2010 – Outsourcing
“Why can’t Vishnu be holding the chess board?”
“Many people would be upset. Our Vishnu is like your Jesus. This is like changing a story in the bible to include a magical chess set.”
“Okay, okay. I guess we just have it suspended in front of him then.”
“(pause)..Yes, I think that would be okay.”
“Also, I’d like to have some people below the chess set looking up at it in awe- “
“NO, No. That would be very bad!”
“Why?”
“We cannot have things pictured above people, especially arcane things like the magical chess set.”
“Okay, okay.”
I spent months IM-ing a fellow (Ajay) in India. His sister was an artist whom I found to paint 3 images for the opening of the film. They are to introduce the mythology of the chess set. The pictures would depict Vishnu deciding on how to punish Ravana who was creating havoc on earth. In the real myth, “Ramayana”, Ravana is killed. In my extrapolation, he is imprisoned thus making the movie possible (will he escape and cause havoc? No spoiler alert here!). Ajay’s sister didn’t speak English so it was him I was asking to commit blasphemy. It was evident that I was walking a fine line with the images I wanted and even with the adjustments I’m sure some orthodox Hindus would be offended if they ever saw them.
I was still working my graveyard shift at the company that monitored ATMs and VISA networks. My department was going through a transition, outsourcing employees from India. It made business sense, but it was putting my stateside co-workers on edge. I had been through the threat of layoffs before and was once again excited at the prospect.
My job within the company had changed. My department had been broken up, some moving elsewhere. The few of us that remained now had new co-workers in North Carolina, Texas and India. Since I worked the graveyard shift, it meant I worked with very few people, sometimes it was just myself. Inside my lunar environment, I was interacting via Instant Messenger with names on my computer. I didn’t see their faces, just their names. I would type to them when I was taking a break, type to them when I returned.
If I didn’t touch the keyboard for two minutes, an orange light would appear next to my name, meaning I had gone “idle”. Where WAS I? Why wasn’t I working? (Tap) Oh, it turned green again. He is there. I truly was in outer space – nestled in my Spartan space station straight out of 2001 Space Odyssey.
Tomas was working through the much more complex final cues at the end of the film. They were to accompany the creature attacks and the drafts he emailed to my space station were wonderful. He had definitely hit his stride. In August, he finished the composing and set about revisiting each cue for final touches and final music mixing with the help of Bob Gremore.
In September, Steve helped me find Drew Canulette, a fantastic local sound mixer/designer to do our final mix and design the sound of our creature. He would make sure all the sound was balanced/EQ’d properly. This included our multiple dialogue tracks, ambient noise tracks, foley tracks, and music. He was excited to do it, being different than his shorter commercial gigs. However, his commercial gigs paid well, far more than I would be able to pay him and they would have priority.
After having only online acquaintances with Pedram the creature designer and Tomas the composer, it was nice to be able to shake hands with Drew. Sure technology is making the world smaller, but there is something to be said about working with people face to face.
Our sound was in good hands, but its backburner status had me once again wondering how long?
