Raksha's Bangkok shooting experience... Contd.

Beyond the shooting, it was also fun to be spending time outside the work. There is a night market out there which is just excellent when it comes to bargain shopping. Me and my crew simply went berserk out there as we hunted for some real good purses and bags! Can you imagine that I got something for 30-40 Baht for which the marked price was 400 Baht? There are some real exotic lamps and genuine Chinese stuff on which we freaked out as the market was open till as long as 4 AM in the morning!

Then there is this place called Siam square which is a youth market open till 9 PM. This is mainly a college hangout place. While we were there, a rock concert was in progress with some great audio and visuals in the middle of the street. It was a fantabulous show with some great music.

Coming back to the shooting of the film, we have shot more than 65% of the film outdoors with equal footage in both Bangkok and Pattaya. Remaining 35% of the shoot is indoors which we did in India. While the night shoot is in Bangkok, the day shoot is in Pattaya. Along with some walking shots, some portions of the songs too are in Pattaya. By the way, you have to see the way the city is lit; you won't see something like that in Mumbai.

Nevertheless, for some of the day shots in Bangkok, we needed a lot of traffic to compliment the mayhem in the life of the protagonist. There are also some great panoramic views of the city, something on the lines of Ek Ajnabee. Also, you would see The Train always in the background. After all it plays a character in the film, isn't it?

In nutshell we shot for around 16-17 days in Bangkok and 10 days in Pattaya. Any hassles during the shoot? Well, traffic in Bangkok is unbearable. If there is a distance that you feel could be covered in 10 minutes, it would actually take you one hour. Due to this reason, at some places our decision to shoot outdoors backfired and we had to hurry up the shoot.

There is another exciting incident that I can narrate. We had to shoot some critical scenes in a train and to our horror we were told that we had to wrap that up in 3 hours flat. To add to it, all of that had to be done in a running train between 9 AM - 12 PM on a Sunday morning.

Now for shooting, we needed at least a 15 member crew and we were like a crazy bunch of people going haywire while running along with steady-cams and stuff. We had to shoot on a 15 minutes shuttle, something like between Andheri and Kandivali. Moreover, to maintain continuity, we had to ensure that it there was a shot being taken from left, while returning back on the same route; we place our camera on the right. Believe me, it was all so crazy but fun.

Nevertheless, to sum it up, it was all worth it in the end. It was quite memorable to say the least and in the end we all got what we had been aspiring for. It was quite satisfactory and we all had a sense of achievement once we wrapped up the shoot. Would I go again to the city for the shoot? Well, of course yes, why not? I have fallen in love with the place!

Prev

Recent Stories
Samira wants to do comic roles
Lara Dutta loves working with Abhishek

Archives