In Medias Res

For reasons beyond my control, I (Danny, the US-based Producer) faced months of heartbreaking uncertainty over whether I would be able to make it to India for our production. Thankfully I've been able to land in Mumbai before the fun stops.

Mumbai is a city in the same way that screaming until you're hoarse is a conversation. In this vein, film making in Mumbai represents a particular brand of madness.

I visited Mumbai once before to catch a couple of weeks of Sush's documentary production on BEYOND ALL BOUNDARIES. For years I half-jokingly described the trip as traumatic. I stayed in a condemned apartment building surrounded like a moat by a ten-lane traffic circle. The only way to leave was to step into moving traffic; otherwise the cars would never stop to let you pass. All day and night a twelve-tone symphony of honks and beeps permeated my consciousness as these raucous vehicles endlessly oozed through the circle.

Fondly as I recall them, these treasured memories did not play through my head on my flight. Rather, I tried to imagine challenges I might face at our shoot. Of course there would be cultural and language barriers, and I didn't know how I would be received showing up halfway through what sounded like a hot and grueling production. I also considered the worst case scenarios, however unlikely. Perhaps I would arrive to discover a disastrous production, with footage falling flat and heads of department at each others' throats. Or, even worse, I might encounter a production that's running so impeccably that I would feel completely useless, with nothing to contribute and no reason for being here.

Perhaps five days into my trip is too soon to say it, but my impression thus far reflects a production running as well as I could have hoped; footage and performances of a quality I never dared to imagine at the script stage; and a real sense of camaraderie and purpose throughout our crew. There is no way to adequately credit Sush, and equally our Indian producer, Kanchan, and our talented, resourceful heads of department for pulling this off.

Beyond our hardworking personnel, every time I step outside, I'm reminded that the most auspicious aspect of our production is its location. This screaming city is one continuous reel unspooling in all directions. The line between real life and our film set is lost in the unending building tops representing an infinity of stories.

Walter Murch says that a film is born three times: the screenplay, the shoot, and the edit. After three years of development, we now distill it all into this twenty-five day shoot. Then when we come home, we will distill that again into a ninety-five minute film. It's been as exciting as any creative high I've had to support Sush through these steps as he actualizes one of these Mumbai stories. With any luck, at the end, we'll get to tell another.

Rocky the bully with his crew.