So where am I now? I have moved on, to do bigger and better things. While I was in Sri Lanka I had my chances in dipping into the advertising industry, working at McCann Erickson and LOWE. In the process learnt a lot and made a lot of friends in the industry. That was in Sri Lanka. Now I am in the UK, finished my university degree and went back to square one; trying to get my foot in the industry in London. EA isn’t exactly the “advertising industry”, it’s more of a “gaming” scene, with little to no chance of making contact with the hyped ad industry I kept hearing about. I got to work on a lot of exciting project, online ad campaigns, and improve my portfolio. The timing was perfect. The application process began.

Enter “ClickTag”.

After several interviews the recruitment agency sets up an interview with ClickTag. All the other places I have been were big agencies: OMD, VCCP, The Doodle Bar, and other in-house positions as a designer: PokerStars, SwiftCover. Quite big companies. Then I walk into ClickTag, a small agency, a small office. I sit by a glass table, next to it a bookshelf with a graveyard of old mobile phones, and old Macintosh computers. I see an old iPod stuck on the toilet door used as the door handle. Plenty of taxidermitised animals. Interesting. Nad Daniel, my current creative lead, walks in. We talk the usual interview stuff. I walk out. In my mind all I kept thinking was that this was a very small place, will there be room for development in my career. I wanted to grow, reach the skies. Is this the place? Still hadn’t made a decision.

Second interview. I’m still working at EA, and couldn’t take time off from work for this, but the kind folks at ClickTag agreed to meet me after work. At a bar. Yes, a bar. I walk in at around 6 pm. Meet Nad again, and Jon Lefly the CEO. Showed him my portfolio, and he instantly showed interest in hiring me. Still, in my mind I keep having this image of myself wanting to work in a big agency. Was I right? I was about to be proven wrong. I meet Andy Reid. He might have been in quite a state, but we had a deep conversation which lasted for more than 2 hours. Just the both of us, in the beer garden at the bar. I was convinced. I wanted the job. I left at around 10pm.

I still went to my second interview at VCCP. But right after I called back and withdrew the application. Did the same with all the other agencies and companies. Tried to resign at EA, but the process got a bit complicated. As a contractor I didn’t see why it was so difficult to just quit. So, a day after I handed in my official resignation letter I get fired. And I needed it. ClickTag wanted me to start the very next week. So thank god things worked out, and here I am sitting in the Chelsea offices of ClickTag.

So about ClickTag. This is an advertising agency. But not a traditional one. We specialise in Digital. Everything digital. From the 40k banners, rich media ads, facebook apps to iPhone and iPad apps. We have our own share of clients who we directly deal with, but in the meantime also liase with other top agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi, Adam & Eve, AMV BBDO, BMB, DLKW LOWE, St Lukes and Publicis Chemistry. A lot of production work, but the agency is moving towards the creative side, making ideas happen. We also have our own LABS department, that have a team of tech wizards who appear to be able to do literally anything that’s thrown at them!

So yes, ClickTag is awesome. Not too sure about the logo, or branding. But things are changing. We are making some amazing things happen here, it’s in the making. We have a new upstairs section for the Suits and the Techs. More on this later!

Tomorrow, Movember begins. Watch out for some interesting stuff on that!

This is what I stumbled upon on Reddit today. Reddit, is quite awesome. It’s like 9gag. 9gag is awesome too. Check it out. Perfect if you want to procrastinate. All those cool little things you used to share via forwarding emails – it’s all in here. And the new stuff, the memes, rage comics, and a lot of fun and cool stuff.

So this post is about an ad campaign done by Discovery Channel. I think the year was 2008. Somehow I had missed it. But due to wonders such as YouTube and Reddit, our memories are refreshed. So here you go – I think it’s awesome!

And this was in 2009

Guilfest Crowds

My fist every music festival in the UK – Guilfest 2011. EA got free tickets for all their employees, so hey – I get to go for a festival for free. The weather was a bit mixed through out with sunny patches and flash showers. There were some really good performances, but I have been moving from one stage to another and trying to catch the best acts. So here are some pictures I took throughout the day. I know it doesn’t cover the whole Festival. At least, this is what I experienced.

Started the day off from watching District 6 perform from our close up view from the VIP area

The guitarists from District 6

Not sure why this guy was half naked on stage!

"Bazinga!" Sheldon Cooper's catch phrase from The Big Bang Theory

No idea who this guy was - but he was quite good in stand up comedy!

An overview of the atmosphere - as seen from our VIP area

A guy dressed up as a bunny trying to entertain people between brakes in the performances

More bunnies join in to entertain

A bunny examining the hair style of the interesting hair style person

Main Stage at Guilfest 2011

Edei performing at Guilfest 2011

Another shot of the amazing Edei

Kate Rusby performing some folk music

Yasmin performing at the main stage - as seen from our VIP area

The Farm taking stage

The Farm's guitarists rocking it

Was she a back-up/chorus signer for The Farm? - I don't know!

The fabulous Noisettes singing her heart out to her fans at the Main Stage

A glimpse of N-dubz. I think.

That’s it from me for now! Leave comments if you must, and feel free to share it

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This post is about something that inspired me from my childhood. Rajinikanth. He is known as the “SuperStar” in Kollywood (sort of a South Indian version of Hollywood. Different to Bollywood – as Bollywood is predominantly in Hindi, where as Kollywood is mainly Tamil. I think.) My parents spoke in all three of the main languages in my country – Sinhalese, Tamil and English. And the music, TV shows and films they watched were always in Tamil. This may also be the reason I may not know a lot of the English songs that were popular when I was growing up (like most of my English and other foreign friends). I was an late adaptor to the English language music. To hip-hop, R&B, drum&bass, dub-step, rock, pop and to pretty much everything. The most popular songs among the school kids where I was were mostly the popular local hits by local artists, or Bollywood songs, and the odd Backstreet Boys/Westlife/Vengaboys/Shaggy song. So yes, Rajinikanth – I probably might have seen pretty much all of his movies. Even the ones he acted in the 80′s or before that. And his later famous ones, which every kid who spoke Tamil as a first language, tried to imitate. Though Rajinikanth may look cheesy and clichéd, one thing he had was style. May be the settings of the movies weren’t correct, or the production of it wasn’t great, and his sense of fashion looked like Lady Gaga had gone Bollywood. But he knew the trends, the styles, the brands. He knows how to wear a tux, he was all hip with RayBan Wayfarers and was pretty much in sync with the latest fashion and styles from the west.

This video here is from one of his films. Unfortunately I don’t remember what the film was. (when I do, I’ll add it here). In this clip named “Little Superstar” Rajinikanth doesn’t take center stage, though he is the one lying on the bed controlling the cassette player/radio. The clip has been a viral hit, with over 16 million hits world-wide, and sparked a few spoofs.

A spoof from the popular TV show (cartoon) American Dad -

And another spoof, done with a little bit help of CGI/Greenscreen.

And another

More on the SuperStar, here is a clip of him in action. They may be utterly ridiculous, but the entertainment value is epic! Also, people of Thamil Nadu usually go crazy in cinema due to the overwhelming epic-ness! And, if in Hollywood Keanu Reeves as Neo can do crazy shit, why can’t Rajinikanth? He’s the SuperStar after all!

Also, something I just stumbled upon today. This cracks me up. Cringe-worthy too. But what better than an Indian Superman and Spider-woman to brighten up your day! Click here (embedding is disabled by the owner :-S)

And finally, the Indian version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller! Check it out!

And now for the “Before” version of the above picture.

You can also view this picture on my Flickr page

The last couple of months have been quite hectic. A lot of things have happened, a lot of places I’ve visited. It has been quite exciting. I’ll do my best to make fresh blog posts to most of them.

In March I visited my home in Sri Lanka. Went to watch a few matches at the Cricket World Cup, which was hosted in Sri Lanka. Also it was my cousin’s wedding towards the end of my trip. No more than a week after I returned to the UK I had to take a trip back just for a day back to Lanka because my brother decided to get engaged!

In April I visited Switzerland and Spain on a work related trip. More updates and pictures on this soon.

And another thing which I haven’t mentioned on this blog at all is about my job. I work at Electronic Arts, or some of you might know it as EA Games (or EA Sports). It’s almost 10 months now. Exactly a year ago I made a blog post about chasing my dream and living the dream. Well, a year on – I’d still say the same thing. There is nothing more that I could ask for.

So about living the dream. I have a job in a place that I would’ve only dreamed of to be working at. I have my own place, my own room with everything that I want. I have my own Mac book pro with a Magic Mouse, an Xbox 360 hooked to a 32 inch flat screen TV with an arsenal of games from EA. I meet most of my friends and family during the weekend, and am in touch with my family overseas. I share the place I live with my brother, who makes sure that the fridge always has some food in it. I have a gym at work place which I try to use regularly. My almost breaking down house back in Sri Lanka was finally sold, and have bought a new apartment which looks amazing. My parents live there now, but I have a room to myself, with an amazing view from the balcony on 7th floor, and a swimming pool on the rooftop. I have no immediate money problems, or personally owe anyone money. So, what more could I ask for. So am I living the dream?

So will I ever get bored with where I am? – I don’t know. But I keep challenging myself, finding new things to do, and exploring possibilites. I want to reach the skies, do bigger things. Yes, I am ambitious, but for my own good I guess.

Enough of my random ramblings! Look out for more posts with some photographs and my recent works. And oh – I am in the process of updating my heavily outdated online portfolio. This will include a select few works that I’ve done for EA as well

drop, drop, drop!

Finally got my hands on a flash gun to fit my Nikon D40 SLR. It’s almost as good as the SB800, and have been experimenting the equipment a bit. Unfortunately i don’t have a lot of time at hand, as I am trying to finish a heap load of stuff at work, and this isn’t the best time to play around. Yet, I have been a little bit naughty and played around with my camera for a bit today. Subject i chose – water! If you go through my Flickr photo stream you will find a really old picture that i took with the same camera, while i was spinning around on one spot with a glass of water, while taking high speed shots. For that i had day light. And since then i had dreamt of getting a flash gun so i can experiment this more in any environment - and today, is that day! (i’ll include my old water pictures at the bottom of this post)

A thinner stream

Cold stream

The old pictures. (looks a bit better as well? That’s because in the old ones i spent HOURS on it! – and that’s natural sunlight)

Spinning with a glass

Crafted with water

Like i just said, these two old ones look much better and sharper. May be it’s because of the sunlight, and i took over a hundred pictures! Where as today i just took a few, and decided to make a post!

Okay then, Back to work!

]]> http://hashir.net/blog/2011/02/droplets-the-tap/feed/ 0 http://hashir.net/blog/2011/02/getting-wordpress-on-my-domain/ http://hashir.net/blog/2011/02/getting-wordpress-on-my-domain/#comments Fri, 11 Feb 2011 19:55:59 +0000 Hash Milhan http://hashir.net/blog/?p=443 Well, this is been smooth and a successful process. However i am having trouble importing my old blog into here. EDIT – I have successfully imported all of my old posts, with comments, and most pictures!

Just a Coffee Mug

Well, this is been smooth and a successful process. However i am having trouble importing my old blog into here. EDIT – I have successfully imported all of my old posts, with comments, and most pictures!

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the Life and Times of Hon Pusswedilla - the DVD

The much anticipated DVD of the popular Sri Lankan satirical theatrical comedy is finally out! If you have seen Chaminda Pusswedilla live in action (on stage), and want to hold a copy or if you haven’t seen it and want to see what all this fuss is about – then this is your chance. This DVD is from the first installment of the play. It’s all about Chaminda Pusswedilla rising to the power to being the president of Sri Lanka from his humble beginnings (or not so humble) from a little town called Kotaudagama. You’d see Puss (his nickname) through a series of interviews at his various stages in his political career conducted by TV anchor Robert Westernthinking from CNN (Carrying Nothing Newsworthy). Puss is also accompanied by his most trusted secretary Cyril Nitharamasuffering and of course – his body guards Paul and Smith (Pala and Samitha). The play has been a hit thus far, and was directed by none other than Feroze Kamardeen and produced by the creative task force of Stage Light and Magic inc., and shot specifically for DVD by Video Image.

Here is one of the trailers for the DVD.

For more Puss trailers visit my YouTube channel

The following video is an interview conducted by the local newspaper – The Daily Mirror.

The DVD is currently priced at 1600 LKR and available at the Commons and the Lionel Wendt, Colombo. If you are one of those fans who happens to be overseas – fear not! It’s now an Amazon for sale! go get it now! http://amzn.to/pussDVD

Get the DVD from Amazon - http://amzn.to/pussDVD

For more information about Pusswedilla visit his facebook page at facebook.com/pusswedilla and twitter at @honpusswedilla

2D to 3D in Blender

So I have been up to the task of doing free design AGAIN! this one i started about a year ago, and only managed to get the 2D version of the logo designed. I couldn’t get access to 3D studio max (the only 3d software i know) as it doesn’s come for Macs, or get Maya for my mac. So this project was postponed till yesterday where i was forced to figure out a way to do it. So Blender came to the rescue. Blender, a free and open source software, at first seemed quite complicated to use. Just to figure out how to import an existing illustrator path, make it 3D, add a texture, some lights, get the camera pointed in the right direction – took me around 5 hours! but now i have learnt the basics of Blender it really seems to be a very easy software to use compared to the other 3D softwares. The only downside is takes a little bit of patience and time to learn it. otherwise it’s an awesome bit of software worth of the money – oh wait, it’s free!

Logo in 2D, Designed using Adobe Illustrator

Logo in 3D - Designed using Blender 3D