This is a dual editor collaboration. The DVD will contain 2 x 30 minute renders of the footage from the game (one by me and one by Chris). We had filmmakers following both teams, capturing all the briefings, the serial events and all the action in the best FPS Basho tradition - quite a package!
Delhi. Many people say they have “done” Delhi, but in all honesty they haven’t. They have perhaps done the tourist [...]
When you travel through a country, especially if you are using a published travel guide, you are walking a well trodden path. Indeed maybe a thousand people are doing it with you simultaneously. This has a very strong effect over time, as more and more guest houses start catering only to the backpacker and spring up all along the route, which had myriad knock-on effects. Such as: taxi services who know the guide books better than you do and hordes of travellers at ever corner all "experiencing" the local atmosphere; all the time failing to realise that they are in a "bubble" like a Disney theme park ride.
"Art is that human endeavour which illuminates the contiguous nature of reality. Momentarily breaking us free from our illusion that the Universe has a dual nature." Writes Basho. Find out why...
Obsessions that you share with others can never be judged rationally as you lack the context needed to see them from the outside. In order to see them for what they really are you need an example of the same thing in a new context that you don't obsess over.
I sat on the balcony and considered the view. The remote 7800ft high mountain town of Shimla flowed over the [...]
This is a “Special Edition” of my Hong Kong at night film. The beautiful skyline of Hong Kong at night! [...]
This film is a compilation of clips and unseen footage from the games I attended run by Tier 1 Military Simulation. Before 2011 I had not played much milsim, now... well I recently laid in a puddle from 1am, freezing cold and surrounded by poisonous mushrooms, for 8 hours to spring an ambush! I fell asleep and started snoring. Moments later I was awoken by a wet weight crashing down on my back. Team commander Trip had thrown a log at me, missed, hit a tree and it had collapsed a rotten limb across my sprawled form. Had the opposition walked past at that particular moment then they would have heard the rest of the concealed team completely failing to stop laughing.
Here is a quick cut, colour and render of the Helicopter Assault during Tier One's Rolling Thunder Milsim event. I [...]
Jaisalmer is a town located 575 m west from the state capital Jaipur. It lies in the heart of the [...]
My first ever commissioned film was released today and stands as a landmark for Basho films. I have learned more [...]
It just has always been my position that Philosophy and Science are not in competition to uncover the secret of reality, and that the attempts by Physicists to paint this dichotomy was self-destructive and not worthy of their time. It is almost as if they are leaving their old enemy of "Religion" alone and picking on a group they don’t think will fight back.
The recent riots got me philosophically thinking and the following analysis is the results of those thoughts. Much of the [...]
As a traveller you know, and even expect, the unknown to occur. You want this; for some it’s the whole point of leaving their home in the first place. It’s usually to do with the fun stuff like walking the Great Wall, eating Sushi in Tokyo Fish Market or jumping off a bridge in New Zealand with only an elastic band to prevent your death.
“Way to get out there!” my watch gleefully announces. I watch its face, awaiting any further messages from its GPS ROM that has tracked my every move for months. In any other circumstances that might be a disturbing thought, but here the watch and its sister satellite high above my head record my movements like the Goddess Nike made flesh. Nope, nothing else, not today.
Ask a hundred people where in the world they would like to visit most of all and a significant percentage [...]
Following on from last weeks’ EDC post, here is the list of what I take to the Gym. Notes: As [...]
I have often remarked that the challenge of making an airsoft film - when you are also playing in the [...]
I stood alone in the pre-dawn of the morning and the silence of the surrounding forest was punctuated only by the hooting of owls and the snoring of AQT players as they serenaded the coming sun. I was taking my turn on watch and the firebase was so dark that I couldn’t really see my way to walk around the inside of the perimeter. It was a large base by airsoft standards, about 70 meters long and 20 wide, with several small wooden buildings, huts and fire positions all surrounded by steel barrels acting as the wall between the players and the trees beyond. Every few steps I raised the NVG scope to my left eye and took a look into the gloomy and misty darkness. Through the NVG there were only dark shapes with blurry outlines, suggestive of men among the trees, but these didn’t move so I took them to be bushes. Nevertheless, I gripped my rifle tightly in my right hand.
Many Indian cities are a jumble, a mix of the ancient and modern, but nowhere [...]
Criticism isn't as easy as people like to think. This is because that, while everyone knows when things have not gone optimally, as the old adage goes, “opinions are like assholes; everyone has got one”. However opinions are not often the result of well thought-out analysis, but rather the result of frustration and the need to vent anger. In airsoft, where bad command decisions can lead directly to the unquestionably real pain of being laced or embarrassed, most teams have a very simple method of dealing with the potential for such situations: They don’t have commanders at all.
There was only one time in our journey around India that I didn’t feel entirely safe, one moment where I [...]
It is often said that Airsoft is a game of extreme variety. At one end of the spectrum there are the speedball players who only play in small arenas. For they the game is about CQC accuracy, high rates of fire and aggression. Tactics tend to be personal and if they play as a team at all it is usually in very small groups. There is hardly what could be called commanders. This was the airsoft of Electrowerkz. Veterans of that site tend to be tough, able to run into massive volumes of fire without flinching and a little unhinged. All the way at the other end of the spectrum is the sort of military simulation that companies such as Stirling offer in the form of training missions, hiking into countryside for 2 days for a 10 minute fire fight and being tortured when captured. It is into this enormous dichotomy that Tier 1 Military Simulations has launched their services pitched at both parties.
Eating food in India is no joke. On one hand there are high-end coffee cafes that have prices that could only make sense to the gainfully employed. High-end coffee needs to be carefully metered out as it is too comforting and familiar a western experience to eat in such a cafe. Not only does it take you away from your local-encounters in this mighty country, but also takes a large amount of Indian coin from your purse and that directly affects how much you have to spend on the fun things.
“Who are your inspirational hero’s?” I asked a friend. “Dunno. King David, I guess, would be one.” “Awesome answer,” I [...]
There are two questions I am most asked about travelling the world. The first is, “What was [...]
Varkala is a very popular tourist destination with western travellers. Similar to Goa in many respects, it is a large [...]
Kerala the beautiful; the green of a million palm trees, the blue of warm waters. Kerala the red of the [...]
Dear all, Announcing the opening of a new Basho website! www.buddhabooks.co.uk I have been writing reviews of books on this [...]
I’m an avid reader of New Scientist magazine. In fact I get it every week. The headline will usually be [...]
It was when I was sitting in the steam room at Virgin Active with 20 sweaty men all dressed in the same set of bright beach shorts, and making jokes about their penises, that something struck me as odd, “This has to be,” I announced into the cloud of steam, which was being jetted into the room at an alarming rate and temperature, “the most surreal Ground Zero Weekender I have ever been to.”
Welcome back! This is the second podcast in the This Is India collection. It tells of Cesca and my journey [...]
The story of a simple Buddhist priest travelling from India to China in the 5th Century doesn’t sound like something that would [...]
In India, catching a tuk tuk and negotiating the fare – or even the simple existence of the destination – is a national pastime. Not one driver, in three months, took us where we wanted to go without comment, argument or an all out fight. At first, this grates on the nerves and then you cant help but be brought down by it. Then you feel victimised for being western and (relatively) rich. You start to think that they are all out to get you personally. However, it is none of these; it is an official sport. Take it as a sport, a sparring match, and you suddenly find it fun.
Before we start I should add a caveat to this article: I am a philosopher and a Daoist. As such, [...]
To those of you who play computer games, the country of Chernarus may ring a few bells. As anyone who loves the Arma series of games from Bohemia Interactive will tell you Chernarus, or Black Russia, is a fictional post-USSR country somewhere in the East that is used as the main game location. TA Events have licensed the entire storyline from Bohemia meaning that players at the event could sign up to the various factions found in the series. When someone says that you should get out from behind the keyboard and get some exercise, these events enable you to re live the brilliant, in-depth storyline for (almost) real. A detailed account of the factions and background to the event can be found here and it has a very professional depth to it not usually available to airsofters.
When Cesca first showed me the drawing plans for the UCS garden at RHS Malvern, I knew that it was [...]
Bangalore is a strange place because it is just like cities at home. Almost slap bang in the middle of [...]
I have been playing airsoft now for 7 years, which is an easy date for me to remember as I started my first proper skirmish on my stag night. I went on from there to play regularly at the old London site of Electrowerkz and was soon drafted into the Dark Angels (as they were then known); a 30 strong team of serious CQB players. Soon after that I was asked to join the marshalling team at Electrowerkz and rose to become a senior marshal and even ran the venue on my own a few times. Unfortunately, Electrowerkz closed on the day I left to go travelling and the Dark Angels became team Delta-Alpha. They have gone from strength to strength since then and have successfully branched out into playing military simulation games as well as appearing on TV, a music video and as “resistance security” for the Sarah Connor Chronicles London launch party
You are in possession of the one of the universe’s most mysterious objects. Your personal copy of this object differs [...]
Kick Ass is a film that draws a line in the dirt and invites you to place yourself on one [...]
The first line of Philip Pullman’s novel reads: This is the story of Jesus and his brother Christ, of how [...]
Hello and welcome to an experiment! Cecsa and I have sat down and recorded a podcast of our time in [...]
The most common question I have been asked by people after returning home is, “which was your favourite country to [...]
When I was considering taking a year off, I started looking around for a computer that I could take with [...]
For most martial artists, being mugged in broad daylight is an unlikely occurrence. Fit, aware and confident looking people do [...]
I lay on my back and tried to relax. The sound of rolling waves crashed back and forth in the [...]
One of the unique things about India, and one that you never quite come to terms with, is the trains. [...]
