Achchamundu Achchamundu [அச்சமுண்டு அச்சமுண்டு] - Arun’s Blog

AA on RED website!

Initializing revolution…India’s first feature film shot on RED ONE.

http://www.red.com/shot_on_red/

Anyway, don’t get deceived by the release date I know there are some curious hearts looking out for that little detail. I will be able to say something concrete once I reach India by Mid December.

Indymogul Interview

Why should somebody dislike the idea of film schools? Film schools are necessary. I won’t say that you have to learn filmmaking to be a filmmaker but if you have the means and opportunity to learn something towards this craft, why not use that opportunity? There is a huge difference between watching films and making films. For making films, you need to understand the science behind it and where else you can learn the details in such an orderly manner? I came across some wonderful books, and films because of NYFA. I met some wonderful passionate people because of my schooling experience.

To read the entire interview, Please click here

Mixing with Marti Humphrey!

I am going to share something very interesting ! I am flying to LA for the final mix of the film. Marti Humphrey is going to mix our film. If you are wondering who Marti is, the man behind the mix of some great films like ‘The Grudge’ series, ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’, ‘The Strangers’ and popular shows like ‘Everybody hates Chris’, ‘Bay watch’. To know more about him, you can visit his IMDB link. This is the first time he is mixing a tamil film…for that matter, an Indian film.

One of the main reason this happened is because of Kunal Rajan, sound supervising editor of ‘AA’. He showed one of the reels to Marti. After seeing it, he is very impressed with it and was interested in talking with me. I was also super excited for the same and my producers were gracious enough to support the whole thing! I am sure his expertise will bring great sound mix to film. Another great news, Karthik Raja is flying to LA with his background score. Following is the Dub stage where the mixing is going to happen!

Will keep you all updated with more news and if possible, photos too

Live sound vs Dubbing!

This is one of the Indian films which is recorded ‘Live sound’ on the sets. That means there is no dubbing. Whatever the actors talk during the filming, that’s it! This way, the dialogue delivery will be very natural and no exaggerated emotions. Although we record live sound, still you need to dub few things here and there. Fortunately, we only had two scenes where we needed to dub. Previous week, we called Prasanna and Sneha and finished the dubbing successfully!

Congrats Sneha for Nandi award!

Sneha just won Andhra pradesh’s prestigious Nandi award for ‘Best Actress’ award towards the film ‘Radhagopalam’. She is a very talented actress and on behalf of ‘Achchamundu! Achchamundu!’ team, we all wish our ‘Maalu’ (Malini Kumar) of ‘AA’, huge success in all her current & future projects!

This is an exclusive photograph which was never used in our posters but captured wonderfully by Pradeep during ‘AA’ photo shoot!

Meeting with Ted Schilowitz from RED ONE

Michael cioni of plaster city  introduced me to Ted Schilowitz, Leader of RED ONE Camera. He saw our film and was very happy to see the results. When I met him, he just finished a meeting with DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Ben stiller, Steven Spielberg and few other Hollywood celebrities explaining the adavantages of RED ONE. This shows that the word is picking up for RED ONE and lot of film people are very excited about this new camera. I am sure this will enable lot of Documentary film makers and independent filmmakers to express their views, tell their stories.

R.I.P Director Sridhar

What a great director! He is a trend setter! Daring stories, Neat execution, Superb humor sense, Feel good romance, Path breaking - May your soul rest in peace, Sir!

Comments and Spam

Hai all,

I was pissed off with all those comments which recommended Viagra, Zoo sex, XXX stories etc and was about to close the Comments section entirely. But Sadish who designed this blog helped me to get rid of those non sense tortures thru a plug in. In the mean time, I deleted some of the true comments by genuine visitors. Sorry for the same. I am sure, if at all your name and a genuine comment appears in the moderate session, I will approve it.

Great day!

Michael Peyser and Jon Labrie’s visit

I came to know Jon Labrie thru Madhu sudhanan a good friend of mine and well wisher. Madhu is the one who won national award (Visual Effects) for ‘Aalavandhaan’. Jon Labrie read the script of ‘Achchamundu! Achchamundu!’ and is in touch with me from that day onwards. I flew from Chennai to Mumbai in the month of February just to meet Jon and read his notes about the script. When I was doing the Digital intermediate in Plaster city, I connected with Jon and he was very excited to see the color grading of the film. He also told me that ‘Michael Peyser’ would love to check out the film too and I invited him thru phone. He came there saying that ‘I will be here for only few minutes’ but ended up staying close to one hour. 

Working in Plaster city was a great experience. Michael Ceoni was very friendly in organizing things and Milton, the colorist was very good with Pablo 4K system. Katie, Dana, Oscar, Matt…all became good friends of mine during that one week.

Michael Peyser is the one who produced lot of popular hollywood films like ‘Speed-2′, ‘U2 3D’ and currently working in ‘Laundry Warrior’. Jon Labrie, worked as the Digital systems architect in academy award winning ‘Lord of the Rings’.

I would love to post more about my experiences with ‘RED ONE’ (I know…I know…I am getting emails and calls regarding this) and my discussion with Ted Schilowitz, Leader of the Rebellion from RED ONE in my future posts.

DI Process in LA

The DI process has become part of filmmaking nowdays. DI is nothing but ‘Digital Intermediate’ where the color correction process for film takes place. Its like having a photoshop for your film and making changesto the look of the film according to your wish. Anyway, you can’t be crazy about this stuff and keep on making changes to the raw footage since this is a very expensive process. We are doing the same in ‘Plaster city‘ of LA and I am typing this message from LA. Plaster city is a rapidly growing post facility for RED features and they have done lot of RED projects. Today I had an excellent meeting with colorist Milton, Chief knowledge officer Michael cioni. After a long time, I met with my DP Chris Freilich and he is doing great, currently working with Academy award winner, Janusz Kaminski in the sets of Judd Apatow’s ‘Funny People’.  Missing my family and I will be here for another one week. I am staying with Kunal Rajan, Supervising sound editor of ‘Achchamundu! Achchamundu!’ and this is taking some boredom away for me since we both discuss a lot about film and only film

I just posted a message about producers and these kind of ideas would not have been possible without my producers.

I will post some photos soon!