Fresh from 4lions: The COOL FACTOR

If this man looks cool… all credit goes to him! It is 38 degrees celsius and he is wearing a black jacket in the blazing sun. We had waited for over four hours to get the right look for him. The tie that had been selected for him to wear in this scene appeared to "burn out" on camera on the blazing sun. The Star network has just gone HD and we were shooting with a new type of camera and hence, the unforeseen result. Blackberries swung into action as we tried on all the ties that we had in our costume box, clicked pictures and mailed them to the channel in Bombay. After every mail was sent, we waited with baited breath for their reply. As the Blackberries beeped signaling a reply, everybody would open the mail with expectant faces only to get a single word reply – NO! We raided the wardrobe of the location owner, sent people to buy different ties from various shops around the place we were shooting but all in vain.

Finally, someone (I don't remember who), discovered a scarf(cravat) lying buried in the costume trunk and we decided to give that a shot. By this time Barun's neck was almost beginning to bruise from having tried so many ties!  A picture of Barun with the cravat was taken and sent to the channel. No reply. All the people marked on the mail started looking at their Blackberries and shaking them. What was taking so long? Why weren't the people at Star replying? As the minutes passed by, the usually noisy unit became silent but a strange hope emerged – if it was taking this long, surely they were deliberating and discussing, so maybe it wasn't a bad thing after all!!! Sure enough. As all the Blackberries went off in sync, everyone's faces lit up with joy – GO AHEAD, was the reply. Everybody swung into action – the cravat was adjusted, the black jacket was put on, makeup was touched up and the camera started rolling. Everybody had managed to keep their cool – the crew and the actor!

A new camera. A tie. A four hour wait. Just another day on the shoot.