American Cinematographer - September 2007 - (Page 50)

Cultural Immersion Above: The crew prepares to film Basra and Hamilton trapped in a traffic jam. When shooting a driving scene on the streets of Mumbai proved impossible, Jeffcoat rewrote the scene to take place during a traffic jam, and the crew quickly created a city-street façade at Mukesh Mills. “This was our only twocamera day,” notes Jeffcoat. Right: Maniaci (far left, wearing sunglasses) and his crew prepare to film at a temple housing a Shiva Lingam. having it open up to the outside, and that worked well.” Scenes set in Todd’s room on the second floor, however, were shot on location in a building that offered a great view of a large pool fed by a natural spring. “The view from the window was amazing, but man, nothing else about that room was,” recalls Jeffcoat with a laugh. “That was one of Fali’s more impressive design jobs!” Maniaci adds, “That was the top floor in a four-story building, and because there are no Condors or lifts in India the crew had to build scaffolding that high to get light into the room. It was quite complicated to move all that scaffolding when we had to get it out of shots, but manpower in India is never an issue. In fact, I’ve never worked with such a large crew; labor is so inexpensive all the departments are huge. Crowds would gather while we were working on location, and often I couldn’t tell whether someone was a bystander or a crewmember!” In a scene that suggests Todd’s acclimation to India, he steps into the natural pool fully clothed and takes a short swim. Maniaci recalls, “We did that all in one shot: he walks down to the water, we crane over him and tilt down on him, and then, as he goes under, the camera goes down to water level. Then he surfaces into a close-up and turns and swims away. It was a bit awkward to operate because there are no remote heads in India, so it was all done with me riding a [Giraffe] crane, and it meant turning 180 degrees to get the camera to look straight down.” One of the sets built outside Film City was erected fairly spontaneously at Mukesh Mills, an abandoned industrial complex, after production decided it would be impossible to film a driving scene on the streets of Mumbai. In the scene, Puro (Asif Basra), the callcenter manager, picks Todd up from the airport and drives him to Gharipuri, chatting all the way. “Gwen [Bialic] was pleading with 50 September 2007

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - September 2007

Contents Editor’s Note Global Village DVD Playback Production Slate Bourne Again Cultural Immersion Baroque Visions Once Upon a Time in Bucharest Short Takes Post Focus Filmmakers’ Forum New Products & Services Points East International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index ASC Membership Roster Clubhouse News Wrap Shot

American Cinematographer - September 2007

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