Perfect Shoot

We were on my bike, me and podiyan, he with a Manvetti in one hand and a laptop in the other. We were on the way to one of the darnest days of my life.

Philipose had set up the shoot of "Thalarathe" video (Thallae Vid for short), which he had set out to do on his own without any help from professional production handlers. So we (that is about 30 pro film unit guys and some guys like directors, camera man etc, and ofcourse then us 6 guys, a beautiful chick and Philipose's grandma) went to our first location in nagercoil. So Philipose being himself was late, and the outdoor unit guys started to set up all the filmy stuff out in the jungle, while it was already getting dark (remember in the jungle no lights).

So this is when it started going crazy, and the mammoth flaws in the producer's aka Philipose's planning started to dribble out. It turned out the permissions that he claimed he had already taken did not exist and now there was no way to shoot in the forest. I had fun walking around in circles three times trying to find Jonathan and the guys in the pitch dark forest.

So a local pandi annan (kumarettan) came to the rescue and finally got us a new location. By the time philipose and jojy (new entry) showed up with the actress, bringing Sankar and more importantly the food with him in his omni. The new location turned out to be about 8 kms into the wilderness, by the side of a pond with a, made for shooting 'single tree in the middle of the water' look and a lot of good sceneries nearby. The time was 10:30 pm when the shoot began, and philipose was running about with his chest painted with red scars by the makeup man. The so called band was made to stand in the water and philipose was tied to the tree with chains and mud sprayed all over him.

The shoot would have been pretty boring if it were not for the actress and her gimmicks, which Indian Board Of Certification would not allow me to publish online. Anyway Sankar and Jojy made away with the girl in the morning when the shoot was over and they apparently got married (atleast exchanged rings, and dont look at me like that). I had a fun time with Jojy's nikon D50, his laptop and his mini dv cam, so I was not complaining. Anyway after a few more very interesting events the day came to an end with me storming out in an auto saving myself a lot of unbearable scenes (unlucky for him vishnu got away too late) and I got back to college in time for lunch. And finally yesterday I got my lost sleep. I'll post the pics as soon as I get them.