The lush green valleys of Switzerland that offer a perfect backdrop for romancing, the Haussmannian architecture in France for exotic location, the deserts of UAE for thrill and the idyllic beaches of Thailand for dance numbers. The Indian film industry has made these locations from all around the world familiar to the film viewers as a number of films have been shot in each of the locations.
The Indian film industry is perhaps the only film industry in the world where an entire film unit flies to an overseas exotic location to shoot a four-minute-long song sequence. Such is the love for overseas locations for shooting a film. On an average over 20 pc of all feature length films made in India, with a reasonable budget, have at least some part that has been shot overseas. While earlier the film directors used to head to familiar spots such as Switzerland, UK, US, France or South East Asia, over the past few years they had become more adventurous and went to a whole lot more countries including Bulgaria, New Zealand, South Africa or Morocco.
The directors, it seemed, were on a binge to discover the most exotic and unknown countries that one could find on the Atlas. However, then came the pandemic, putting a complete and immediate halt to all film shoots, not just overseas, but also at home in India. Even when the lockdowns began to be lifted in some parts of the world, there was speculation that shooting a film abroad would remain a distant dream for a long while to come.
But, even the pandemic could not keep the Indian film industry locked down at home for long. While people in various parts of the world were waking up to life after lockdown, Indian film crews began to descend upon them.
They were, of course, helped by the various air bubble agreements that Indian government had signed with about two dozen countries after over two months of complete lockdown and closure of Indian airports. With the resumption of international flights, even partial, it has become easier for filmmakers taking their projects abroad due to the ease of shooting and flexible safety restrictions.
The first team to get on board and head abroad was the cast and crew of Bell Bottom, produced by Pooja Entertainment, who headed to the UK in August last year to kickstart the shoot of the film. The actors include Akshay Kumar, Huma S Qureshi, Vani Kapoor and Lara Dutta.
As India is still opening one phase at a time and with different sets of rules and restrictions in each state, Indian filmmakers are considering overseas locations as the ideal place to resume shooting.
Taking a hint from Bell Bottom, Aamir Khan turned to Turkey to resume the shooting of his film Laal Singh Chaddha, the second film to be shot at an international location post the lockdown.
The latest addition to the list was Shah Rukh Khan who was seen shooting a high octane action sequence in Dubai for his upcoming film Pathan. Soon a picture of Shah Rukh Khan from the set went viral on social media. Siddharth Anand’s Pathan also stars Deepika Padukone and John Abraham. Shah Rukh and Deepika play RAW agents in the film, while John will be seen as the antagonist. Dimple Kapadia is also a part of the film. The movie will be produced under the banner of Yash Raj Films.
“Reliance Entertainment is going next month to Turkey to shoot a Ribhu Dasgupta film. Compared to the ‘normal’ world, only 50 pc of the film shoots in overseas have resumed as a lot of European countries are yet to open up. Some filmmakers and producers are moving forward but doing so with pragmatic optimism. The impact of Covid-19 cannot be overstated but as they say, the show must go on! However, many production houses have still not started shooting outside the country,” Shibasish Sarkar, group CEO of Reliance Entertainment, tells India Outbound.
Sarkar says that one of the main factors behind the preference of Indian production houses for shooting overseas is that the processes are much simpler and expedited. “A lot of Indian film production houses embrace the countries in the West for shooting films because the rules and regulations are well articulated. If the budget of the film gives you the freedom to shoot abroad and if a script requires overseas locations, it’s a great deal for the producers as the scenic locations add aesthetic value to the films. Also many times tax rebates and subsidies help reduce the budgets,” Sarkar tells India Outbound.
However, Ravi Kottarakara, general secretary, Film Federation of India (FFI) and South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce (SIFCC) says that despite the relative ease of shooting overseas, currently even the overseas shoots are highly limited as compared to the normal scenario mainly due to lot of uncertainty about the Covid-19 pandemic and the response of various governments in terms of lockdown, border closures or curfews. This makes it nightmarish for producers to go ahead and plan shootings overseas, he says.
“At present the overseas film shootings have not still resumed on the whole. Only Scotland and the Great Britain have allowed the films to resume to shoot. And now after the second wave everything has been put on hold. Three films had gone to the UK to shoot, one was for a Malayalam film, one was Hindi and one was a Kannada film. They went to areas where corona cases were less. They finished shooting and now they are back. As soon as they were back the second wave started in Europe. The other film shootings have at present been put on hold and there are very few countries that are giving you blanket permit to come and shoot. One such place is Dubai. And there is another film the shooting of which is taking place in Maldives,” Kottarakara tells India Outbound.
“To tell the truth only 5-8 pc of the film shoots have resumed abroad. We are all aware that at any given time, every year on a normal scenario, before Covid-19, we had nearly around 350 film shoots that used to take place abroad,” he adds.
The cast and crew of Bell Bottom was the first to head abroad to kick start the shoot of the film; Aamir Khan turned to Turkey to resume the shooting of his film Laal Singh Chaddha
Stay Home no option either
Only few Indian films have been entirely shot overseas and most go to foreign lands mainly for landscapes or monuments to shoot song sequences or key parts of films, to keep their budgets in check. Thus in current scenario of uncertainty, even if a film had parts to be shot overseas and rest at home, but outside of studios, at least Indian producers could have stayed in India and began shooting normally.
But Kottarakara says this is not really so much of an option as the Indian permissions for shootings outdoors, which were already getting increasingly complicated before the pandemic, have become far more complex and unworkable in several scenarios. He says in some states getting permissions is becoming easier, but on the whole India is still far behind the foreign countries in simplifying the process and Covid-19 has made the job of getting permissions even a bigger challenge than before.
“Today even if they want to go and shoot in Kerala, the number of cases has still not reduced. For going and shooting within India there are a lot of restrictions. Earlier I could shoot anywhere, I could shoot on a street, in an airport or a railway station. But now we don’t get permission. Only when more people will be vaccinated and more restrictions lifted then we can go and shoot on outdoor locations,” he says.
Sarkar says that most of these issues do not crop up overseas where not just the foreseen but even unforeseen developments can be handled in a better fashion in order to allow the shootings to proceed as per schedule. “Creativity is often a free-flowing process and when it comes to filmmaking, there are a lot of uncontrollable factors involved in any project. However, there has to be some method to madness because at the end of the day, films are products with commercial value. In countries abroad, the structures are well-organised, crews are highly-skilled and the processes are streamlined in a way that creative people don’t have to worry about things that can be controlled and that gives us a chance to address the uncontrollable factors, promptly,” says Sarkar.
Back home, some state governments are waking up to the importance of facilitating film shoots and the economic benefits that it brings to the state in the short and long term, but a lot more needs to be done to make it anywhere similar to many foreign locales. “Many state governments like Sikkim have started to give us incentives. If there is a chance of flexibility in changing the geographic location of your story, we can do. But for some stories we can’t do that. A few states like UP, MP and Kashmir give us lots of facilities. But in foreign countries they work on a single window clearance. They have got a film commission which helps you in getting this permission. Similarly, now in India NFDC is helping Indian producers to help shoot in any location pan India,” Kottarakara tells India Outbound.
Budgets and safety top concerns
Shooting films overseas has always been an expensive proposition and producers hunt for any and all kinds of subsidies that they can get hold of to keep their budgets under check. The hygiene and other restrictions in place across the world do impact the cost of shooting films, but production houses say that while budgets still remain a concern, with the pandemic safety of the crew is also equally important. “After Covid-19, a lot has changed in the world of films and how they have been shot. Before the pandemic, the biggest concern was cost-effectiveness of a particular project. Though that still remains a major concern, safety now tops the list of priorities and concerns.
roduction houses have to ensure that the cast and crew shooting abroad are following all the norms and precautions like wearing masks and maintaining social distancing. We now have to pay close attention to the incremental costs that have become a norm because of Covid-19. Our other concerns include the safety issues that might crop up during air travel and quarantine rules in different countries. In some countries, the virus variants/ mutation is also a cause of concern,” says Reliance Entertainment’s Sarkar.
Hoping for a better shot in 2021
After an unprecedented battering that the industry received last year, most of the players pin their hopes on the current year to make up for a lost year which has left the entire industry deep in red. “Of course, as there were no shoots and no film releases in 2020, Covid-19 has had a significant impact on the bottom-line, just like any other business. Fortunately, things are looking better and 2021 will be a turnaround year,” says Sarkar.
Kottarakara says that in the South Indian industry, though the shoots remain indoors, but a fair amount of activity is already on, with a large number of films hitting the floor currently. “There are more than 15 Tamil films on the floor and roughly around 8-9 Malayalam films. Almost 10-12 Kannada films and 10 Telugu films are currently being shot. So shooting of nearly 45 films only from South India is taking place at this very moment. But most of these films are trying to cover their indoor portions before venturing out,” he says.
With theatres reopening fully and likelihood of normal international air travel being allowed from India in the coming two months, the Indian film industry is hoping that 2021 has a better script and shots than the year 2020.
