July 27, 2008 India
On Saturday, July 12th, the 6 of us went for a drive around town (that is where the Drive Out pics are from -with the Gate Way, etc.). I took a fair amount of pics cause I knew I probably wouldn't write much about it. We hired a vehicle and basically just sat in it and got out at a few places -a park, the Gate Way & lunch (across the street from the McDonald's pic), Colaba for shopping and Marine Drive where me, Aman & Sweta went for a horse carriage drive. The day was pretty good. Me, Aman & Sweta were thinking to go out that night but by the time we returned to the guesthouse I was rather tired & in pain so I decided to stay back (plus I really needed to do laundry!). They went to Bling at the Leela Hotel. It sounded like they enjoyed the night, more or less. They saw a few celebs there.

On Sunday, July 13th, I took the train and went with Ammu (a friend of mine in a different program here) and some of her housemates and friends to Colaba and Fashion Street and then we went to Marine Drive and sat at the beach for a bit once it was dark out so we saw the Queen's Necklace! It was kinda nice to be on a train again -standing at the door and looking out… reminded me of old days. It was a fun day.

On Monday, July 14th, the 4 of us went to the set of Jiya Jale to meet with Bharat Kaul, who is one of the actors on the show but once we were on the set for a bit we ended up talking to pretty much all of the actors. They were all real nice to us and invited us back.

On Tuesday, July 15th, the 4 of us went to the set of Rakhi to meet with Sanjay Swaraj, who is one of the actors on the show (he has done theater and acted in movies as well). The character that he plays on the show is of a much older man and he let us watch the transformation. I really liked that cause I like watching the transformation bits that they show in extra bits of films sometimes on TV in the US. We weren't able to see much of the filming. After we left there we went next door to the set of Jiya Jale, to stop by and say hi, but there were just a few guys there cleaning up so we headed out. When we reached the gate, one of the actors from the show snuck up behind us and scarred the bijugadies out of one of the girls. He said that 2 of them were shooting on the terrace and so we all went up there for a bit.

On Wednesday, July 16th, we went to the set of a film called Freeze and spoke with the scriptwriter and assistant director. I had to leave a bit early because I had to go to a preview of an independent(ish) film called Hello Zindagi that one of my friends was working with. Unfortunately we weren't able to see any of the shooting of Freeze.

On Thursday, July 17th, we again went to the set of Freeze, which seemed rather pointless. They only had an outdoor scene to shoot, which we weren't able to see and some shots that didn't require any actors… not to mention, they were packing up! We spoke with the cinematographer and director which was nice but both seemed to be by chance, as it was just while they were waiting for the shots to be set up.

On Friday, July 18th, we went to the set of Boogie Woogie -a TV show of dance competitions. This one was between children. The set was small, dark and dingy and the music was ridiculously loud. It was an observational visit -meaning that we couldn't talk with any of the crewmembers. We talked to a couple of the kids for a little bit -just asking them about their costumes (some of the jewelry looked a like it could be a bit heavy), how they applied to the show, how long they've been dancing for, where they are from, what standard/grade they are in, how old they are, etc. but then a parent scolded us saying that we were discouraging the kids and so not to talk to them. None of us could see how anything we said could be discouraging in any way, shape or form but we stopped talking with them nonetheless. None of us liked being there. We decided to leave after barely a couple of hours.

That Saturday (if I recall correctly) the 6 of us hired a car and went to Fashion Street for some shopping then drove around a bit, ate dinner and went back to the guesthouse. There was no water (neither in the bathrooms nor in the kitchen) so I went to spend the night at a friend's house. On Sunday I returned to the guesthouse and stayed there all day -I had laundry to do.

Week 3 was all about post-production and special effects. We went to Adlabs, Prime Focus, Pixion, Digital FX, Aradhna and Balaji Studios. It ended up being a pretty good week. The stuff that they can do with computers is amazing.


Aug, 11, 2008 India
Now for the 4th and final week in the F&M program at the guesthouse… Our mini film was due on Friday, Aug 1st. We got the okay on our script on Monday, July 28th and so I set up a bedroom with whatever I could find so that it would have the look and feel that it needed for the bedroom shots but we didn't shoot anything that day. The next day we shot the bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen scenes (the latter 3 didn't really need any set ups). The next day we were going to do an outdoor shot at the beach but it had been raining and the weather didn't really permit it, plus the nearest beach wasn't all that near and nobody was terribly enthusiastic about going so, we made some alterations to the script and had added a few more indoor shots instead. We did however, have one outdoor shot that was rather essential to the film. It had to be shot in the middle of the night in the street and so we had to wait for the watchmen to be told (they are another hellaballu that I'll get into later). That night the 4 of us went down to shoot our running scene in the street but ended up shooting our running scene in the street but ended up shooting it in the parking lot because the watchmen didn't wake up to open the gate for us… and there were some stray dogs on the street barking their heads off.

On Thursday, July 31st, we went to get the film edited at a studio we had been to during the post-production week. We went there on our own and waited for ages before anyone took the camera to get what we had shot onto their machine for editing. We then waited for ages, again, till we were told that they were unable to transfer the material and that they needed a cord, which they did not have. The 4 of us were pretty frustrated and hungry by that point (being that it is a studio that has worked on international as well as numerous Indian films, it should be equipped with bare essentials such as cords to transfer film… not to mention it was hours wasted and transportation is not cheap -it's not close to the guesthouse) and so we decided to leave -plus we all had laptops so, we figured between the 4 of us we should be able to figure something out. Once we returned to the guesthouse, it took a while -quite a while- before the material would finally transfer onto a comp. We worked on it well into the night -it acted up a few times and wouldn't play then decided to not find the work we had done (even though we saved it every other second!) but we eventually got it edited with all the transitions and decided to do the audio after we got some sleep.

On Friday, Aug 1st, we did the audio, finished it up and turned it in and then went out to dinner. (When I say we with the post-production I'm meaning some more than others.)

On Saturday, Aug 2nd, I went to stay at the Leela Hotel with Aman -after we met the 2 new F&M students. After checking into the Leela we went and ate a grand buffet lunch with a yummmmy desert. Then we each took a long hot shower -listening to music (the TV in the room had speakers connected to the bathroom!)! It was glorious. After that we went to Bandra to do some final shopping before Aman flew back home. Some of our friends were supposed to come over to the hotel so that we could all go out and do something one last time before the 2 of them (Aman & Sweta) left but nobody showed so we ended up watching a movie then sleeping for a few hours.

On Sunday, Aug 3rd, we got ready, ate breakfast -buffet again, then Aman left for the airport and I went to Thane (a couple hours outside the city) to stay at dada's (a friend of mine from when I used to live in India) place for the week while I did research for my individual project.

On Tuesday, Aug 5th, I went to the taping of Dus Ka Dum -a TV show hosted by Salman Khan and the guests/contestants were Bobby Deol and Priyanka Chopra (all of whom are big names Bollywood actors). It took a while for me to get to RK Studios -highway, auto-rickshaw, plus pouring rain… not the most pleasant. When I reached there around 5pm (around the time the shooting was supposed to start), I was told that it was delayed till 8pm so, myself and the other 2 students and program personnel went to a nearby restaurant to pass the time. When it was nearing 8pm we were told that it was delayed another hour so towards 9pm we decided to head back to the studio. The shooting finally started around 11pm/12am. It got done around 3:45am and I didn't get back to Thane till around 6am *sigh. Luckily/thankfully the actual shooting went well and it was nice to see them all 'in action'.

On Friday, Aug 8th, I took a bus and went to Hansal and Safeena's house, which is near Lonavala -a hilly area between Mumbai and Pune, known for its waterfalls. There, I went over my project with Hansal and we narrowed my topic down a bit. It is a gorgeous area… very peaceful and quiet -aside from the pouring rain and windstorm. The next day I took a bus again and came back to the city and am now staying at friends' place.