R.I.P. Steve Jobs

Tim Cook sent the following email to Apple employees today: Steve passed away earlier today. Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being.

STAY HUNGRY STAY FOOLISH...

Inventions

Jobs is listed as either primary inventor or co-inventor in 338 US patents or patent applications related to a range of technologies from actual computer and portable devices to user interfaces (including touch-based), speakers, keyboards, power adapters, staircases, clasps, sleeves, lanyards and packages

Management style

Jobs demonstrating the iPhone 4 to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on June 23, 2010

Steve Jobs was a demanding perfectionist^[84][85][86] who always aspired to position his businesses and their products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting trends, at least in innovation and style. He summed up that self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007 by quoting ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky:

There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will.^[87]

Much was made of Jobs' aggressive and demanding personality. Fortune wrote that he was "considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs".^[88] Commentaries on his temperamental style can be found in Mike Moritz's The Little Kingdom, one of the few authorized biographies of Jobs; The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman; and iCon: Steve Jobs, by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon. In 1993, Jobs made Fortune's list of America's Toughest Bosses in regard to his leadership of NeXT. Cofounder Dan'l Lewin was quoted in Fortune as saying of that period, "The highs were unbelievable ... But the lows were unimaginable", to which Jobs' office replied that his personality had changed since then.^[89]
In 2005, Steve Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from Apple Stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs.^[90] In its 2010 annual earnings report, Wiley said it had "closed a deal ... to make its titles available for the iPad."^[91]
Jef Raskin, a former colleague, once said that Jobs "would have made an excellent king of France," alluding to Jobs' compelling and larger-than-life persona.^[92]
Floyd Norman said that at Pixar, Jobs was a "mature, mellow individual" and never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers

Gautam Rajadhyaksha-The man who bought motion in photography

One of the country's most famous photographers of Bollywood and fashion, Gautam Rajadhyaksha, passed away today in Mumbai following a heart attack at the age of 62.
Rajadhyaksha has shot some of the most glamorous photographs of actors, actresses and celebrities. His book Faces is a compilation of his best works. 

Ace photographer, Gautama Rajadhyaksha who was single handedly responsible for evolution of genre of glamour photography in India has left for the heavenly abode probably to infuse much needed glamour in the heavenly abode. It, however, needs to be underlined that there was no such urgency in the abode of gods to invite Gautam Rajadhyaksha, while his presence was still required to accord permanence to glamour in the world of cinema as also in general in the public as well.

Indeed, Gautam Rajadhayaksha's biggest contribution to the society has been to infuse awareness about presently oneself as glamorous in day-to-day conduct and it has been a by-product of his efforts to re-present the actors and actresses in a new light, which made them glamorous and adorable to the public. Indeed, light was the guiding tool for glamour to bring about light in the final impression of snaps that he clicked of the film stars. Gautam Rajadhyaksha was considered to be one of the finest exponents of intelligent usage of light to add a sense of warmth to the film stars.

He was the photographer who launched many a careers of scores of film stars by doing their first portfolios and prominent luminaries include Raveena Tandon, Kajol, Raima Sen, Rimi Sen, Jackie Shroff and the list goes on and on.

The number of tweets that the film stars made after passing away of Gautam Rajadhyaksha in it is a pointer to the popularity and goodwill that he enjoyed in the world of cinema-
Big B wrote" ... u have left behind a legacy, pictures that u clicked would always be part of our lives, always".
 

Steve Jobs...Inspiring excerpts by Steve Jobs

Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life.
Best decisions I ever made
The first story is about connecting the dots. I ped out of Reed College after the first six months. Why? Well, it started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.
She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, but my biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.
This was the start in my life. And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. So I decided to out. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned coke bottles for the five cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.
Let me give you one example: I decided to take a calligraphy class at Reed College and learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. If I had never ped out, I would have never ped in on that calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
Love and Loss
My second story is about love and loss. Woz (Steve Wozniak) and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown into a two billion dollar company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation the Macintosh a year earlier, and then I got fired.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down. I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me: I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit and I decided to start over.
The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, and I retuned to Apple. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple.
I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
If today were the last day of life
My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: 'If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.' It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I've looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I will be dead soon is the most important tool I have ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors told me this was incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for 'prepare to die.' I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, and was told that it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue created by a fellow named Stewart Brand and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: 'Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.' It was their farewell message.
And I've always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

vfx Extravaganza........

Break Ke Baad's vfx extravaganza

By Money Sharma, December 9, 2010 - 18:58 IST
When it comes to vfx in heavy budget Bollywood movies, there are a few big vfx companies which has made its presence felt, over the past few years. But ever thought, a team of mere 5-6 guys hailing from Kolkata, in a small garage type studio, would able to execute vfx for big budgeted Imran Khan and Deepika Padukone starrer Break Ke Baad?

But yes. It is. Indranil Roy, who moved to Mumbai with couple of his team mates a few years back, running his own small animation boutique and executing a lot of TV commercials, has done it. "This is the first Bollywood feature film project which we have executed" says an excited Indranil, who also happens to be the vfx supervisor for the film.

Indranil started his boutique almost a decade back in Kolkata with the name N. K. Graphic Arts. "The company initially floated was in Kolkata for few years and then we planned to shift its base to Mumbai for better prospects. Though it was non-operational for almost a year and half, as I was a part of Prasad EFX, but now again we have started the studio as our priority"

When asked Indranil about his working experience in Bollywood and with the director Danish Aslam, he gave a very satisfied smile and replied, "Well, it has been a great learning and working experience. Danish is very well versed with his job and keeps a fair understanding about the vfx. He keeps sharp eye for the quality of content and is very particular about finesse of every shot executed."

As a new entrant in the industry, he is also thankful to Vicky Bahri, the Co-producer and Kunal Kohli, producer of the movie, for giving him an opportunity to work with them. "Vicky's and my relationship come from the time when we worked together for a TV commercial, a year back." he states.

He further informs that regarding the vfx and the shots, "There are more than 150 vfx shots of over 14 minutes which we executed. Having our team here in Mumbai, we also roped in few mates from Kolkata who accomplished the work."

With this beginning in the industry, Indranil wanted to thank everyone who played a key role along with him to finish the project. Here are the mentioned few names (credits) who worked rigorously on the movie:
Photogrammetry/Modelling/Texturing - Arijit Gupta; Senior 3D artist - Prashant Sadaphule; Concept Arts for five credits: Vinod More; Web Design/Fx - Tapas Kanti Sarkar; Compositing/Match move - Rajesh Patel; Roto/ Animation - Debasis Das; Match move and Credit design (Sharmila Tagor's credit) - Arup Barik; Kite Thread Dynamics - T. Suresh Babu; Compositing: Ketan Patil; Staircase Calligraphy - Damini Roy. Paragliding sequence compositing and body rig clean up: VFX supervisor Ashoke Chowdhury.

In this Bollywood Hungama's exclusive; here are the shot breakdowns of few major shots executed. Images and Information courtesy: Kunal Kohli Productions, Reliance Big Pictures and N. K. Graphic Arts.