opinions – Page 22 – Abhinav Bhatt

VLogging

With the risk of the reader of this blog clicking on the above video and not reading any of this below and getting addicted to Youtube forever, I’ll still go ahead and write.

YouTube has been here since a decade. And like most people like me, I didn’t spend all my 100% time on it, as much as I spent time on other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. I would say, 20% of the time was spent on Youtube, mostly from links shared on FB post or a Tweet.

But recently, (after letting go of reactionary mode from Social Network Websites), I have started to watch a lot of it. It has almost got me into the Rabbit Hole which was Wikipedia, once upon a time for me. The viewing also increased after I bought a Smart TV. So I brought back Internet to the TV, instead of other way around. Yo.

I would like specially mention 2 of my favorite Youtube channels

Casey Neistat

This guy is, like the king of Youtube Vlogging. I found his channel through Nerdwriter but that was just seen, not experienced. But recently I checked this again and I got, I am slightly embarrassed to say, hooked and obsessed with this channel. In last week, I have seen over 100 of his short videos, read about him in Tim Ferris’s Tools of Titans and also read many other blogs and articles about him. I also learnt about his gear, and all the props he uses. Casey is a film-maker, who rides an electric skateboard in NYC while making films about his life, ideas and his travels. He has a unique style and one has to just watch to experience it. Not only his videos are interesting, even though they are mostly showing him doing his chores. But unlike the plethora of people who vlog with sudden cuts and low level production quality, his are proper and has a sense of his unique style in them. Since I get more impressed with technicalities than bling, I found his style of vlogging really good. Do check!

Nerdwriter

Evan Puschak or The Nerdwriter, also is a film-maker who mostly dabbles in Video Essays. The topics range from movies, politics, till philosophy. His USP is his editing with lovely graphics with a voiceover which really keeps one hooked. Again, me stating anything won’t matter. One has to just watch and experience and learn.

I have listed these 2 because I found them good resources for learning film-making too. Making movies is a really tough job, but these channels will also help you learn the craft, if you already know about the art.

I will list few of them whom I found really good:

Casey Neistat
Nerdwriter
Kaptain Kristian
Kurzgesagt
Improvement Pill
Special mention: Nisha Madhulika (If you like to eat, and don’t know how to make food, just straight head over to Nisha aunty for all homely feeling possible.) One caveat: Videos are in Hindi and most of the dishes are vegetarian and it won’t have onion in it. Like my home!

Watch one of Nerdwriter’s video here:

Featured image pic: Designed by Freepik

So I recently read: The Martian by Andy Weir

Sunday, October 4th, 2015, around 6 PM

Heavy raining was an understatement for that day. It was pouring out there. I and my room-mate called an Uber and found a 2x surge, as usual. But we had to go any how. We had to go to the movie, we had booked, “The Martian”. So eventually, we found a cab and started for the 6.30 show at Cinepolis (still the best after IMAX). The multiplex was not more than 20 mins away from our place.

We had crossed half the way, zooming past the evening rush amidst the downpour. The roads were relatively empty despite evening time. We were hopeful that we will reach the Cinema Hall well in time to buy Nachos and a huge tub of Pop-Corn. And then, like it always happens, Uncle Murphy reminded us of his laws. As soon as we reached the main road, it was jam-packed like the atoms of a heavy metal. I could only see a sea of red of the rear lights of the vehicles ahead. While the rain had now slowed down and some part of the sky had cleared, I could see a tiny red dot near the horizon up in the sky. (Making this last line up, it was still drizzling with grey-blue sky).

We crawled like a sloth and finally reach Cinepolis at 7.15 PM. I was expecting that they would have shown 20 minutes of trailers and advertisements before the show and we would have missed the movie little bit.

Hustling bustling, we entered the multiplex and found our seats after disturbing at least 10 people and saying sorry awkwardly to a couple. (This line is also made up because we had booked corner seats. I just didn’t want to state that fact)

I asked my neighbour, how much did we miss? The guy said, almost everything. The first scene, I remember, was when Astronaut Mark Whatney (Matt Damon) was video blogging about how he is about to make water and his plan is to have potatoes for survival.

Which means, we had missed the first part where the accident happens. Now, a little bit of Google will suggest that the first part of the story is slightly weird. As in, (if you have not seen the movie, Mark Whatney gets stuck on Mars due an accident caused by heavy storm), the storm won’t be that intense on Mars which would lead to such an accident. Sigh. That was as hurtful as the tethering bit goof-up of the movie Gravity. Anyway, we watched the rest of the movie, enjoyed it, came back home and happily lived ever after. [citation needed]

Now fast forward to present day. In fact few days ago when I got my hands on The Martian book by Andy Weir. So, out of curiosity about what actually would have happened in the beginning, I started reading this book. I will now proceed with this post in 2 sections.

Book review
How did I read this book?

Book Review (Not movie review)

As the story is quite known, I am going to directly post my views without giving story’s summary or even any context (as if the above text is nothing.).

I generally liked this book. I specially liked the part where the protagonist’s sense of humor, amidst the havoc happening around him, is still intact. And that’s most of the book. The wit in the most difficult situations makes this book memorable.

I cannot pinpoint which bit was the best but this book’s core is one message: Despite whatever happens, never lose hope. No matter how bad things look around you, there will always be something you can do. Even if you’re about to die, at least smile for the last time. The book’s first line itself says ‘I’m fucked’ but the last line says that ‘…this is the happiest day of my life’. Of course, some parts look totally impossible but how much do we know about human perseverance and will to survive! There have been many instances where life survived when everyone had given their hopes. This book is based on that idea. My only issue (apart from a character named ‘Venkat Kapoor’ (and that was played by Chiwetel Ejiofor!??!)), that some of the places and equipments depicted in the book are slightly difficult to imagine in the mind while reading the book. One, because I haven’t read much of Sci-Fi actually and whatever movies I have seen, seems to have made everything easier. Second, some geography, some vehicles, only Mars nerds would know.

But then, since this is mostly a first person book, these kinds interest me a lot. And I found myself chuckling throughout the book. But I am still not 100% sure why they called the movie based on this book ‘Comedy’. A thing is good if it is good. It doesn’t matter if it is comedy or serious. Anyways, I recommend this book if you want to read some good sci-fi which is very probable to happen in reality if Elon Musk and likes do few things soon.

How did I read this book?

Very good question.

I had read about 40% of the book at my own pace. But then my friend @anahgem_k shared the Audiobook of The Martian with me through Audible. (Thank you!)

That. Changed. Everything.

I listened to the book, while reading it. And then I increased my listening speed to 1.5x. And eventually found 1.85x comfortable.

With that, I could read, understand and enjoy it so fast, that I finished the book in almost no time. (it still took me 3-4 Sols though).

So, if in case, you are finding a book interesting but getting less time to read it. And audiobooks alone aren’t your thing, combine them both. I’m seriously.

You may buy this book from here:

So I recently watched: Spiderman : Homecoming and, Dunkirk

SPOILER ALERT: No spider bite this time!

In case you have watched Captain America : Civil War, the audience cheered most when Spiderman appeared on the screen. Such has been the love for the character on big screen, thanks to the relatable Sam Reimi + Tobey Maguire take on Spiderman back in 2000s. I even watched the Amazing Spiderman when Andrew Garfield was there. And if I remember correctly, I didn’t hate it.

Now I recently watched Spiderman : Homecoming, the third reboot or Boo-t-hree, if you will. I found myself enjoying throughout the movie. Mostly because, the movie’s core is how eager a teenager is to become an adult and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. I generally liked it.

The only problem is, just after a couple of weeks, I am not able to remember what all happened in the movie. Only if I really press hard, I realize that Michael Keaton was there too. Then there was that scene of boat splitting into 2. That’s all! That’s the case with most Marvel movies. But, I am not complaining more. Because just the week after, I went to watch (I mean hear Dunkirk).

So, I recently watched Dunkirk and this post is mostly about Dunkirk only!

You have heard it correct, Dunkirk is mostly about Visuals and Sounds. Story is plain simple that Allied forces are forced to evacuate Dunkirk because ‘Enemy’ has surrounded the area from all sides. Nolan tries to be Nolan-y by making it more intense by showing same thing from 3 perspectives: Land, Water and Air and, 3 timelines 1 Week, 1 Day and, 1 Hour. But overall, it stays a spectacle, one should see only in IMAX. And thankfully, there is no 3D, otherwise half the time is spent in adjusting 3D Glasses over actual spectacles.

It was mostly about the horrors of the war and the soldier’s struggles once they are caught in between and they have nowhere to go. There are tales of the bravery of soldiers during war-time, but realistically, when you know that you can die any instant and you have no help, that only makes you a mute silent spectator, like the movie’s characters. You never get to know the names, their background but just their struggles to somehow reach home.

The sound design by Hans Zimmer is the real hero. They have used this Shepard Effect with full effect throughout the movie.

That makes it sound really haunting. And it really works. Some sounds are so intense that you actually feel as if your seats are shaking.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and I feel I can watch it again in IMAX. But I won’t because tickets are costly. Sigh.

This time, last year, we all found eggs

It was around 6 PM in the evening. I was sitting in a park near my apartment, fully indulged in my phone. That park was special. Not because of it had a lot of greenery, birds and kids happily chirping away and playing, so many smiling people strolling-and-chit-chatting along their way to good health (who has time to see all that?), but where I was sitting, it had 2 PokéStops, equidistant. It was really fun… after every 5 minutes, I could use one of the stops and refill my PokéBalls and earn major XP without even walking. And then use another. On top of that, one could find many Pokémons there. And even better, within 50 m away, there was a Gym where I could battle with others.

Few more people like me, immersed into their phone screens, kept on walking around these Pokéstops to get as much as they could. But since I had grasped that middle seat, I could do all that just by sitting, and they had to keep walking. Mostly all strangers, but occasionally one would ask, so are you also playing ‘Pokémon GO’? Smiling, I would say, yeah, what all you have got till now?

This time, last year, in 2016, the middle part of July was really different. It was like a temporary cultural revolution of sorts. Whoever got to know about this game, downloaded apk files (where it wasn’t available yet) and jumped on to the roads and started playing. I had downloaded it, because that time I was living alone and since the monsoon-y weather was quite good to go around and walk. And also because I wanted to give my 2nd Speech in Toastmasters. Otherwise I had no interest in Pokémons at all. I didn’t watch their cartoons, as I though all of those Japanese cartoons look the same. 🙂

But for this game, I not only walked around kilometers during evening, but even in Night. Everytime I went out, I could notice people playing. Herds of youngsters, all looking into their phones and walking slowly and funnily. There was another Pokéstop near my place where I went to fetch some collectibles at 1.30 AM in the night. Only to return disappointed to see a group of girls, sitting under the tree there and guarding the place, figuratively, if not literally.

When so much was nearby, how could one stay at home?

I even walked around in office campus during lunch time (and sometimes just for a break, you know!) to get as many new Pokémons I could catch. And, as I was using a bike to go to office, I used all my time in the jams and traffic to collect many more Pokémons and refill my bag with Pokémon collectibles on the way.

When you could go no where, you could still catch some Pokémons

Best part about this was, that not everyone got it. But if you saw someone looking at their phones walking, and then suddenly stopping and doing incessant clicking, you could know that they were playing Pokémon GO!

Augmented Reality should have really taken off then. But probably, it would take some more time.

And these were the scenes all over the world. People played this in cemeteries, walked into other people’s properties and sometimes almost got them killed trespassing, just to get a rare Pokémon. They used bikes where they didn’t want to walk. They stayed hours near water bodies because there they could find, some Pokémons which were available only near lakes and ponds. It was indeed a fun time, last year in July.

This could have become a thing. Unfortunately, their servers kept crashing down due to huge surge in popularity in so little time. Hence, they disallowed people, at least in southern part of India, to play. So my pastime from July 14 – July 21 was short-lived. It was released later but then the enthusiasm had worn off and I got involved in other life related activities that I gave up.

When you think about it, rarely few things happen, which grab attention of everyone in the world. Games are like that. It had become a rage. In park, the roads, small town, big cities, every where, everyone who was playing that, had a sense of common aim and a feeling of family like animosity. Indeed a rare feat (apart from everyone throwing ice-bucket over each other). With this technology of augmented reality, surely, in future, we would do more such stuff when people would be more ready. The thing with games is that it connects everyone alike and makes them do things normally they won’t even team up for.

Watch this video about how can gamers help us to do bigger things:

I downloaded Pokémon GO today again. I can see few stops, gyms and available raids nearby. But then, who will walk now?

So I recently read: Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath

There’s an advertisement running on the Television. A bright and happy family of five, are getting ready for a picnic. A young boy, followed by 2 younger sisters joyously enter the minivan. The Husband and the wife follow them soon after and they start. A scene many of us relate to easily. The voice-over introduces us to the minivan now. It tells us about the features like remote-controlled sliding rear doors, ample space for big family, temperature controlled cup holders, six-point navigation system and what not. The voice says, “It’s a minivan to the max. It’s the minivan for families on the go.”

Everyone inside the van is smiling and enjoying the ride.

And then, it happens.

A speeding car overspeeding from the intersection hits the minivan. There’s a huge explosion and ear-shattering noise of glass breaking and metal bending.

There’s now just the sound of a permanently pressed horn and then screen fades into blank and goes silent.

The voice over now says: “Buckle up… Always.”

Unexpected. Right?

Unexpected is one of the 6 principles of making a thought stick in the reader’s mind or a viewer or the audience mind. The above advertisement about necessity of putting on a seat belt is so powerful that one won’t be able to forget it so easily.

The principles of making any idea sticky are:

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Stories

or SUCCESs. An acronym, which would stick to your mind now, when you think of drafting an idea which you want to be sticky in other’s minds.

So I recently read:

Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck or ‘Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die’ is a book by brothers Chip and Dan Heath.

This book is easily one of the most easy to read, witty and highly useful piece of text that I have ever read. It has plethora of anecdotes, stories, ideas and case studies of various incidents in the history where ideas housed themselves in people’s mind for a longer time.

The easy language with which Heath brothers have communicated the idea of making our thoughts get etched in and stay longer and relevant is exemplary. For anyone who is learning to write, fiction or non-fiction, or who is learning public speaking, writing an advertisement, or making a campaign, this could be of great use. Anyone actually who deals with communication would find this really enriching.

I found the recommendation for this book by Douglas Kruger in one of his videos. And this has actually helped me realize, why some of my own speeches and writings worked and why most failed. But after reading this, it would help me shape the flow and the content in a better way.

I recommend this book strongly, to anyone who wants to put forward their thoughts in a better way.

You may buy this book here:
Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck

So I recently read: Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

Recommended by @anahgem, I recently finished reading: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

For anyone who has even the tiniest and slightest bit of experience of 80s and 90s movies and video games (see, I call it video games!), would find this book severely interesting and a sure-page-turner!

Before telling you my opinion about this, I would give a short spoiler-free-summary:

This book is about near-future, where real life would seriously suck and everyone would spend their times online (I meant present) in a Virtual Reality World called as Oasis. So, the creator of the Oasis creates a challenge for the users to play a game, like a Treasure Hunt. Whoever wins it wins a huge fortune of huge wealth and even the control of Oasis. Trick here is that the challenge involves being 2 words which are thrown around randomly so much nowadays that they have lost their real meaning: Nerds and Geeks. One has to be a thorough 80s and 90s days lover, pop-art follower, heavily addicted to games and movies of that era and above all, no social life. The challenge would involve playing games which range from Galaga to Pacman to what not, acting as the protagonist of movies, remembering Dungeons and Dragons from the top of your mind every 5 minutes, and so on. So the protagonist and some other people (and corporations) try to overtake each other and keep going Level by Level. Dying on Oasis and Dying in real world would be almost intertwined, if you know what I mean.

So, despite not being born in the US (or Japan) where most of the things were being developed in 80s and 90s, technology wise, I surely liked this book a lot. There are so many instances of movies and games of that era which are referred to and made very important parts of the movie, that you will find yourself referring to Wikipedia and doing ‘Aha! I had seen/heard/knew about this’ or ‘Ohh! How sad that I missed this!’. There are parts which you might not be able to relate to if you haven’t seen the game or the movies mentioned, but hey, this is also a recco to go through that stuff if you haven’t. Plus, there are some of the ramblings from the Oasis’s creator’s Almanac which can be made as a book in itself (like JK Rowling did with Fantastic Beasts). That book in the book gives a lot about mindsets and nostalgia related stuff, we all can refer too. And, the book has enough thrill already thanks to its ‘Gamification’ obviously embedded in it.

All in all, this was a fairly entertaining read and refers to a very plausible future. Moreover, *drumroll*, this book is being adapted to a movie soon. By none other than, Steven Spielberg.

How can you miss that now?

You can buy this book here:

Header pic via http://movieweb.com/ready-player-one-movie-set-video-photos-spielberg/

So I recently watched: Wonder Woman

I recently watched the latest outing from DC, Wonder Woman. The supposedly best female Superhero since last 75 years without a proper movie till now.

First things first, I have never read any of Wonder Woman’s comics but I did watch a bit of that 70s TV movie they made with Lynda Carter (may be only for the visuals of Lynda Carter). So I went in with no expectations. Because DC movies have mostly ruined my expectations. I liked Man of Steel but I cannot recall a thing about it. I was disappointed with the theatrical edition of BvS but the extended edition was much better. But not super. And I was severely disheartened with Suicide Squad. What nonsense was that! So my overall excitement was as high as, nothing else to do on a Sunday evening, so why not go sit in the dark for a couple of hours to watch a movie which is getting good-ish reviews.

So, I ended up liking the movie. Mostly because, it shows something new Superhero wise. A proper origin story, though a lot was still left for speculation which is also good in a way. Second, a proper plot which nowadays superhero movies take for granted. Thirdly, great visuals which is the only thing DC has done right till now. But above all, the lead Gal Gadot, makes the movie worth what it is. Not only her chemistry is great with Chris Pine (Steve Trevor) with good jokes and everything, but overall she does fab in the fighting sequences which are choreographed pretty nicely. She was also quite interesting in BvS. I specially loved the part where she goes right in the middle of an open fire and does what a Superhero does with style. Kicking and beating the enemies with finesse and a lasso.

When it comes to female Superhero movies (if there are any), there is more talk of how the lead looks and what ethnicity is she, and what all she wore. For me, I didn’t even think about that throughout the movie, because whatever was presented in the movie, was in context of that movie. (And I am not an expert movie critic anyways).

Except the final act of the movie, which goes full supernatural, overall movie is entertaining and keeps one hooked. What else matters?

Memorable? Mostly no, partly yes, It would be now, because there are going to be more of Gal Gadot Wonder Woman appearances in future, considering this has been a huge box-office success. I am not complaining.

Which brings us now to decide over the expectations setting from Justice League movie releasing later this year. I would say, it would be good. (hopefully)

I will go with dash out of dash stars. (We don’t do stars here, go away!).

Here’s a brilliant take on this character by Kaptain Kristian on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j73IkjslvoM