Good Bye 2013

It will not be an exaggeration if I say that the year 2013 has been life-changing for me and my family. I moved out of a city where I have been settled for more than a decade for a completely new city, a local language completely unknown to me; quit a job where I had been for half a decade to join my alma mater NIFT (same parent Institute but a different Center) as Associate Professor. My husband got transferred to the same city and my daughter changed school. It has just been a few months that we moved to a rented apartment here, so kind of still in the process for fully settling down, exploring and getting used to the new city. A lot more remains to be explored. My last few posts on this blog have been about my life in this city.

This new year 2014 will begin in a new city for us, working in our new offices (no holiday). I wish everyone a year full of happiness, love, laughter, joy, peace and prosperity. 

Great Story-telling Clues by Filmmaker Andrew Stanton (Video)

While looking for inspirational videos for writers, I came across this page 13 Inspirational TED Talks for Writers. Wanted to share a video which I watched here. It is a talk by filmmaker Andrew Stanton. As Wikipedia describes him:

Andrew Stanton (born December 3, 1965) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and voice actor based at Pixar Animation Studios. His film work includes writing and directing Pixar's A Bug's Life (as co-director), Finding Nemo and WALL-E, and his first live-action film, John Carter. He also co-wrote every film of the Toy Story franchise and Monsters, Inc..

I found it a great talk in a very simple manner. I enjoyed watching WALL-E. I have watched Finding Nemo innumerable times with my little daughter who was first shown this movie by Ashish. She just loved it and used to watch it again and again since her pre-school days, not to mention that I loved watching it, too. When I saw the video caption, I wanted to find out what makes such a great story-teller, and I was not disappointed. Watch it for yourself if you are interested in story-telling or writing.

The video is embedded below and details about the video that are mentioned in the post are:

3. Andrew Stanton: The Clues to a Great Story
Filmmaker Andrew Stanton (Toy Story, WALL-E) shares what he knows about storytelling — starting at the end and working back to the beginning.