Bollywood stars...."be serious"
Trip Start
Jun 18, 2007
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Trip End
Ongoing
Chennai (Madras), India
Sunday, November 25, 2007
As promised, our ride up to Chennai was on time, we traveled in Indian stlye in an Ambassador taxi. It was our first time in Chennai, and it was the biggest city we had visited so far. We were quite overwhelmed with just how big and busy the place was. The film studio was in the suburbs and we were greeted with brekky and round up with all the other foreigners who had been scouted just like us.
It is a pretty strange phenomenon we all agreed. There was about 100 of us, almost all foreigners. Backpackers, uni students and randoms. Anglo-saxon, asian, indian and african. So they definitely covered their bases ethnicity wise. What the directors and producers do is get their agents to scout for foreigners, and use them as extras in the movie so apparently they can say that part of the movie was filmed overseas
Movie poster
. We were all excited and curious to see how this was all going to work.It was a full day of filming, but I doubt that they filmed more than a few minutes of footage. The sound stage set was a dodgy european style nightclub. Complete with dancefloor, spherical cage for the dj, bar and strobe lights...it was pretty believable, but low budget.
They were filming a fight scene between the star "Vijay", and some other bloke. The "special effects" had us enthralled and giggling. He took a high kick to the face, which envolved the stunt guy transforming his arm into a leg, with a cutoff jeans leg, and putting a shoe on his hand to get the shot...it was pretty cool. So what was our role?? We just had to "look pretty" in the background. And we all had to "look surprised" as the guy landed on the floor.
Next scence, he flying through the air and kicking a bloke, then someone was going over the bar, next someone was going through a plate glass coffee table and the piece of resistonce was a guy pulling a gun.
Basically, we we hearded around the sound stage like cattle and given instuctions like "now be serious", "no moving between takes" and "no laughing" when the director says action
Movie star VIJAY
. Also, they had us running when the guy pulled out the gun, which after about the 6th take, lost it's novelty.It took most of the morning for the to get that right, and with the low budget smoke machine ( a guy running aroud with insence), we appreciated the cups of tea etc the lunch boys brought for us. They really did look after us, including a yummy lunch. The "stars" ate the same thing as we ate....so can't complain there! There was no wardrobe though, and no one had been told what the scences were going to involve, just to turn up. So all of us were in our regular clothes....not quite what we would wear to a club...but no one seemed to care.
So, the movie name will be "Kuruvi", and is said to be released early april this year....can't wait to see if you can see us in the background.
Sorry to dissappoint, but we weren't in an extravagant Bollywood song/dance routine. Just crowd fillers in a bar scene, and we got paid for it to boot, there was no funny business at the end of the day....just more food and envelopes with our cash....yeay! Not a bad break from sightseeing.
WIKIPEDIA:
Kuruvi [1] is an upcoming project for the noted Tamil actor Vijay. This project is produced by Udhayanidhi, son of Minister M.K.Stalin. Dharani of Ghilli fame will be directing this action adventure mass movie. Vijay plays Kuruvi, not the chirpy bird, but a bird of a different type
On set - nightclub scene
. The one line story, etched from sources is that Vijay will be playing nice guy who lives in Burma Bazaar, North Madras area of Chennai and makes a living as a 'kuruvi', a chap who goes to USA as a courier and comes back with contraband items. One day he is set up by the baddies, and how he uses his brains and brawns to prove his innocence, forms the rest of the story.LINKS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Vijay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuruvi
http://www.kuruvithefilm.com/
