Filmi endeavours

I had an interesting day today. For a college project, a project on the junior artistes, me along with 2 friends of mine had to go to film city, the so-called mecca for Hindi film industry (yeah i hate the term bollywood). When we entered the premises of Film city, we saw a shooting of an ad film or music video going on. A bevy of crassly dressed girls dancing some stupid steps to patao this So called hunk with an atrocious wig. (actually he comes in the zee english ads) They were shooting in the middle of the road where buses to film city always pass by. Since it had rained badly the buses always left behind a trail of slush and muck on the roads. In order to make the roads look clean for the shoot the spot boys used to pour buckets of water which used to take atleast 15-20 minutes. But the moment they would finish their task another bus used to come dirtying the road again. This went on and on for quite a long time. Somehow the director managed to finish the shot. But we didn't hover around much to see what happened next.
Film city looks amazing. For a person who is so accustomed to the concrete jungle, Film city is a refreshing reprieve. Its full of greenary and is very scenic. When we proceeded furthur we saw a set which was erected and we went there in anticipation of encountering some junior artistes and extraas at work. Turned out that the set was of Sab tv's comedy Dhaba junction featuring Jaspal bhatti. There was commotion going on here too but we did not see anything interesting so we moved on. But before moving furthur one of the attendants told us that amitabh bachchan was shooting nearby. WOW i was so happy! ( me a big BIG B fan) The very feeling of being somewhere close to AMITABH BACHCHAN was enough to transport me into cloud nine. Anyways we moved furthur ahead in search of some shooting. We one of the permament features of hindi movies, the ubiquitous High/supreme court, a ragged building which is used in almost all the hindi potboilers. When we had a closer look we saw that the front poetion of the court was missing! Instead there lay an entrance to a church, huge walls and all. Then on a closer look again we saw that it was just a make shift arrangement to convert a court in to a church. We were amused.
Then we proceeded furthur when we reached a aplace wherein there were lots of make up vans lined up. We wanted to meet the production manager of any shoot to discuss about our project details so as to avail help from them. We saw a group of commandos walking past by us. We thought that shooting of some patriotic serial must be happening close by. We managed to speak to one of them when we realised that they were real commandos. "Andar hrithik baitha hain. security for him." ( hrithik roshan's sitting inside)
We had a short chat with him and them moved on. We also saw sets of Sreedevi's maiden televison endeavour, " Hamari Bahu malini iyer", but no shooting was in process. In the mean while we saw a couple and their daughter with a forlorn look in their faces. When we asked them what happened, they said they had come to see the shootings and that they were still unsuccessful in thier attempt cause there were no outdoor shootings as such of any movie that day and nobody allowed them in where the indoor shootings were taking place. So they were disappointed.
After loitering around for some time we were guided by a person name shankar, a spot boy who directed to the shooting of a dance sequence of a sohail khan-gracy singh starrer movie. ( i can't recollect its name) We saw lots of junior artistes. Some dressed as waiters, youngsters etc. Well we could spot the typical wannabes sitting there too. We spoke to a particular junior artiste who actually conversed us in english and even had a mobile phone. he had no qualms of being a junior artiste or an extraa for that matter. He had no ambitions of being a huge tsar and was pretty contented with his job coz according to him it was easy money. (hmmmmmmmm!) But we were getting frustrated coz we had spent some 2 hrs loitering in film city and nobody was letting us in their shoots and we were just not getting enough material and case studies for our projects. We met this arrogant fellow who who was very rude with us. We had almost lost hope when he came like a god sent angel. His face looked familar. Then we came to know that he is this same fellow who acted in the fevicol ad
( i really like that ad) He introduced to the film production manager and he has given us permission to shoot. I pray god that everything happens well on monday!
anyways seeya and see forth!