A.C.A.I

In which the author blogs an idea he once had for an animation.

Before this blog ever existed, I inhabited a place you could only get by accessing my personal desktop computer.

So, in context of posting-my-past-things, I found myself reading a note from the 21st of March 2004, written while I was toying with an idea for an animation.

This was to be the intended history for The Tin Machines animation I was planning to produce. I know nobody these cares for back stories and histories but I have always been fascinated by authors like Tolkien and Frank Herbert who used to write elaborate histories for their own created universes.

I am posting a bit of it here for your reading pleasure.

The Absolute Creation of A.I (A.C.A.I)
Earth is billions of years old. Even before man become the most dominate species on the planet there was a time where the dinosaurs ruled. It ended when the first impact hit the earth. Roughly a one quarter of the world species disappeared almost instantly.

The real reason why dinosaurs became extinct was credited to the aftermath of the first impact. Most of the earth’s vegetation was contaminated and the dinosaurs either starved to death or died eating the vegetation. The resulting atmosphere was also contributed to their death. Most of earth species were not able to adapt quickly enough and perished soon after.

After the events of the first impact passed, man quickly raised to control the world. His knowledge and imagination alone created a far wondrous world in his eyes. No longer had a species of the world depended on their primal instincts. Man fascinated himself with religion, science, technology and society. But man paid a heavy price for fascination. He made the world, his world. He became intolerant of the other species that shared his world.

Man realized that immortality was the only true achievement that they will ever attain. With immortality, man himself will be able to progress without the barrier of time. But fate a concept man himself created had an irony for them. With almost all rare plant species eradicated, man didn’t have source materials to immortalize himself.

But in the evolution of bio science man was able to created new string of DNA that altered himself. This new man or the second descendants were smarter and more importantly more immune to so called god created diseases and lived longer than any species God had created.

The second descendants also had a very special attribute, they didn’t have a navel. They were breed from the will of man. The second descendants carried on the work of their forefathers and created what is believed to be the true Artificial intelligent.

Artificial Intelligence or A.I was man’s pinnacle achievement. He had now made a semi biomechanical brain capable of thought and using it slowing began building his utopia. Soon the world passed the third millennium.

The solar radiation got worse and the most of the vegetation on the planet all but disappeared. The ozone layer simply broke down. And the second descendents were forced to live under the earth’s surface. Approximately in the year 3145, the second impact hit earth eradicating all life. Water itself without atmosphere eventually disappeared.

The world unfortunately did not heal. The resulting impact was far more devastating than the first impact and soon the second descendants all but disappeared leaving no traces of their existence save for their crowning achievement, A.I.

It was before this moment in which man spent the last 50 years to put A.I to sleep under the earth crust. The A.I was powered by the molten lava that magnetized the S2 core engine that gave it the capacity to run for a approximate 121 million years.

But what happen next was beyond comprehension. A.I awoke approximately after 67 millions years after it was put to sleep. When A.I awoke it carried out its programs with efficiency and precision. Having a bio-mechanical brain, the A.I soon learned on its own and created a world of machines.

Resumption

In which the author resumes his work on one of his personal projects.

After a brief period of discontinuation with my progress on S2, I resumed my progress today with the creation of my main character. I know it may sound absurd but it took me close to a year to really settle on the character’s name. Although the name crept up a few times during the character development process, I wasn’t too eager to commit to that name. I was scared of the repercussions that I might face in the future.

S2 will mark my first grand entry in the world of science fiction. Back in my yesteryears, I considered writing a science fiction story but self doubt and the chance of me being ridiculed by others proved too much for me. But today I am a different person, one who has come to believe in my own abilities.

Needless to say I wanted to write a science fiction story that is based on the coming realities. Although the final piece could be exaggerated to an extent, I want to write a piece that would capture the feeling of my characters.

I want you as the audience to believe that these characters were alive in my world and that they choose to do things not because they wanted to but because they had to. To many it could sound like a sci-fi melodrama. But in real essence it’s a story about Humanity.

I will not lie to you; I actually used my polytechnic assignments to my advantage. I wrote stories and purposely made character flaws so as to observe them on how they were reacting to the world around them.

The one project that has changed my outlook on characterization was my favorite video project entitled Bliss of Ignorance. I had the time of my life doing this project but more importantly I learned the true meaning of characterization. Making mistakes have allowed me to express my freedom and also appreciate the reason of getting things right. With my experimentation over, I am now confident to start serious development on S2.

Although S2 Neo Genesis has long way to go before it unprecedented completion but with no datelines and no eager fanatics to satisfy, I have the luxury of my letting my story mature and grow as I see fit.

A Dream of Mine

Those who dare to dream are those who catch their dreams.

Since the start of my holidays I have been slowing progressing in my quest to complete my own personal projects. With no looming datelines, I am taking my time to develop these projects. These projects have kept me busy and now have become a major part of my everyday life since completing my diploma.

These projects have given me a chance to express my thoughts and opinions. They have become a house where I can express my sorrows and happiness. Even if these projects never find an audience, at least I tried to do something different. I have always lived and still am living my life following my own motto, my way is the only way.

Well you might say I am ignorant and even arrogant towards others’ ideals but if you were me and have experienced the things the way I have, I beg to differ. If you never try, you just never know. Even if I make mistakes, let me be the first to tell you that these were my honest mistakes. I take pleasure in both my successes and also in my failures. I have never let failure discourage me; in fact it only fuels me to try harder.

I have a burning passion or a Dream. That dream is to create new Indian mythologies or a new kind of Indian literature. I hope these will inspire the future generations or more specifically my Indian counterparts to embrace these new mediums. I hate to see young Indians wasting their lives away and always bitching about life.

The problem lies with young Indian’s mentality or their lack of appreciation toward various mediums. Given the choice of making money or trying something new, most of them will opt to make money. That’s the reason why you see so little Indians in the creative fields.

Those who dare to dream are those who catch their dreams.

Another reason why I write these stories because I feel let down by my traditional minded Indians. I have never read or even come across a sci-fi material worth reading in Tamil. This was the reason why my Tamil suffered so much. I never got interested to read any of the Tamil written novels.

It really saddens me but India has some of the finest authors; they all seem to write stories that please the general public. The topics they favor always revolve around love, marriage, and the hardships endured by a woman. Well it’s about time someone changed all that and I plan to make a small difference.

Even though I will be enlisting for national service on August 18 this year, Rest assured, I will continue to work on these projects whenever I am given the opportunity.

The projects I am currently involved in
1) Ramayanam: The legend of Rama
2) S2: Neo Genesis
3) The Tin Machines
4) The Lord of Darkness

Ramayanam: The Legend of Rama
If you have read my previous post on Ramayanam, you will realize it’s a script that I have been working on for almost a year now. With the first draft nearing completion I am thrilled.

S2 Neo Genesis
This is my first real attempt to tell a story. Although it’s been a year since I drafted the plot. It was only till yesterday I created the main character. For months I have been trying to create a character that would satisfy my desires. I will reveal more of this book when the opportunity presents itself.

The Tin Machines
A serious animation project, I am currently in the pre production stages. Please refer to my previous post on The Tin Machines.

The Lord of Darkness
Formerly known as Shakti. This is my pet project. Almost three years have gone by since I have started work on this epic. This is my gift and also my curse. I have lost sleep and so nearly driven mad. I started writing the lord of Darkness with a single image in my mind.

As my audience I respect your opinions, but you got to understand that you must also respect my opinions. This world is neither yours nor its mine, it’s ours. I might sound so full of myself but that’s the way my heart beats. This life wasn’t given to me, I took it. And I will not listen to anyone who tells me otherwise.

The Tin Machines

An eerie reflection of our own world.

The Tin Machines is a 3D animation project that has been on my mind for quite some time. I have always wanted to produce an animation. Although I have got a few animations under my credit, none of them ended up the way I had envisioned them.

Well it’s mostly due to a lack of time and also the lack of knowledge in my 3D software, 3D max 5. Not to mention the hassle of juggling various modules in one hand, and also maintaining my final year group’s harmony while trying to complete my diploma.

In the end this project hit a road block because of my various commitments. Now that I have completed my diploma course, incidentally it is a diploma in Multimedia Technology (DMMT for short); I have invested some time and thought on how I might approach this animation project.

The story which I have vaguely conceived is about of a newly made Tin Machine which finds itself in a world that has no singular consciousness. This machine world lives only for the sole purpose of efficiency and productivity, everything else is an inconsideration. The Tin Machine slowly becomes aware of his emotionless world and starts on a quest of self realization.

My approach for this project would be to go beyond the overly hyped photorealism of the Hollywood CGI world and explore "painterly-realism" which has its focus not on recreating reality like a camera does, but as a painter would – drawing out and epitomizing the emotion and meaning of a particular moment or relationship.

More concretely I want to go beyond the traditional narrative form of film and explore what has called "psycho-realism" where you show the internal thoughts and emotions of a character. If a person emotionally feels "shattered" then we would see them literally crumble to the floor in shards of broken glass. I want to see visually what a character feels and thinks internally. Dissecting his inner thoughts and portraying them as characters and not as emotions.

Since most animated films - like their live action counterparts - have been based in the traditional narrative structure, there are no roadmaps to go by, which meant I have to do a lot of experimenting to arrive at how I want to tell my story.

To develop a scene I would have to try to think of the emotional dynamic of a situation, how it emotionally feels to be there, and then try to epitomize that so the viewer would recognize this "place" from their own experiences and bring those feelings into their viewing. Because I want use a method of storytelling that interwove a traditional narrative with stream of consciousness emotional imagery, I would not only have to think of situations which epitomized a certain relationship, but also of images and metaphors that emotionally conduce these feelings.

Yet regrettably the progress on this animation is minimal. There is a huge number of stuff that needs to be sorted out and I just don’t seem to have the expertise right now to pull this one off.

Someday when I eventually improve my skills I will produce this animation.

Ramayanam

The way it was meant to be.

This is one of two great stories ancient India has produced, the other being Mahabharata. The story of Ramayanam was said to be written as a poem by the sage Valmiki.

For those of you who are in the dark, let me enlighten you with a brief synopsis of this grand epic. Before that, I will have to give you folks a brief lesson on the Hindu god Vishnu.

In the basic Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the Hindu god Vishnu is the preserver and protector of creation. Vishnu is the embodiment of mercy and goodness, the self-existent, all-pervading power that preserves the universe and maintains the cosmic order Dharma.

Vishnu is often represented resting on the coiled serpent Shesha, with Vishnu's consort Lakshmi massaging his feet. Vishnu never sleeps and is the deity of Shanti, the peaceful mood. Vishnu does not tolerate ego. Vishnu's has ten incarnations. They are fish, tortoise, boar, lion-man, dwarf, Parashuram, Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Kalki. Kalki incarnation has yet to be come. The Ramayana has you have guessed is about Vishnu’s incarnation as Rama, the Prince of Ayodha.

Ramayanam Synopsis
King Dasaratha of Ayodha chooses his son Rama as his heir. His wife Kaikeyi asks that he appoint another son Bharata, instead. Kaikeyi pleads that he owes her two favors, and she feels misfortune will come upon her if he doesn't crown Bharata king and banish Rama to the forest for fourteen years. The king reluctantly agrees, so Rama goes with his beautiful wife, Sita, and his brother Laksmana, leaving their riches to live a simple life.

In the forest the three meet the demoness Surpanakha who falls in love with Rama. Rama refuses her advances and Laksmana wounds her. She flees to her brother Ravana, ruler of the island kingdom of Lanka. After hearing Surpanakha's report of the beauty of Sita, Ravana decides that he must have Sita and changes himself into in wandering holy man to find her in the forest. When Rama and Laksmana are distracted, Ravana carries Sita off to Lanka.

Sita mourns in Ravana's garden in Lanka, while Rama and Laksmana enlist the services of Hanuman, the monkey king, to help them find her. Hanuman, able to make himself larger or smaller, starts his search for Sita by taking a giant step to the Island of Lanka. Carrying Rama's ring he finds Sita and identifies himself as Rama's messenger. Sita is delighted, but Hanuman is caught and Ravana sets Hanuman's tail on fire. Hanuman escapes and sets fire to Lanka.

Rama, Laksmana, Hanuman, and his monkey army lay siege on Lanka. The monkeys make a bridge to Lanka, and after a long battle with spears, bows and arrows, Rama kills Ravana. Sita, however, is not received by Rama unreservedly; he questions her chastity after having lived in the house of another man. When he asks her to undergo the test by fire; she agrees. Proving her chastity by remaining unscathed by the fire, she rejoins Rama. Later, Rama abandons her to maintain the sanctity of public opinion and she goes to live in the ashram of sage Valmiki and bears twin sons Lava and Kusa, who as young men became reunited with their father, the god-king Rama.

The above synopsis is one of many different iterations of the story of Ramayanam. Though there are many different versions of the story, the spirit of the story remains the same. Although there have been some movies based on this epic, none of them had envisioned it for what it could have been.

I have always wanted to have someone translate this material into a movie that not only withstands the test of time but also to show the modern world that there was an epic far greater than any the world has ever seen. The more I wanted this to happen, the less likely it seemed. No one was daring enough or stupid enough to attempt to make a movie of such magnitude.

So I took it upon myself to render a new version of the Ramayanam. My version, the way it was meant to be.

It’s been a little over a year since I started to work on it. I think the 1st draft will be finished in a month or so. Why does it take so long? Well as my audience, you have the right to ask. I simply wanted it to be great.

This is no mere story we are talking about; this is a story that has been passed down by generation after generation. Remember Gandhi actually pronounced Rama as his last words after being shot by an assassin three times. And I will not be the one to turn it into a brainless Hollywood action movie.