I was about to write that it takes a long time to get to the other side of the world, however, even with layovers and stops in Seoul and Singapore, it will take less then two days. I don't know how I feel about it... There is an intense amount of energy expenditure everyday scuttling us humans around the world in record time never before comprehended. The two days with little sleep doesn't exactly help me from appreciating the miracle of this fact. The singapore airport is vast and modern. Once again, just vast amounts of energy pumping out acres of channel stores, movie theaters, A/C, MAC cosmetics, musak, Burger Kings, even Seranto Coffee! Thomas Friedman is right, the world is flat when I drink a San Francisco chain coffee double latte in Singapore. But despite all that it was good to be locked in a fixed position with no internet access and a few text books.

I read Mark Sawliski's Filming the Fantastic while on the plane and annotated and highlighted the greasy hairy bits that I didn't know, particularly lighting specifics, 35 mm film stock formats, and lens look up charts. This is all stuff you learn in 101 film school but a lot of it is going to be relatively new to me, and its important I sling the jargon like some sort of half assed expert. It's hilarious though- Sawliski is an old school optical compositor and he spends chapters of his book describing the optical compositing process and then ends each chapter - "Well, they don't really do it this way anymore, or ever again." He includes information on digital but everything is all about "mapping to polygons". Apparently all modern visual effects are accomplished by "polygons". Gotta get me some of them.

I started reading Digital Intermediates for Film and Television but I have the feeling that setting up this workflow is going to be far down the line after the shoot. I am a lot more comfortable with setting up After Effects pipelines anyway, so the I think this will be less of a knowledge shock then actually dictating what lights will be used, platforms built, etc. My mind is a blank slate till I touch down and get in that first production meeting.

I also have absolutely no idea what to expect otherwise, from, you know.. not the job and stuff. Like what "life" will be like. I know all the american crew is crashing in one apartment, but I don't know what hood it is in yet. This has the makings of what happens when people stop being polite, and start being real. The Real world. Bombay.

Tags: India, General Nerdery