Opening Weekend

I read last week that the opening weekend for the latest installment of the "Grand Theft Auto" video game franchise brought in half a billion dollars. Even taking into account the greater cost of a game, it's another dramatic example of the splintering of the entertainment industry.  I don't think video games are the future, but they are just one of a huge selection of choices we have.  

Once, we had movies, television, radio, books, newspapers and records.  Today, add IPODS and other MP3 players, video game consules, video-on-demand services, and other video delivery systems (I rarely watch scheduled programming these days), the Internet...I'm sure you could name another half-dozen new-technology services. For the entrepreneur who can create content that crosses between these services, the opportunities are exciting.   More exciting?  This is all in it's infancy.  Ten years from the now, the entertainment industry as we know it will unrecognizeable. 

Indian / American

Here's a photo from "Indian  / American," the documentary I mentioned a couple of posts back.  This weekend, we'll be shooting the kids' year-end recital. It will also mark the end of principal photography on the documentary, which I've been shooting since last November.

Current Audiobook

I'm currently listening to:  Red Land Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz, a look at routine life in ancient Egypt - at least that of the privileged classes (lower classes simply didn't have the literacy or luxury of recording their lives for posterity).  The single most interesting aspect of a book like this is as a reminder of how, across time and cultures,human beings are closely related. Its one of the great pleasures of documentary filmmaking in particular - to see a real kinship with people anywhere in the world.

It's Been a While (Again!)

It's been a while since I've posted here - but for good reason!

First, I've launched a blog for Freshi Films, the company for which I serve as Director of Production.  Check freshifilms.blogspot.com to learn about everything that's going on at Freshi, and to see some of the programming we've been creating over the past two years.  The company is really gearing up, and we're approaching a very exciting period in the company's history.

I'm also about to conclude photography on my documentary, "Indian/American" which profiles a group of American-born Indian kids who are learning about their heritage through "Bollywood" style dance.  Look for excerpts here as I move into the editing stage.