Labour of Love - Behind the scenes at DO's valentine's day shoot for Amazon.
Valentine’s Day has always been rather special for us at Do. Creative Labs. Our first official film, as a legit production house, was a Valentine’s Day film for Wego. To begin with, we were given a script that amounted to heart coffee. It warmed you inside and made you feel fuzzy-happy. A differently-abled husband with not-so-different work schedules, cancelling on date night because he’s working late and how he makes up for it later and makes a rather special memory out of it - lovely, relatable stuff! As if that in itself wasn’t spectacular enough, this film gave us the opportunity to work with some fantastic people. That’s the thing about this business - you meet so many kinds of people. Right from people who strike you as the salt of the earth to people who strike you as earth in your table salt. No matter what kind of people they happen to be, they teach you something. Even learning to dodge the proverbial bullet and the wisdom in keeping yourself from immediately giving into the indulgences of a face-palm reflex, are skills worthy of high praise.
Shooting right through a Bangalore February night, though far from being immediately comfortable, gave us a start that’s made up a countless audacious dreams. The film was received well by the lovers. As for us, it gave us enough reason to believe that maybe we were onto something good. It was a rather happy Valentine’s day.
Fast forward to 10th February 2016. The guys at Orchard, Bangalore calls us and give us a heads up that a film might be heading our way. 11th February, the confirmation comes in with the script in tow, announcing that we’re shooting on the 14th! We’d have said ‘Excellent’ except for the minor logistical detail, that 14th February was 72 hours away. The next 48 hours are a blur of calls, co-ordinating, confirmations, complaining-cajoled-into-cooperating, cancellations and reconfirmations - leading to another blur of sawing, drilling, set-building, stitching, costume-making, etcetera after furious etcetera. On Feb 14, the ACS studio at Wilson Garden played host to a play of precarious clockwork. If one cog went awry, we’d have a ’down will come baby, cradle and all’ disaster situation on our hands. So that’s how we found ourselves - exactly a year from our first big shoot - back in the studio.
But nary a cog or wheel failed to rise to the occasion. On the day for lovers, 50 odd lovers collaborated to do what they love best. Actors, director, producers, writers, DoP, stylists, make up artists, art guys, lightmen - each and everyone, an artist in their own right, dreaming another dream into life. Eight hours and a several hundred retakes later, our on-set editor delivered a film we’re pleased as punch to claim parentage to.
The film went live on the 15th of February. Most nail-biting 120 hours in our combined histories ever! The Amazon film was everything Do stands for. To create when given the opportunity. To make that creation something of such grace that we wouldn’t turn in our coffins, if someone played it at our funerals. Do. Creative Labs came into being from a dire need of a catharsis after years of dreaming someone else’s dream. A dire need to do something we loved. A year, several great partnerships and the aforementioned own-funeral-playable films later, we’re still paying rent, our families and friends haven’t disowned us…yet and we’re still getting to do what we love. Not a bad proposition, right? Valentine’s Day is a day that celebrates love. And for us at Do., it couldn’t have been any truer.
You can watch the film here.