Well, today was our bonus shoot of the short film I concepted and wrote last week: way to think on our feet! I can hardly believe it all came together. Unfortunately, my friend, cohort and DP, Dan, ate some bad curry yesterday and spent most of the day with a rotten stomach, sleeping it off and puking. However, he did manage to stay with us during the morning, just long enough to instruct our light guys to hang c-stands sideways from the ceiling with twine (and yes, they had lights on the ends of them) and blow a mountain of créme brulée-smelling canned fog into our small shooting room, causing me a sore throat I kept with me through the rest of the day. But notwithstanding our newly acquired stomach and respiratory illnesses, the shoot went great.
In spite of starting a few hours late due to tardy actors (who knew actors could be primadonnas – that came as a complete shock to me!), we actually finished an hour ahead of schedule (putting us at merely a 13-hour day!), thanks to some creative shot re-planning and a few blessed daylight exterior shots. For the most part, our actors were pretty good, although one was a bit of the classically overzealous Bengali ilk, flailing his arms and contorting his face like a clown. But it was all for the better, as our parable slowly transformed from a simple morality tale to a tongue-in-cheek rendering of a thought-provoking story, complete with a comedic, almost Spaced-like style. When you consider the carefully-conceived melodrama of Bengali movie posters, often with blood and guts, guns and babes, the simplicity and boredom of the movies is somewhat disappointing; but I think we’ll deliver on that same high bar of cheesiness, contributing the added bonus of a good story. More than anything I’ve ever done, I think it will inspire both thought and laughter.
I am now one week into my second visit to one of the most unglamorous and remote parts of the world: Bangladesh. While it may seem that, surrounded by the up-and-comers on the world’s financial scene, like India and China one one side, and southeast Asian tourist hubs like Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal and Vietnam on the other side, Bangladesh must be one of the “small, but steaming ahead” sites of world development that you just don’t hear much about. Perhaps factories are thriving and Bollywood culture is beating out the heart of this soon-to-be prosperous people. Or perhaps it’s one of those hidden gems: the final frontier for “off the beaten track” tourism.
