The project was minimal, still it seemed like a disappointment was to come. We were planning to shoot most of the film in the room where we sat on the floor and wrote the so called “script”. We had to do it somewhere and it was not that much options. But first we had to go and convince Nirmal’s friend, Dope-Mann Joshi (who had the good camera), to come and shoot for us. We took the bus to his place that same morning. I was filming things already on the bus with my iphone. I was filming us when we were knocking on Dop-mann Joshi’s door also. He had a nice room with a bed, a sofa and a desk with a computer where he sat and worked with video editing. It was his studio. We talked him through the script and he seemed interested. He asked a few questions. At first, I don’t think he got the whole picture of the idea of the script. Maybe because of the language barrier, or because of that the script, which I had taken charge of, was confusing. But he definitely seemed interested in participating. Nirmal also explained a lot in Hindi to him and we agreed that he will join in and come shooting for us. Then we explained that I was to leave the country very soon and that it is the matter of doing it now. I think he was a little surprised but he agreed on this chance because he seemed to like the idea and was probably a bit interested in trying to work with a foreigner also I can imagine. I think the truth actually was that we were spending the entire day. On the day after this to shoot the film. That’s what we arranged. Let’s meet up tomorrow morning at Nirmals house and shoot the film.
We went to see Shree, who normally is the producer in this small group that makes indie film together. They all probably do whatever jobs they can get within film making, of course. The actors go to auditions, the camera guys gets hired for different projects to shoot and so on. But when they work together they are the KZ-group and now we wanted to present the new script for Shree also, and talk it through. My suggestion was that he was going to play the “producer” in this film, which we were going to make. I mean be an actor but act being a producer. We went to his place. He lived in an adorable, interestingly non-styled place with very few square meters and items. There was a door and a barrel of water. Not much more. Nothing much were happening there at first in regard of film making. But we had some food there together. I was so excited about the film making and had no time to spill. I asked the guys to start shooting all the time straight away in different environments. I just wanted to make sure we got some material. Whatever it may be. Just something for some small cut images of anything to throw in between in the editing for later, at least. This could be for the part when I am arriving in Mumbai, walking around on the streets looking for someone to make a film with. By now the sun was about to set. So it would be a good time to depict the scenario of that I arrived to the city in the evening and was going to find someone to shoot a short film with within the next 12 hours. I got them to film me just outside shree’s house when I am walking around among the trash that is laying around against the wall and I am looking pretty stupid and lost. Then they filmed me walking on the sidewalk next to a parked rickshaw on the street. Also just walking around and looking lost and stupid. Then one shot from behind also when I am walking on the sidewalk and you can only see my back. We walked up the street a couple of hundred meters to the entrance of YRF Studios (Yash Raj Film) which is a very famous company working in Hindi cinema and one of the largest film studios in India. We thought it would be a funny scene that might attract the humor from the Indian crowd, if we shoot the scene of when the foreigner meets this guy who claims to be a cameraman, right outside of this famous studio company. We actually happened to be on this street already, so why not. This is where Shree lived. I had been convinced that I had to try to speak some Hindi also. The Indian crowd would love to hear a foreigner speak Hindi, they told me. But I don’t know any Hindi, so I had it written down on the phone and I would be looking at the phone as I was reading the Hindi as good as I could. I think I was hoping that my acting would look like that I was looking at a map on my phone or something. This turned out being the worst part of the film. It really sucks, what I am doing. When we shot it I felt very uncomfortable and there were people passing by all the time and also tourists that were just standing around outside this famous studio to take pictures of it. Then we start to shoot and act right there and it also looked like we didn’t know what we are doing. It was catastrophic. And on top of that Nirmal starts to be freestyling and doesn’t stick to his lines and what we agreed on he would be doing on camera. He starts bladdering about money, which we had not at all discussed. I think I was a bit irritated but decided to just keep it together and try to deliver my next line also anyway after he was done, even though I knew it was all going to be terrible. I ended up asking him to record a voiceover for the line he was supposed to say and edit it together in post. Something which was done very long time afterwards. You can kind of see that I look grumpy on the picture in that part also. But I wasn’t going to do a re-take. We ended up using the shot.
Recent Comments