Local pros reduce real-life risks

Problematic locations confront foreign filmmakers

By KATHY A. MCDONALD

As filmmakers embrace compelling, globally themed stories, productions must penetrate parts of the world where "film friendly" is a novel concept. From the remote mountain village needed for "Che's" finale to the densely packed Mumbai slum that's central to "Slumdog Millionaire" to the home turf of drug-dealing Neapolitan gangsters in "Gomorrah," lasat year's scripts were packed with practical locations that posed numerous obstacles to their seasoned production departments.

Per producer Laura Bickford, local scouts and crew were essential to helmer Steven Soderbergh's more than four-hour, two-part "Che," which was shot on three continents. Research for the film was conducted over seven years and required multiple trips to Bolivia, Cuba, Miami, Paris and Gotham (for a key UN scene). Scouting included tracing Che's ill-fated guerrilla trail in Bolivia. Part two was shot first; opening scenes made the most of a brief Bolivian shoot, while a remote mountain village and surrounding forests in Spain doubled for the inhospitable Bolivian wilds where Che Guevara (Benicio Del Toro) and his cadre carried out their operations.

Two hours from Toledo, Spain, and inconveniently out of cell-phone range, the production utilized local fincas (ranches) for crew housing. Base camp lined the village's main road. But Bickford contends the greater challenge was creative. "Physical locations are pretty easy to match, but the people and extras are really hard," explains Bickford, as numerous Bolivians were needed to play the background roles of soldiers and peasant farmers. "Oddly or happily for us, there's a large Bolivian immigrant population in Spain, which our Bolivian casting director sought out."

A decades-long U.S. embargo of Cuba precluded production there. Using nearby island Puerto Rico for Cuba, the production rented 80 miles of farmlands and jungle for part one's re-creation of the Cuban revolution. The remote location afforded the crew complete privacy, but also posed complex transportation challenges. "To get into the set, you took a van to a jeep to an ATC to some slice of jungle," Bickford recalls. Cast, crew and dozens of extras were transported this way. Throughout the production, Bickford, who also speaks French, relied on her trilingual assistant.

Off the beaten path

Local production service companies smooth the production process and bridge cultural and language barriers for nonnatives.

Tabrez Noorani of India Take One Prods. had a wealth of challenging assignments on Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire." Securing Mumbai's VT (aka CST) train station, used daily by millions of passengers, took four months of negotiation, finessed over daily tea with the station's manager. Cameras, cast and crew on Mumbai's streets often drew rowdy crowds, necessitating heavy security and armed police protection. Switching locations on the day of production was commonplace. "We had a fixed schedule that changed all the time," Noorani explains without irony.

"It was a theater of chaos," says "Slumdog Millionaire's" cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle. "In the U.K. or States, there's a controlled system on shoots, a certain order and hierarchy on set where crew try to keep it quiet. There (in India) it's euphoria, chaos and energy, and the director and the (d.p.) can barely see each other."

As Mantle explains, the streets of Mumbai forced the multinational crew, including Gandhi's great-grandson , to engage in "tactical social engineering at high speed while shooting a movie, while thinking creatively while makinga semi-impossible day."

Problematic real-world locations can also confront indigenous filmmakers. Helmer Matteo Garrone's "Gomorrah" takes a neorealistic look at Naples' mafia, known as the Camorra -- the film was principally shot in an abandoned housing project deep in its domain.

"There is a 'System' which controls the territory," explains "Gomorrah's" producer, Domenico Procacci. "We never had to deal directly with them; there was no extortion, no bribes, but they knew exactly what we were doing every day, and they were around."

Remarkably, the syndicate altered their drug trading activities in anticipation of the production. "In a way, we were disturbing their operation and they wanted to know where we were so they could move to different areas without losing time or money," the vet producer contends.

Occupying someone else's territory is at the heart of any location shoot. Even in film capitals, the Western style of production can be unusual. "Hong Kong crews have a much smaller footprint," explains "The Dark Knight" supervising location manager James McAllister. In Hong Kong, productions "exist within the framework of the city, while a film like 'Dark Knight' commandeers a section of the city," he found.

Sometimes it pays off to adhere to local customs. Before "Che's" Bolivian shoot, the team followed a prescribed ritual. "Before every film shoot, a shaman burns a llama fetus," Bickford recalls. She adds, "Steven, Benicio and I threw in silver paper to make the fire go. We had a great shoot with no problems."