The Making of Abhimanyu – II

Recce

And then, Onir decided to come down to Bangalore to have a look at the locations. Also his production Manager from Mumbai Mohan Joshi (working for Anticlock Films) came along.
In Bangalore, we needed a production Manager to help us getting permissions and finding locations. Although my trusted manager, Krishna (who worked with me for all my earlier films) wasn’t in town and was shooting at Vizag, he recommended someone at the last hour. Well, it’s a different story altogether that the person was slow in his work and was not punctual and not getting us into the right direction. And to add to it, blame on the Bangalore traffic, the day went slow, things got delayed and end of the day, did not achieve anything. And the locations which Onir saw, wasn’t upto the mark.

Let me add here that: Onir is actually so punctual in his casting that, even the house, the background, the block that he decides has to match to his expectations. Such a perfectionist, one need to learn a lot for him. Every thing in his movie, irrespective of the stars, his locations and the block that he decides is a character in the film. That’s why Onir films are actually ‘different’ from the regular mainstream cinema.

Getting back to Recce, not much happened on the first day, and then the second day we left early morning to a far off place, outskirts of Bangalore to find a field and a lake beside. Although it was a good long ride with fresh air in the early morning, the end result was not in favor of Onir. Hmm.. It definitely striked to my mind that, I did not do a right thing in getting a good production manager (I was in fact, calling my manager at Vizag giving him complaints about this local manager).

Joining us that day was the DOP – Arvind Kannabiran who flew down to have a look at the locations. (Its another incident that I need to mention here – but will keep it on hold for another day – exclusive).

So, we doubled with Onir, Kannabiran, Myself, Mohan & the local manager rounding about Bangalore from place to place… hunting for the locations, finding out the exact directions of the place, and wasting our time. That’s when, Kannabiran and Onir came to a conclusion – we have to find someone else immediately, and to our rescue we found someone else, in contacts through Arvind Kannabiran.

…. To be continued


Sundeep Malani


For all those who need to know:
Recce (pronounced "recky") is a military term that has been borrowed by media production in the United Kingdom, derived from "reconnoiter" (the verb form of "reconnaissance"). It is a pre-filming visit to a location to work out its suitability for shooting, including access to necessary facilities and assessment of any potential lighting or sound issues.