|
|
As hectic
as it gets
(An exclusive On-Location Report by
Correspondent Harish Patil on the sets of Shaheen)
'Full Light', 'We roll' comes the loud voice
from somewhere inside the room.
The recordist forwards the
tape to the end of the scene that had been completed around
15 minutes earlier, peering at the monitor. He then bellows
out "Silence," a keen sense of urgency and authority in his
voice. Everybody stops talking and the buzz slowly dies down.
The recordist-cum-continuity person then proceeds to write
the details of the scene in the continuity book; the scratch
of his pen as he scribbles can be heard loudly in the quiet
room.
He yells "silence" again,
followed by "Rolling. "From the other room, comes another
yell: "Action." Pin drop silence follows and a cloud of cigarette
smoke descends on the room as several people try to ease the
tension by puffing on their tobacco sticks.
The picture on the monitor
goes somewhat like this: the camera zooms onto a girl wearing
a salwar suit. She is leaning over the window sill, looking
out at the distant horizon, just an hour before the sun is
exactly up overhead. The room, apparently, a hotel room is
bathed in sunshine.
A curly-haired male gets up
from his slumber, and stretches on the bed. He looks at the
pretty damsel, wishing her 'Good Morning',
The girl turns around, smiles
and sits on the edge of the bed.
The Person asks, "Kya Waqt
Huya ?"
The girl replies,"Gyara baj
gaye".
The conversation goes on for
a while, and the crew continues to film the scene. Suddenly,
there is a disturbance, and a loud one at that. A desperate
voice shouts 'cut', followed by "Kiska awaz aaya ? "
The room is abuzz once again.
A voice explains: "sahib, the refrigerator's compressor came
on automatically."
'Silence," the voice booms
loudly once again. And the sequence of events is repeated.
|
|
The heart and soul of the unit
|
We
are in Bhopal. The location is the Hotel Imperial Sabre, which
has been created from an old-style Nawabi mansion, and it
retains that charm till today.
|
It
is not morning; it is past midnight and I am trying hard to rub
the sleep from my eyes. Artificial floodlights have been used to
make it appear to be day.
When
I view the scene on the monitor later, it looks like a day scene,
no one will know it was shot at night, thanks to the good lighting.
I am at the location shoot for Shaheen, a television series that
is airing on Sony Entertainment.
|
The
whole unit, the crew and actors, are dog-tired. The night
shoots have been going on for the past three days and worse,
the previous night's shoot had wrapped up at four a.m.
The unit gets ready for another take in
the garden
|
 |
However,
it is not pack up time yet. The shoot has been planned well in advance,
and the producer and director have to stick to it. So, even though
the rhythm of the unit has been interrupted, within a few minutes,
the crew has to pull itself together and get ready for the next
shot.
The
relatively less frenetic Bhopal (compared to Mumbai) is slowly but
steadily becoming a destination for TV and film crews. After the
feature film Tarkeeb completed a major shooting schedule there in
March 2000, a couple of other movies have been shot there as well.
It's now time for TV serials. Eenadu Television is shooting the
Urdu serial Namak (an interim working title) in another wing of
the Hotel Imperial Palace. And of course there is Shaheen, which
is being produced by Arvishi Cine Vision for Sony.
Most
of the actors and crewmembers are from north India, which has helped
them acclimatise themselves to Bhopal's climate. But most of them
are homesick.
"
I have not called home for the last four days," says Bharadwaj,
desperately punching in his home number once more into the mobile
he has borrowed from one of the executives from Sony Entertainment
Television.
The
food and temperature seem to be the major problem for the entire
unit. The October heat is in full swing during the days I am there.
Throw in the strong lights used during the filming and you are talking
about being thrown into a veritable furnace. You tend to sweat considerably
and the entire unit of 50 people consumes about eight jars of 20
litre Bisleri jars daily. The heat leads to other irritants. "The
makeup gets smudged and you have to constantly go to the make up
room to have yourself done up again," says a crew member. "The layer
upon layers of clothes we have to wear during the shoot make us
very uncomfortable."
A local person butts in then to say that the situation is going
to be very different the next schedule comes around. "Within a month,
the winter will start, so for the next shoot everyone has been cautioned
to carry enough warm clothing. That time everybody will try to be
as close to those lights as they can to stay warm," points out Anup,
who is from Bhopal, and apart from acting in the serial he is also
helping them out to source things locally.
Everybody
is waiting to complete this schedule, to get back to his or her
assignments in Mumbai. Some will continue to work on the same serial
- mainly post-production and shooting of some scenes in Mumbai.
Some are working on other projects. For some it will be leisure
time. But come December and the crew will be back in Bhopal.
To
read more on The Making of Shaheen click on the links below
|
 |
