The day began early. The lead actress, Selma Francis, rolled up to the men's hostel in a rickshaw at 7:15. The Director, Mohamad Zaine Hassan from Malaysia, and Me, Assistant Director, got on the rickshaw and we slowly made our way to the Asian Film Academy. The plan was to spend an hour with the lead actors practicing their Salsa moves for the dance scene. We opened the studio, turned on the soundtrack and we're about to begin...when the power went out. The studio was dark and we were sweating buckets at 8 in the morning. This is a common occurence in Noida and Delhi. The politicians know this is a major problem for this exploding region and they make big promises that the power will be improved "tomorrow". As most intelligent people know, there is no tomorrow. And the power cuts continue. Director's must overcome all obstacles to get their movies made. After wasting thirty minutes in the dark, the power came back on and the production continued in it's own slow Indian pace.
You may wonder how many people it takes to make a movie. I've always taken the streamlined crew. Not the case in India. It takes at least 6 to perform the necessary duties, and another 10 to stand around as assistants, supervisors and curious onlookers. The director in India must control these crowds or all is lost. It is my firm belief in only having one director. In India everyone wants to be the director. Zanie is a bit too nice and he allowed our supervisor to butt in a few too many times. I could have stepped in as the Assistant Director and told him to back off, but I let Zanie take his own path. I filmed the entire production with my hand held camera so Zanie can remember his day for ever.
We proceeded to shoot the Latin dance scene. Selma is a young 19 year old actress from the Seychelles. She is talented, sexy, charismatic and can dance. The male actor is a young body builder who had never danced before in his life. Wow. How we pulled the dance scene off, I'll never know. At least he had the lusty look in his face for the close up shots. We managed to teach him some dips and spins but he looked like a stiff Muscle Man, not a slick Latin dancer. Oh well..the movie moved along to a few outdoor locations. Transportation is an issue in India. The vans are not really vans. They are closets on wheels and in the heat of the day it is not much fun to squeeze 8 people inside while the other dozen or so wait for the van to return. This is India. Patience comes or you leave. I'm still here.
Nine hours later we were racing the sun to get our last rooftop scenes shot. Our director, Zanie, was finally getting pissed off at the supervisor who kept telling him he only had 10 minutes left of the deadline. The Academy gives us nine hours to shoot or you have to pay and extra 2,000 rupees. So many things are out of the Director's control. Time being a prime example.
We finished the last scene in the dark, packed up our gear and waited an hour for the suitcase on wheels to take multiple trips back to the Academy. Zanie and I got dropped off at a local restaurant where we let the edginess of the day soften with every beer.
Stay tuned for the next three movies to be made this week.
