Sita and Nina
Christmas eve, 2011
I was enjoying my Christmas holidays at 'Venice of the East'(Alappuzha, Kerala) with my Grand Parents.
Out of nowhere, I received a call from this friend of mine Nithin George (Yeah the same celeb. Founder CEO of QPlay Tech). He asked me whether I would like to attend the Fourth International FOSS Conference, Kerala which will kick off in 2 days at Trivandrum, Kerala.
I was really not in a mood to disguise myself as a Nerd and attend a conference. But in no time I changed my mind for two reasons. First of all, Nithin is one hell of a leader. I thought I shouldn't miss this opportunity to be with him. Secondly, the dignitaries and speakers were quite vibrant. So it won't be such a nerdy meet as it sounds.
I was trying to surround myself with talent and dreamers. Back then, I was not certain about my future and career. ( To be frank, even now I'm not certain! )
Ah let me get back to the point.
So, on 26th itself, I left to Trivandrum aka Thiruvananthapuram and from 27th - 29th December, I was with Nithin and many other IEEE student volunteers within the bounds of Technopark, Trivandrum.
During the morning plenary sessions of 28th December'11, Ms. Nina Paley, the Independent US Filmmaker and animator remotely spoke to us via skype. I was eagerly waiting for her speech as I have heard that her animation movie ‘Sita Sings the Blues’ created history by drawing 100% positive ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ reviews.
( Of course I prefer Rotten Tomatoes reviews over IMDB rating! )
Nina was moved by Hermit Valmiki's 'The Ramayana', and when her husband broke up with her, she felt there is some connection between her life and deity Sita Devi's. She decided to convey the same through an animation movie and the self taught animator set off. For heaven sake she was not retelling Ramayana. She decided to explain her viewpoints on it, establishing the connection between the incidents that occurred in her life with that of Sita’s.
She counted it as a classic epic and made her interpretations.
But while trying all those slapstick humour arguing the behaviours of each lead character and other such ambiguities of Ramayana, she forgot the fact that, Ramayana’s sacred here in India and it’s a part of Indian culture. Religious institutions and communities were not happy about the movie and the way Deities were animated in the movie. Nina Paley intended no offence, but some groups debated her deeds and even did their best to sue her.
The movie’s wiki doc starts like this >>
" Sita Sings the Blues is a 2008 animated film written, directed, produced and animated entirely by American artist Nina Paley (with the exception of some fight animation by Jake Friedman in the "Battle of Lanka" scene), primarily using 2D computer graphics and Flash Animation.
It intersperses events from the Ramayana, light-hearted but knowledgeable discussion of historical background by a trio of Indian shadow puppets, musical interludes voiced with tracks by Annette Hanshaw and scenes from the artist's own life. The ancient mythological and modern biographical plot are parallel tales, sharing numerous themes. "
Apart from content based controversies, copyright issues also gave Nina headaches. In fact she initially made sure that Annette’s recordings were not covered by US copyright laws, but a lot of copyright issues surfaced. Copyright holders demanded hell lot of money and ultimately, she had to take loans to license the music for her movie.
She spoke about all her bitter experiences and how she fought against copyright issues. The whole commotion turned her into a free and open source activist it seemed. She added that she decided to release her film online with a copyleft licence because she doesn’t want her film to be like 80 year old Annentte’s recordings.
I would like to quote her words from the FAQ page of the film’s official site.
“My first concern is Art, Art has no life if people can’t share it.”
Later when I had an opportunity to access free wifi, I downloaded Nina’s work.
March 2014
“ Putil station Malad..
Akala station Malad..
Next station Malad.... ”
I was slipping into deep sleep, but somehow, those words echoed in my ears.
“Holy shit... Malad”
I woke up. Literally, I jumped up and ran out of the local train.
As I have mentioned in my previous blog post, I got relocated to Mumbai taking a long break from IZE. On a vacation, more like a journey chasing dreams.
A lead has asked me to be here in a film and tv production company studio and see how professionals edit using Final Cut Pro. After all, to be a filmmaker I have to be a jack of all trades right? So I thought I must utilise this opportunity to know more about the post production dept.
I got adapted to Mumbai atmosphere very quickly.
Life’s good.
For a week I have been sitting lazily on a red bean bag and staring at a Macintosh screen. You know what; I really admire editors for their unending patience.
At some point, to stay away from boredom I started to clean up junk files and folders in my laptop and happened to find ‘Sita Sings the Blues’ file in a folder named ‘Open Source files’. I never knew I still had this with me. Actually, I downloaded it to re-edit and make my own version. But in between I got mixed up with the event and I left it untouched for all these years.
And yeah with zero formal knowledge in editing, I cut the movie into chunks, removed the controversial scenes and re-arranged them a bit using Sony Vegas Pro 11.
Watch it for yourself.
Not good enough, huh!?
Pardon me...I’m still learning... I’ll do my best next time.
Regards,
Lone Warrior.
" Miles and miles to go before I sleep...."
Labels:
Animation,
Nina Paley,
Ramayana,
Seetha,
Sita,
Sita and Nina,
Sony vegas pro,
Valmiki
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