My first experience of a movie set was for the obviously D-movie "Babae" (or something... it was that forgettable). I was in 5th grade and these guys were filming an 'ambush' scene in the mean slums of Baguio where I lived. Starlet comes out of the door with leading man (I think it was Philip Salvador) then suddenly this cheap speeding box-type dispensable car comes to a screeching stop and fugly baddies come out strafing leading man and starlet with M16 fire. Amazingly, despite the hail of bullets, leading man manages to return fire with his 45 calibre handgun killing baddies instantly. It was amazing because both leading man and starlet are left unscathed despite baddies shooting at them with a machine gun from a looooong distance of 20 feet!
I remember it well because I stood directly in front of the M16-totting baddie who dispensed one round of bullets in the typical baddie stance - fugly growling countenance, shooting from the hip from left to right and NOT aiming. The gun was firing blanks of course but whenever I think of how Brandon Lee died because one live bullet wasn't prepped properly during filming 'The Crow' that he actually got shot and I remember that the two firearms prep guys on this set of 'Babae' looked really dodgy and incompetent (they were actually hammering away at the tips of the live bullets before twisting the casings with a pair of pliers!!!!), I can only sigh and raise my hands to high heavens and say "I is Alive! Thank God!"
Aaaaanywho, even for a 5th grader like me, I can smell a bad straight-to-betamax tape movie from a mile away that I didn't linger on the set. Besides, the starlet was not really an actress that it took 5 boring retakes of her coming out of the door. How hard can that be??
Since then, interesting life experiences have happened to me whenever I unwittingly stumble on a movie set. There's my "Before Sunrise" affair with pretty Jali on the set of "Volando Voy" (I miss her already), Lorraine throwing a diva tantrum on the set of Harry Potter 3, and me crashing my bike with my front wheel ending up like a potato chip on the set of "Cambridge Spies".
("Cambridge Spies" tells the true story of the five KGB spies recruited at Cambridge. My favourite faggot friend Ashley announced "Ako rin, magiging spy". To this my only reply is "Hindi naman dahil sa hindi ka maalam ng ibang lengwahe or dahil hindi ka athletic, or dahil badichi ka na hindi alam ang pagkakaiba ng Ferragamo sa Prada (in fact, the Cambridge Spies were all gay) pero sa buong history ng espionage, wala pa talagang Paaaaangeeeeet na spy. Kelangan kse sa trabaho ang hetsura. Sorry nalang. Join ka nalang sa ABC-5 baka ikaw ang mageng next Pelepen Idol")
Aaaaaanyway, this past couple of weeks film crews were all over Middle Earth. One crew was filming the Inspector Morse spinoff "Lewis", another the Brit-Indian indie film about lesbians and arranged marriages "I Can't Think Straight", and another the Kidman-Craig-Pullman movie "His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass."
Now, I'm just curious as to how a $1M production compares to another with a budget 150 times that.
Presenting........
Mamang duleng, Can yu espot the deperens?....
Let's begin with the low budget indie film....
Oh, the backbreaking manual work - two people need to hold on to the end of the camera rig...
Get this man outta here...Security! Security! Hello?? No budget for a full security cordon - Filming gets interrupted by tourists materialising out of nowhere for a photo-op thus ruining the shot and requiring another take. This picture makes me cry in laughter. While the director was concentrating on the sequence, this guy just inched his way closer, and closer, and closer while his partner took a photo. The director was startled of course when he realised this man wasn't supposed to be there.....Ang Bollywood film na naging Kung Fu epic....
You call that catering??? Hello? I'm a movie star. Where is my personal coconut juice holder??? It's really skint when the crew need to make their own instant coffee....
The personal alalay got his bag from ebay. Well, at least the star still has her own PA. That girl sitting is either Sheethal Seth or Lisa Ray (one of them was Miss World (?) and the other is included in the "Top 10 Most Beautiful Women In India" list). Did I mention that this was a film about lesbians? Anyways, she was beautiful but I wasn't that captivated with her movie make-up on. However, when I saw the VTR playback, the star was extremely photogenic! Notice also that the VTR monitor is placed on top of a green monobloc chair.
The night shot - Just two small spot lights eh?
Now, what does $150M afford you?.....................
A fully articulated camera crane with three degrees of freedom.....
No homemade VTR secured with packing tape on a green monobloc chair here....
Security was quick to prevent me from taking pictures of the set (or more precisely the frigging props.) Nicole Kidman had just entered the Fellows Garden of Exeter for a shoot while I came out of the covered market for lunch but was too surprised that there she was to bring out my camera. It turns out, I wasn't security's main concern, (after all I have a right to be here because live here!!) paparazzi with looooooong lenses were behind me. Although I could getthisclose to the set, they asked me not to take any more pictures....but I should tell you that Nicole does LIKE short men. That, or I'm just a charming hobbit.
This is a night sequence. They've installed big-ass lights on top of my Middle Earth home. That crane is more than 100 feet high.
Add some smoke effects and Middle Earth is transported into a parallel universe.
The view from my hiding crib as the crew continues with principal photography till the wee hours.