I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to publish my images from my shoot in India but here goes. At the end of last year I was lucky enough to go to Mumbai as my very good friend, Jo Henderson, was asked to shoot for Asian Paints . I went along as the stylist for the shoot.
We had both been to India before but not in a work capacity. We were curious to see how they ran a production in Mumbai and let me tell you, they have a fantastic set up! The main point of difference was the sheer volume of people on set. At home, a production of a similar scale would have 2 to 5 Set builders, I think I counted around 20 on this shoot! The same applied with all the departments from lighting right through to camera assistants. In total, we had around 30 – 40 and that doesn’t include any of the catering staff. Oh my, the food was insane and all laid out for us. Some dishes were slightly hotter than we had anticipated and so that proved interesting on set as I was sweating so much!
It was a really busy and fun working environment and nothing was too much trouble for anyone. I think it was just as fascinating for them to see how we worked. The production team and agency were super friendly and organised. Allll of our sets pinned up on the board and as we progressed through the shoot, a strike was placed through each set.
Our location was quite extraordinary, we were shooting in a place called MuKesh Mills , once a successful mill trading in textiles that was later shut down due to a devastating fire. It was derelict until a few years ago when a producer decided to film a horror movie there. It’s now used to shoot everything from music videos to famous Bollywood movies but, it is rumoured to be the 10th most haunted place in India… This is due to paranormal activity and so no filming is allowed after dark when everyone has to leave. There were moments where Jo and I lost our cool ….I think we covered it up though!
After two extremely hot and very productive days we flew back home. What a whirlwind of a trip – would I would do it again? – yes, in a flash. I can’t wait to share the images with you all (hopefully soon).
