The Ubi Blog

Today was the first day of one of our biggest effects sequences. Production has had it scheduled to only take two days. We’ve told them we think that it would take more than that. Well, today they learned why we were saying that. They didn’t start shooting with us until 11am. Once we did start it took awhile to get the first shot (the double rehearsing the move and then multiple takes to get it right). The next setup was huge. Hole in the floor and then a change from the way we built the rig to be shot. Took them a long time to get to a point where everyone was ready to shoot. Finally we ended up with the part of the sequence being moved to tomorrow and shooting it slightly different than the previz showed. Not only was it easier to accomplish but it will look better in the final cut.

We broke late for lunch and after that set up for another big setup. This one took awhile to setup (though not nearly as long as the last one). We had many, many takes on this one but finally got it. After that the 1st told us we could wrap for the day as they just had closeups that didn’t involve us.

So much of what we have done up to this point has gone really smoothly and easy. Today they saw what working with effects and puppets can mean…..it doesn’t always go like you plan it on paper!

It all looked good though and we ended on a great shot!

I really enjoyed today.

I slept in till 8:50am. That gave me just enough time to shower and get up to the spa to get my free 0ne-hour massage. It was a Swedish massage and it was great. It’s a Thai massage place in the hotel, up on the rooftop with the pool and gym.

After that I headed out into town to Spencer Plaza. It’s a huge mall with lots of large stores and small shops. I wanted to do some gift shopping and spent quite a bit of money, but got a lot of stuff for it.

I had a very American lunch there…..Subway. Tasted pretty much the same too.

Once I was done the driver picked me back up. I went to the post office to get some stamps for postcards. On the way back to the hotel I stopped at Baskin Robbins for a double scoop cone. Had to eat it pretty fast due to the heat.

I had about an hour to kill before my next massage so I downloaded pics from my camera and just puttered around a bit.

As for the massage……it was amazing! It was a 90-minute Thai Anamai massage. I actually fell asleep on the table while she was working on my back, though only for a few seconds. I was so relaxed afterwards. I went down to the bar for a drink….fresh squeezed pineapple juice. I talked with the “band” while they were on their break. I then stayed for two songs and came upstairs and am now getting ready to sleep.

Tomorrow, another big fx sequence………..

I actually got to sleep in today as I wasn’t being picked up to go to set until 9:30am. Unfortunately I had a lousy night. I finally got my first ever case of the shits while overseas. I kept waking up to “take care of business”! I think it was the pizza I had last night.

I saw Bruce and Kan in the lobby. They were going to Pondicherry. Don’t know if any of the others were going too.

As soon as I got to set I was told that Dave C was needed I told the driver to go back to the hotel and pick up one person. Forty-five minutes later I heard from Dave asking where the bus was. Parthi called the driver and he was still on the lot! He didn’t understand what I had said. He left and got Dave and he got there on plenty of time.

We actually shot a lot today. Lots more than I ws originally told. We shot with a dummy head that Dave M had prepped earlier. Went well. Also shot with Rajini in the same makeup. That was totally unexpected as they had canned the idea of him wearing it awhile back (hence the dummy head with the prosthetic on it). But before that I did a quickie “paint only” version of the prosthetic that I airbrushed over on camera. I’ve doubled for Rajini a few times now.

While I was putting the prosthetic on him Dave did a shot with a mechanicle arm. He then went back to the hotel and I finished the day out.

Back in the workroom afterwards I had a wardrobe fitting with Arul (Rajini’s double), Sinu and Hussein for a major effects sequence starting Tuesday. Once done I went to turn off lights by the back door and saw there was water all over the floor! I called Parthi and he had someone come and take care of it. It was a leaky pipe for the sinks that had just been installed.

Back at the hotel I cleaned up and am now chillin’ in the Thai restaurant by myself and looking forward to my massage tomorrow morning.

These three days were our first with any of the full mechanical puppets. Again, it went well and a lot smoother than I expected. We (the Legacy crew) had various frustrations that we were dealing with. Most of it just differences in the way they shoot, their lack of experince in working with fx and the cultural differences between us. But we got through it and I think it all looks great. We did lots of motion control shots with multiple passes so Rajini and our robot were multiplied. I saw some rough comps and it couldn’t have been better. Again, I’m thrilled with how well it’s all going, especially with how bad it could have gone!

On Wednesday morning Jack showed up. That was a nice surprise! He came to set with us and saw how it was all going. He, too, was happy with everything we’re doing.  I really wish I could post pics of our work now.

Wednesday night I met Jack in the bar for drinks. It was nice just sitting and chatting as it’s always been business with us before.

Thursday night I met Bruce in the bar. We had some drinks and listened to the girls sing. I got up and danced to one of the songs. Yeah, it was videoed by Bruce on my camera!

Friday night we went back with all the guys (well, minus Dave and his wife). This time I danced to three of the songs. I’ll post video if it once I edit it down to a watchable length.

This was our first big fx sequence for the film and it went really well. Yes, there were a few hiccups bit nothing major. Shankar, Srini and the others were very happy with it. The art director, Sabu, saw video playback of some of it and couldn’t figure out how we did it!

I didn’t write about this, or the next few things, daily as the days were busy and I was too tired once I got back to my room. But, in short, it was a great start to the film (I don’t really count the two things we shot last week as our start as they were last minute gags and not really major things).

Today was just totally laid back. We had it off and I just hung out in my room until about 1:15pm. I watched some movies, Skyped with my family and then ate lunch. I spoke with Anthony, Dave M and Kan and they were feeling lazy too.

After lunch Kan and I headed into town. We did some gift shopping. I got some cool stuff…a bit pricey but what the heck. We then went to the area of town called T Nagar. It’s where a lot of the jewelry and silk shops are. I checked out some gold anklets and was shocked by the price…..over Rs50,000 or $1000! Way out of my price range. It ’s strange to see those kind of prices here when there’s so much poverty. In the silk shops there were fancy, embroidered silk fabrics for wedding saris that were over Rs100,000 (1 lakh) or $2000. I think it was for the fabric only and the cost of having the sari made would be a separate cost. Amazing stuff, though!

I stopped at a little shop on the way back to the hotel and bought 6 bottles of soda, a package of biscuits (cookies) and and ice cream. I want to have something in the mini bar other than the hotel’s expensive stuff. I paid Rs164 for all that.That’s less than two of the cans of soda from the mini bar!

Today was interesting. We ended up making two new effects the director wanted and shot one of them. Figures that our first shot is one we never built, knew about or even existed 4 hours before!

The production had to get us a new refrigerator ’cause the first one ended up being like an oven! The drinks were super hot inside. They got the AC working, too, but it’s not really cold. Just takes the edge off of the heat in the room.

I actually got to paint today. I just had to add some red to the heads to get the colour to match the makeup. We then started putting the wigs on and doing the hair work.

The top production people came by today to check everything out. Shankar seemed really happy with it all.

Had a scheduling meeting with the 1st and the VFX guy. A couple of shots had been added but I think we can do most of them.

Parthi, the production executive, told us that tomorrow we’d have AC and a fridge in our work area. That’ll be nice!

On the way back to the hotel tonight it started to rain. There was lightning too. Kan told me later that he had gone swimming on the roof top pool and it was great with the rain, thunder and lightning.

I met Kan and Dave at the Thai restaurant in the hotel. It was good. Dave and I then went for drinks at the bar. There’s this Filippino trio that plays there, two girls singing and one guys playing a synth. It’s pretty funny! The guy’s good but the girls are…..entertaining. You can listen to it below.

Bar Entertainment

The van showed up at 8:15am, even though we weren’t scheduled to leave until 8:30am.

We got to the studio and unpacked the crates. Some things had jostled loose but no major damage. We got set up as best we could, but it took a while for some tables to be made for us. Then it took a while for us to get the information we needed to continue on with the work we needed to do. By the time we got that info it was getting late and getting a bit too dark to actually continue.

There were some issues that came up that I can’t talk about here, but it involved a lot of the usual stuff that has gone on here on all my previous trips. So, needless to say, there were lots of laughs about it all later.

Today didn’t start out so well. The production van was supposed to be at the hotel at 9am. At 9:15 I called Parthi and he said it was running late and would be here at 9:30. At 10 I called again. He said the driver went to the wrong hotel. At 10:24, when I called again, I asked if we should just hire cars. He said yes and that he didn’t know where the driver was. Kinda typical!

After getting the cars sorted out we headed south to Mahabalipuram. It is a large area with various shrines and temples dating back over 1400 years.

Our first stop was Tiger Cave Rock. It had some shrines carved out of gigantic, single rocks.

We then continued down the road to a larger temple complex. The temples and shrines were spread out over many acres.

The first thing we saw was this crazy balanced rock.

We then went to another temple/shrine carved out of solid rock. It had some great bas relief sculpture in it.

We then headed to another part of the complex where there was this carved from solid rock too.

We then headed down to the Shore Temple.

We  had a really good guide, Loganathan. Here’s a pic of us with him.

On the way back Bruce, Kan and I stopped at a local restaurant for some authentic food, not the hotel good we’ve been eating so far. It was pretty cool….only had about six table. They laid down trimmed bananas leaves which served as our plates. We had rice, a few chutneys, pickled lemon, some different chicken curries, a fish curry, a type of vegetable soup and I ended with rice and kurd (yoghurt). It was really good. Our driver, Madhan, ate with us. For all four the bill came to only Rs415, about $9.

From there we just headed back to the hotel to relax a bit. It was super hot today and kinda wore us out. Once back the concierge told us the driver this morning showed up at 11:30….two hours late and an hour after we had left! To top it off, he came back around 7pm….like that would make up for it!

Found out that the crates are in now so tomorrow we’ll be heading in to do some work…finally!