After Lots of Skypetype & Skype chat ,,,,,,, The Job with Pratap was on ,,,, Shooting in Kuala Lumpur

My Flight was a nasty two plane thing ,, flights cancelled and delayed ,,, It was 16 hours door to door ,,, getting in after 1am ,,, Looking forward to the Morning ,,,,,, Good old KL i love this town ,,, ( and the food and people )

Pratap , Zac and I meet for lunch ,,,,,,,,,,,,, Was it Ostrich and Venison or like an aussie outback grill of Kangaroo , crock and emu ,,, he he

Pratap was happy and full of humour as always ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, And Zacs good nature shone through ..............This was going to be a good shoot .

I was in a cloud finally meeting the MAN after lots of skype and email facebook chat ,,,,,,

Or was it the Crazy food ,,, He He He

Lets go do it ,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Off we go to do a Recce to the Wonderful PUTRAJAYA

Its only an hour out of KL on a good road ,,,,,,,,,,, I have shot there several times and it always is good ,,,,

It has good wide modern streets and buildings ,,,,,, Lots of the offices are empty ,,, good for interior scenes or production offices ,,,,,,,,,,, The KL Universal back lot ,,, he he he .

We found out main Night scene location in about 10 minutes ,,,,,,,,,,, We were able to shoot about 20 or more of our shots ringt in this street ,,,,,,,,

Gribs is saying ,,,,,,,, This is perfect ,,,, Car goes there ,,,, Good background plate there ,,,,tracking shot there ,,,,, crane down there ,,,,,, blah ,,, blah ,,,, blah ,,,, blah .

Pratap is thinking " I think Gribs has shares in this place "

Shivaaji is thinking " I would like to have shares in this place "

Blah ,,, Blah ,,,, Blah ,,, Blah .

Blah ... Blah ,,, Blah ,,,

Good Buildings ,,, Blah ,, Blah ,,, Blah ,,,

Blah ,,, Blah ,,, And a Nice Bridge as well ,, blah ,,,

Pratap is thinking " Enough Already I like it all " ,,,,,,,,,, but is that a bridge !

What we wanted and What we got ,,, A cinematographers Bad dream ,,,,

To keep a bit of Fantasy in the shots I was planing to use the last little bit of skylight to give an edge to the buildings and using the Superspeeds wide open was the plan ,,,,

The trouble was ,,, I had three shots that needed the correct amount of skylight ,,,,,, impossible to get ,,, So my plan was to shoot a static one early and use the burnt out sky as a luminance matt to then make the sky match the other shots ,,, But it was still going to be a rush ,,, I coulden't shoot TOOO early ,,
So the plan was to build the 30ft crane for a forward looking pov in daylight and line the gutter with simple (cheep) festoon 100 watt globes ,,,,,,, Shoot one shot early and jump on the crane ,,,,, As it would be quicker to operate and not use a Hot Head etc ,,,,,, Get that then try to get the third one after that ,,,, Good luck to all ...

To trea this as a Hard NIGHT shoot would have required double the lighting crew and lights etc etc ........ But ,,,, as time ticked by and ticked by ,,,,, the crane was set up ,,,, but no camera ,,, getting darker now ,,,,,,, I would have settled for just the crane shot with skylight now ....... Not to be ,,,, We had the camera vehicle but no camera crew to be seen ,,,,,,,, Not until 9.30pm ,,,,

So moving right along now ,,,

With all the skylight gone there was no urgency with which shot to do first ,,,,,, It just lacked that infinity that the skye gave us ,,,,,,, So I put 6k down the end of the road and pointed it at camera ,,, it worked a treat ,,,,,,,,,,, Luck I was operating the crane and not remote ,,, I spotted that the 18mm was crap focus wide open and changed to the 25mm which was as sharp as a tack ,,, Like chalk and cheese ,,,, Then I thought ,,,,,,, DAM we didnt smash coconuts ,,,,, No wonder it was going pearshape ,,,
Didnt get much time to take stills with finished lighting ,, to busy ,,,

Burn & Break that coconut ,,,,,,,,,,, Better late than never ,,,,,,,,

Years ago ,,,,, When I used to Shoot for my Friend Gopal Krishnan and his Jemima Films we always broke coconuts before a big shoot for good luck ,,,,,,, We never had one bad weather day or mishap on all of those shoots ............

So I thought it was a good thing that Shivaaji was doing ,,,,,,,,, But burning them was new and interesting to me ,,,,,,,we had just smashed them before ,,,, and from then on everything went smoothly ,,,, Sort of .

We must have been very busy as I dont have one shot from the bunch of setups we did around here ,,, like tracking towards the stopped car from inside an imagined car ,,, on a dolly of course after taking the viewfinder into the real car ,,, to check what we would see .

We had a track in under the non existing car ,,to the People reacting to the baby floating up in a Plasma car ,, we lined it up with the cardboard wheel ,,,, worth its weight in gold ,,,

While we were lining up the next shot with the Cardboard tyre ,,,,, The Boys pushed past with the crane to set up a high static angle of a nice looking piece of Pedestrian crossing ... later Wing moved one light up the Hill with a diffusion Frame to soften it ........ So when we rushed up there with minutes to shoot it ,,, We were Ready ,,,, It was shot

It was a couple of seconds to 5am ,,,, But we finished as requested ,,,,,,,

We have a plan to shoot several day shots before we get into the Night shooting ,,,,,, The Baby arrives ,,, with a spare ...

We are on our location wating for the baby who is fashonable late ,,,,,,, This gives Zac time to explain how big the Budget is ,,,,,,, Like This

Shivaaji is explaining that you don't have to be a brain suregon to stick to a budget . Its simple ,,, Work fast and Just don't spend money ...
The Funny thing is we have a Brain Surgeon as our young DAD Talent who wants to get into Filming ,,,,,, instead of screwing with peoples heads physically he want to do it mentally ,,, Hadn't anyone told him Filming isnt Brain Surgery ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Hell I have heard it a Million times ...

May be they all stand around the open brain with scalpel in hand and talk about how Great it would be if they could get into the Film Industry ,,,, Life is Funny ,,,

He was a great guy and I wish him luck ,,,,,, Which ever way he wants to cut it ,,,,,,,

And talk about screwing with peoples heads ,,,,,,, The First baby will not even sit in the Child car seat ,,,,,,, let alone the dozen or so shots he is required to ACT in .... We Try and Try ,,, but to NO avail ,,,, In steps replacement baby HE IS A STAR and saves the day ,,,, But not the light ,,, We are now lighting Night for and Day for Night ,,, What ever ,,,,,,

A STAR IS BORN ,,,,,,,,,, He is fantastic ,,,,,,, and later on in the Studio ,,, even better ,,,,, An he doesnt even have an agent ,,,he he .

What a Fine bunch of crew we have , Andre has stepped in for Focus at the Last minute to save the Day ,,,,,,, with Simon to back him up ....... I got in the poo for not telling people that they usually have 2 x 2nd ac ,,,,,, Sorry Andre ,,,,

Suri & his guys were swinging that 30ft crane ,,,, And Mr Wing Kok playing with his meagre lighting package ,,,,, And the Fantastic Mr Shivaaji keeping us all in line ,,,,

Now on to a great Interior Exterior Building location

This location is a short move from our main location but a Favourite of mine ,,,,,,, Have shot here a few times ,,,,, You can get shots here that would take a High tower or a crane to get in other places ,,,,,, It would be great for a Feature Film location ,,,,,,,,,,,

Andre getting the camera in position ,,,,,,, We were moving fast ,,, so it is just a hand rested shot ,,, It worked bloody well again ...

It is a top spot ,,,,,, Lots more to do there some day ...

We are out of there pretty quickly ,,,,,, as we have lots more to do on our last night shoot ,,,,

Actually the location is also a great day location if you pick your time of day right ,,,,

Back to our main location to pick up a couple of Background Plates for baby in Car Shots ,,,, Not waving this time ,,, He He .

Then a Car landing shot with the car and without the car ,,,, Try and match up that tracking shot in post Joey ....... Actually we did good ,,, and it worked .

If we used motion control for this shot we would have been way over budget and into another night ,,,,,,,,,,,