished film is never as good as the script. I had the privilege of working with an Indian Director for one of my commercials and I simply loved the experience. He was open to suggestions and after finishing a scene he would ask me whether that was what I wanted and if I was dissatisfied he would shoot it again. Also he made sure he took a cut he liked, then in the editing room we would view both and come to an unanimous decision. Something else I liked about his style of directing was
that he was very involved with the actors, he spoke to them during breaks, he made them feel comfortable, he got them to do it over and over again till they got it right. That is the attitude I would like to work with instead of obnoxious twits.

That’s all I’ve got to say on the matter. Back to writing scripts and facing clients who won’t approve them.

The importance of praying

Now I believe that prayers are answered.

At my church when we come to an age of understanding we are allowed to give talks based on bible topics. These talks help us understand the bible better, it also helps us tackle difficult questions that people might throw at us. Giving your first talk is a big deal. I gave my first talk when I was eight. I still remember that day. It was a great day. After I finished, everybody applauded, they hugged me and my parents gave me gifts. I was thrilled and looked forward to more talks but the gifts stopped coming.

This Friday it’s my lil sister’s turn to give her very first talk. She’s 12, took her a bit longer to decide whether she was up to it. I feel extremely excited for her. My parents usually make a big fuss about things like this, so we bought her gifts, she doesn’t know it yet but I’m sure she’ll be thrilled. This is where the prayer bit fits in, well I completely forgot that this talk was happening and scheduled an extremely important meeting to completely wreck my chances of witnessing my sister’s debut. When realization hit me like a big JMC truck, it was too late. So I started panicking and decided to explain to my sister that I won’t be able to make it but I didn’t have the guts. She would be so disappointed in me and that’s something I simply can’t stand. So I prayed fervently over the past couple of days, begging God to cancel that wretched meeting.

Guess what? The meeting is canceled and rescheduled for another date. So now I can listen to my sister with a huge grin on my face and share that one awesome moment of her tiny life.

My splendid years

Since I had a bit of time on my hands, decided to evaluate my past in a yearby year format…13 and 14 – They were normal years. Full of fun and frolic. I still climbedwalls and trees, chased boys up the road (not in the way I would have lovedto have chased them). Was dorky, still wore my hair in braids, still woreVictorian frocks which were usually two sizes too big but I thought theywere spectacular.15 was a very different year, I started becoming more girly. With theintroduction to Theatre I took every stride that came, started changing mywardrobe, started talking about things I didn’t know about and as a resultlearnt a lot more things that a 15 year old could have done without. I alsostarted seeing boys in a different light, started attracting older men.Strangely made a very spiritual leap. Developed a crush on a guy at church(that wasn’t the spiritual leap, but it did help because he gave me a hug).That was also the year my bro introduced me to clubbing and I justabsolutely loved it.16 by far was the best year of my life. I was getting used to the whole ideaof being a teenager and was playing the part pretty well. So I let go, had alot of fun and at the same time maintained my principles.17 was the rebellious year. I fought a lot, with the people at church, withmy family. Ditched my friends and completely dived into things I would havenot done otherwise. 17 was also the year I started dating, my first kiss anda whole lot of other things.18 was the career year. My first serious job in a big company. I wasoverjoyed, the parties, the guys, the booze… took it all in and it was ZEN.This also led to my second relationship, which had its absolutely fabulousmoments.19 was the guilty year. I felt bad for everything I’d done, didn’t want tohurt my family who’ve been there for me. I was heartbroken when myrelationship started to fall apart. My career wasn’t doing too well. Met aninteresting guy though whom I fell head over heels in love with but itwasn’t mean to be.20 was the year for change. I stopped my bad girl ways, started attendingchurch, didn’t party so much. Won a couple of Chillies, which did a lot tomy ego and proved that I could still be a worthy asset to the company. Alsomet another interesting guy but unfortunately felt like he was taking medown the wrong road so I cut him off the picture.This year is going to be extremely different from all the other years and Idon’t feel all that bad about being 21. I’m happy. My family is happy. Myfriends are happy. So what more is there to ask for?

What a disaster!

Saturday was a disaster. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Since it’s a common practice in Sri Lanka to blame somebody or something else for all our blunders I thought I should blame Sam, because if I didn’t have to pick her up I would have made it on time. No I can’t do that. I really like Sam even with her eccentricities. I think I’ll just blame my brand spanking red shoes, which reminds me of Kelly Pickler’s song about her red high heels…Ah I know whom to blame, blame Specko he was the one who is the cause of such a horrible horrible Saturday night. Now that I have successfully zeroed in on Specko I shall continue my tirade.

Specko and Blindboy were supposed to accompany us to the play but something came up and they cancelled out on us at the last minute. This I assure you was enough to ruin my mood, since I had two extra tickets I had to call some of my friends to check whether they would be interested but that was such a futile effort. No one likes to be the last resort. In addition to that I had to figure out how we were going to get there, the tuk tuk that I decided to go with was 20 minutes late. The ride to Sam’s was equally annoying; on a normal day I would have considered it an adventure, hunting her house down in a strange neighbourhood…finally an equally irritated Sam is picked up.

The tuk tuk continues, we go over our irritations while we still can’t believe that these two guys ditched us, for what, only god knows. The tuk tuk man is now lost somewhere in Rajagiriya. We’re awfully late. Afro keeps calling. We’re just a couple of feet away from frothing anger. When we get there, we’re politely told by the MTV newscasters that we have to wait till the interval to get ourselves in. It was our fault for getting late so I don’t blame them; I could though if I want to…

That’s when Sam came up with a brilliant idea, “lets go and get drunk”. Sounds good but instead of heading to the nearest pub we went to Excel World. There Sam and I went on the spinning scrambler, which was as close to a shot of Vodka. Then we went to the arcade and played a few games. Then we hit the 4D cinametrix ride, I’ve been to a couple abroad and they’ve been absolutely fabulous so I thought this couldn’t be that bad. So I let Sam do the picking but Sam is not very good at it, the ride was bad. So Sam doesn’t get to have bright ideas next time.

After that Afro was insisting that we all hit a club but I wasn’t in the mood. Wanted the night to end as quickly as possible. So yeah it wasn’t a great night and it’s all Specko’s fault.

I went paintballing last Thursday with my department. IT WAS FREAKING FABULOUS.

Watching Colombo go by…

Buses crawl along the busy street
but the tooting horns can’t disturb the serenity.

The children come out to play
a game of football along the shady grove.
Their laughter makes me smile as I remember
what it was like to be a child.

In the distance the mighty ocean
as calm as it could be
bring back the ships of fortune into safety.

Minuscule people hurry on
with one clear destination in mind.
Some to places of fun and others to places of misery.

Health conscious freaks blink at the morning sun,
then hit the asphalt for their morning run.

1st March 2008 – 9th Floor, Capitol Residencies

A friend in need…

I helped a friend. I always help friends and people who need help, but this was different. I helped a friend who was suicidal. I’ve heard numerous stories about people who suffer from depression and to prevent them from suicidal inclinations, they are fed on anti depressants. I’ve never met such a person so I didn’t know exactly how to deal with this situation.

My friend is 25 years old, she had to deal with a lot of issues while growing up and she’s always been the kind of person who wasn’t happy with her life. She gives up hope pretty easily, sometimes puts too much enthusiasm and energy into one particular thing and when that goes wrong, she’s quick to jump to the conclusion that her life is worthless. That’s what happened this time round. She quit her job to finish her degree and after two years her parents said that they couldn’t afford to fund her final year.

She cries uncontrollably while relating the story, I listen patiently. She tells me how insane her life is, how her parents can’t be bothered (which is not true). Then she tells me that it’s better to die than live like this…that was the moment for me to snap. I tell her that suicide is for cowards. I’m surprised at my words, but that jolted her out of her stupid trance. She stopped crying. I seized the opportunity. I basically told her off, how stupid she was to devote her life towards one goal when there’s so much more to give and get out of life. I tell her that she needs to seek new opportunities, take risks, and live life. She’s stunned and silent for a while, I don’t blame her she expected a few words of sympathy not criticism.

After my tirade, she realized that she could make her life better and her hopeless situation didn’t seem so hopeless anymore. Later during the day she messaged me to let me know that she apologized to her parents and she thanked me for being there as a friend.

It felt good… a good shaking was all she needed.