Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Movies...Lately
The last few weeks were very busy with those assignments and exams and mock exams and stuff but I was able to squeeze in some movies here and there. I got the chance to see the Cindarella man, based on a true story about a boxing heavy weight champion in the 1930s, the main roles played by Russel crowe, Rene zelwegger. It reminded me of the movie the beautiful mind, but here instead of the brains he uses the mussels. A very emmotional movie which almost got my eyes wet at the end (Ok I'm a sensitive one).Watched Fanaa but apart from the superb songs the movie is a failiur.I like Rang De Basanti better. It could have been a great success, but compared to the pulicity it got, the film was not upto my expectations. Errrr.... Oh I got to watch Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, Munich, and Pirates of the carribian - the dead man's chest. The last one was good, but loosing Jack Sparrow is somewhat a suprise. Jonney Depp is so good in the charactor with his signature style of a drunk person(Not to mention his face looks somewhat like a drug addictt's), and I hope to see him in the upcomming sequels. After the heat(with my work) is gone I'm very much looking forward to watch Tokyo Drift and Cassino Royale ( especially Danniel Craig's acting as the new James Bond and the new Aston Martin DBS ).
Sunday, October 08, 2006
FormulaPlus Motor Show 2006
This was the second motor show I got to see this year and was also the better of the two.There were more cars than the auto vision motor show, thanks to the Classic Car Club of Ceylon, who contributed a great number including some of the automotive legends like the Jaguar s100.
Almost all the marques avaliable in Sri Lanka had exhibits and as far as i'm concerned, most of the attention was concentrated(or at least mine!) on the Beemers,Mercs,Jeeps,Audis and the Chrystler. Deheragoda's Evo IX was also a plus, but as a slight drawback, there weren't any noticabaly modified sporties to fire up some N2O around. And I was lucky enough to see two great mercs parked outside the premises as well(God bless the owners!).
Please Click on the image above for a collection of photos (Uploaded by Flickr)
Monday, October 02, 2006
Rang De Basanthi - The real thing
Just finished watching the movie. Although usually I do the typing ofline and upload it later(c & p), I thought this would have a better effect with the brain just out of the thing. About the film, in short it's simply a typical hindi film with the whole patriotic attitude. Indian film industry have deployed many patriotic movies we watch almost everyday with the "retrospect" thingy(don't forget we're Sri Lankans), and they usually express how to be patriotic in modern society. This one is just the same. But whats good in this one is that the way it presents itself to the viewer with a great stroy. Great cast, superb music, colossal editing and awsome presentation of the story makes the film a great success,
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Friday, August 25, 2006
New levy on the block-the wrong weapon?
Although not that new, I could say that this topic had more impact on people than anything else lately.
The Levy was formed in order to reduce the influence of foreign teledrama trend, which was overtaking the local industry by leaps and bounds. Although the launching was a bit controversial, there was no hesitation what so ever on the launching process as it was proposed at the last budget report. The basic or the most influential components are as following.
Every half an hour episode of a foreign teledrama has to go through a levy of 75000 rs. Every half an hour episode of a foreign teledrama dubbed to sinhala has to face a levy of 90000 rupees. Every commercial which has a foreign origin has to pay one million rupees per channel, for one year. In which the last one had many doubts as to whether the location or the actors were meant by foreign origin. The Tamil lingual programs were not subjected to the levy.
Considering some of the inappropriate decisions, the authorities very modestly reduced the levy on English language programs which was a lifesaver for certain channels which were broadcasting only English language programs and at the time had their lineups cut down to news, documentaries and home made programs.
In the case of teledramas dubbed to sinhala, which are mostly telecasted on all five week days, are still running regardless of the levy, mentioning the amount they pay per episode almost sounding like heroes. The most important fact I see is that the path created by these foreign teledramas are most humbly followed by local producers, considering the popularity and the ratings those teledramas had. We can see more and more teledramas blooming nowadays following the footsteps of the foreign makes. The best thing is that Almost all of these local makes are directed by people from our neighboring country. Although technically the most tallying culture to ours should be theirs, I believe that these teledramas don’t depict ours. Even the local makes. They are more suitable to be labeled as action thrillers rather than prime time teledramas.
Since there should be a solution, I suggest that limiting the number of days per week these are telecasted, might be a win win solution. So the viewers may have more variety as well as more opportunity for the local producers.
Shifting to the advertisers, I think it’s a bit overdoing to have a levy of one million rupees for a foreign advertisement per channel. There are companies which are only importing and marketing products and services. And they might not be able to spare around 10 million just for TV commercials. Some of the companies are centralized to a region of countries. Like Asia Pacific. And they make commercials to suite all the countries in that region. Spending money to make an advertisement to a specific country is most unlikely to happen. Even the quality of the local advertisements is at a stake. Earlier the promoting of the local products had a great competition with foreign ads. So pleasuring the eye as well as the quality of the content was vital in order to fight the benchmark created by foreign ads. Attenuation of the quality of ads is there.
The bottom line is that as the way I see it, this levy is a machine gun coming to do a well tuned sniper gun’s work.
The Levy was formed in order to reduce the influence of foreign teledrama trend, which was overtaking the local industry by leaps and bounds. Although the launching was a bit controversial, there was no hesitation what so ever on the launching process as it was proposed at the last budget report. The basic or the most influential components are as following.
Every half an hour episode of a foreign teledrama has to go through a levy of 75000 rs. Every half an hour episode of a foreign teledrama dubbed to sinhala has to face a levy of 90000 rupees. Every commercial which has a foreign origin has to pay one million rupees per channel, for one year. In which the last one had many doubts as to whether the location or the actors were meant by foreign origin. The Tamil lingual programs were not subjected to the levy.
Considering some of the inappropriate decisions, the authorities very modestly reduced the levy on English language programs which was a lifesaver for certain channels which were broadcasting only English language programs and at the time had their lineups cut down to news, documentaries and home made programs.
In the case of teledramas dubbed to sinhala, which are mostly telecasted on all five week days, are still running regardless of the levy, mentioning the amount they pay per episode almost sounding like heroes. The most important fact I see is that the path created by these foreign teledramas are most humbly followed by local producers, considering the popularity and the ratings those teledramas had. We can see more and more teledramas blooming nowadays following the footsteps of the foreign makes. The best thing is that Almost all of these local makes are directed by people from our neighboring country. Although technically the most tallying culture to ours should be theirs, I believe that these teledramas don’t depict ours. Even the local makes. They are more suitable to be labeled as action thrillers rather than prime time teledramas.
Since there should be a solution, I suggest that limiting the number of days per week these are telecasted, might be a win win solution. So the viewers may have more variety as well as more opportunity for the local producers.
Shifting to the advertisers, I think it’s a bit overdoing to have a levy of one million rupees for a foreign advertisement per channel. There are companies which are only importing and marketing products and services. And they might not be able to spare around 10 million just for TV commercials. Some of the companies are centralized to a region of countries. Like Asia Pacific. And they make commercials to suite all the countries in that region. Spending money to make an advertisement to a specific country is most unlikely to happen. Even the quality of the local advertisements is at a stake. Earlier the promoting of the local products had a great competition with foreign ads. So pleasuring the eye as well as the quality of the content was vital in order to fight the benchmark created by foreign ads. Attenuation of the quality of ads is there.
The bottom line is that as the way I see it, this levy is a machine gun coming to do a well tuned sniper gun’s work.
Monday, July 10, 2006
TV Advertisements
As I have mentioned earlier, I’m a young individual trying to look at things with a 360 mind. As a regular watcher of Sri Lanka’s Television networks, I feel like expressing a bit loud on certain issues on T.V. advertisements. Taken as a whole entity, multimedia advertising industry has stood out from its older cousins like cinema and teledrama (An area I would like to put my thoughts into words another time.). Comparing to the very little foreign advertisements I’ve seen, I’m proud to say that our ads are quite up to their standards. If you’re a person who thinks that ads are there to allow you to go to the kitchen and finish the dishes or continue reading the article on the newspaper which is on your hand, you better have a closer look on what these advertisements are about. If you’re wondering what was the meaning that consumed half a minute or so of your life, here we go.
First stop “bad ones”. I’m proud to say that aliens from the planet “Bhavatra” crash lands here to promote electronic products (which was previously done by lovely Indian actresses who did the soaps, jewellery, lottery tickets..etc). “Teleview” the company who created the teledrama “Bhavatra” has miscalculated some facts that they’re supposed to be aliens, and they came from a space ship, and their technology is supposed to overcome ours by light years (not miles). I always thought that the teledrama was a good initiative on vision as well as the special effects used in it. But I only have a faintest of hopes to watch a local made mega 3D movie in the years to come. (That is without aliens, which are the easiest to model among all characters.)
Apart from some low budget commercials, as one of the worst non CG campaigns, I highly recommend the “SLT passport card” campaign. Suneth, one of the young comedian actors who gained popularity in recent years is misused on the ads. Previously, if I remember correctly, there were some good ads on the same product.
Turning to the good side, some very convincing creativity came out of the designers lately. The Anchor 1+ advertisement is a great example based on the “kiri ammaavary” scenario. I thought it was excellent on picture quality / filming and the theme fits the product very well since it’s a very familiar practice among the Sinhala Buddhists. Another one is the very recent Suntel CDMA advertisement, where the parents who are missing their daughter after her wedding discovers the CDMA phone as a present from their daughter which allows them to communicate with her. Although some technical issues pop out, I think the expressions depicted by the parents are good enough to cast a shadow on the small miscalculations.
Now on the CG category, two of the best campaigns using 3D are the Holcim campaign and the Janashakthi full options campaign using the themes, “right nail for the right spot” & “paying the Annual motor insurance premium in partitions”(the orange one) respectively.
But if you ask me, my favorite advertisement is the “stone ‘n’ string” advertisement which uses a pinkish color scheme and dido’s “thank you” as the background music.(I think it uses the key word “every day gold”).why? Because that girl is the prettiest one I’ve seen on TV (has a similar look to Julia Ormond.) And if you disagree (about the girl), then write your own blog. Because this one is mine!
Please leave a comment.
First stop “bad ones”. I’m proud to say that aliens from the planet “Bhavatra” crash lands here to promote electronic products (which was previously done by lovely Indian actresses who did the soaps, jewellery, lottery tickets..etc). “Teleview” the company who created the teledrama “Bhavatra” has miscalculated some facts that they’re supposed to be aliens, and they came from a space ship, and their technology is supposed to overcome ours by light years (not miles). I always thought that the teledrama was a good initiative on vision as well as the special effects used in it. But I only have a faintest of hopes to watch a local made mega 3D movie in the years to come. (That is without aliens, which are the easiest to model among all characters.)
Apart from some low budget commercials, as one of the worst non CG campaigns, I highly recommend the “SLT passport card” campaign. Suneth, one of the young comedian actors who gained popularity in recent years is misused on the ads. Previously, if I remember correctly, there were some good ads on the same product.
Turning to the good side, some very convincing creativity came out of the designers lately. The Anchor 1+ advertisement is a great example based on the “kiri ammaavary” scenario. I thought it was excellent on picture quality / filming and the theme fits the product very well since it’s a very familiar practice among the Sinhala Buddhists. Another one is the very recent Suntel CDMA advertisement, where the parents who are missing their daughter after her wedding discovers the CDMA phone as a present from their daughter which allows them to communicate with her. Although some technical issues pop out, I think the expressions depicted by the parents are good enough to cast a shadow on the small miscalculations.
Now on the CG category, two of the best campaigns using 3D are the Holcim campaign and the Janashakthi full options campaign using the themes, “right nail for the right spot” & “paying the Annual motor insurance premium in partitions”(the orange one) respectively.
But if you ask me, my favorite advertisement is the “stone ‘n’ string” advertisement which uses a pinkish color scheme and dido’s “thank you” as the background music.(I think it uses the key word “every day gold”).why? Because that girl is the prettiest one I’ve seen on TV (has a similar look to Julia Ormond.) And if you disagree (about the girl), then write your own blog. Because this one is mine!
Please leave a comment.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Welcome to Prasanna Silva's blog
Hi there, Welcome to Prasanna Silva's Blog. I'm a 19 year old student in Sri Lanka and I've created this blog for knowledge sharing and to express my ideas on certain issues. I've only started blogging and this may contain the graviest mistakes of the whole wide world (only systematically) If you are a penfriend or a friend of mine, Hi guys and girls, Keep in touch with this site. I will be adding new posts at least once a week. Thanks Bye!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)