Ek Tha Tiger - money for nothing =)

I got an extra job on Ek Tha Tiger, for yesterday (genuine Bollywood movie, with Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif). Because we were going to wear our own clothes (and have our own handbags on us..), I took my camera as well as my phone camera is not that good, and I wanted to snap some Finnish photo challenge pics.

 
I had to be at Upper Mount Street @7:30am, so I had to take the first DART from Bray, @6:10am. The next one would have been 6:40am, which would have left me 15 minutes to walk from Grand Canal Dock station to the location. It could have been enough, but I was carrying a few outfits (as asked), and I'm totally unfit.. LOL

 
Upper Mount Street (between Merrion Square & Pepper Canister Church) was closed for traffic, and the buses, catering units, toilets, etc. took over most of Herbert Street as well.

After everyone had finished their breakfast (I only had a slice of toast and some grapefruit as I'd had Ready Brek at home), we were just waiting to be called, in and around the extras bus.. The highlight of our day was observing a paparazzo getting arrested! =D He was snapping on the front steps of a house nearby - and he was actually the only sign suggesting that Salman Khan and/or Katrina Kaif may have been on location as we certainly didn't see them (just SK's stunt double), when the garda who was probably there because of the road closure, went to have words with him. It was great fun watching their body language - their hands were going faster than those of an average Italian road rage case.. Eventually, a garda van arrived, and the paparazzo who'd refused to go, was arrested! :o


That garda could have been after a bonus - he fined someone as well.. (He was alright, though. We even saw him smile and make a bit of a joke when a cyclist attempted to ignore the road closure..)

 


A lot of the crew were Indian (obviously..), so it was cool to hear their language - not sure if it was Hindi/Urdu, or something else.. I only know a handful of phrases in Hindi, and I obviously didn't hear any of those (as they're mainly greetings and introductions), but the general sound of it was similar, anyway.

The way they worked on location, seemed very different to what I've seen before - it was much less organised (if organised at all). For example, in the mobile snap above, they were setting up this Luas scene, but after all the work, they just moved it away and never used it.. There were several similar situations! It just seemed like an awful waste of work, time and money.. However, whatever they're doing must work as well, because those Bollywood movies are awesome! =)


Around noon, we were all kind of getting hungry, although we hadn't even done any work yet. Around 1pm, we got lunch, which was very disappointing - picture above. The sambo was very nice, but a sambo, small bag of crisps, chocolate bar, and an apple, are not really a proper lunch for a 12 hour day - and extras always get a proper hot meal, unless we get told to bring our own lunch or money to buy something (where cafeteria is an option), and in those cases, we get paid extra, to cover for lunch expenses. They DID have a catering unit, but their lunch menu was for crew only :O

I still don't like chocolate, but I was so hungry that I tried to force myself to eat the Mars bar. I couldn't eat it all as it was starting to taste sort of nauseating, after I'd eaten about a half of it, so I threw the rest of it away. (I want to like chocolate again, but I just can't, for some reason.) Also, I really don't like salt & vinegar crisps, but there were no other options =/ (It's funny, I love chips soaking in vinegar, but no vinegar with crisps, thank you..) The sambo was very nice, though.

 
Above, two more mobile snaps. (They set up that camera and looked as if they were going to shoot something from there, but didn't, so another example of somehow chaotic way of working..)

 
Above, you can see "a part of Luas" (Dublin tram) on the ground. They were shooting a scene where the Luas crashes into a car (I think), and their fake Luas looked really good! =D

 


Above, that house on the left was interesting.. The entrance seemed to belong somewhere else =D (Behind me was the Pepper Canister Church, but I didn't take any pictures of it.)



Below, a better snap of the fake Luas;





A couple of videos, below;



Next, some of that crash scene - how unimpressive it looks now! I'm sure it'll look SO much better in the movie;






Above, extras bus (the crew bus had already gone), catering unit, toilets, etc.. Speaking of toilets, these ones were much bigger than what I've seen on locations before! (Would have been nice, with some of those Camelot & The Tudors costumes..) Otherwise, though, not perfect.. The water was on/off, and when it was off, you couldn't flush the toilets or wash your hands :x L had some hand wipes, though, and she was generous =) Normally, I'd have some baby wipes in my handbag, but my new handbag is too small!

At some point in the afternoon, we started getting the feeling that we weren't going to be used at all.. And we were right. They only used the child extras, and a handful of adult extras who'd been asked to bring their car. So, most of us adult extras were there for nothing! Of course, it happens, and I had at least two days on Camelot where I wasn't used at all, but I somehow got the feeling that this one was due to poor planning - just having observed the setting up stuff for nothing, etc.. Still, I'm not complaining as I've nothing against being paid for nothing =D Also, we actually had fun at the extras bus. I didn't know anyone from previous extra jobs, although some faces were vaguely familiar, so we may have been on some same jobs, just never had chats (or I'd remember).

We were signed out an hour early, I walked back to Grand Canal Dock, and the next DART arrived almost immediately, so great timing.

 

So, this is how you won't see me on Ek Tha Tiger;