Day 111 - Bollywood in Budgee Springs - Chapter 8 (1814 words)

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Bollywood in Budgee Springs

Chapter 8

Ash has an office set up in the back of one of the set trucks, it's set up to be a mobile production office with power and lighting, even a desk and some chairs that fold up nicely when in transit. Scripts and paperwork are strewn all over his desk and through the opaqueness of the makeshift window it is clearly late at night that Ash is working.

Kiran and Hardeep have taken the shoot schedule for the next two days and running them up against the location notes they had been given from the scout that had toured the sights with Max weeks ago. Ash is back in the books for the company, trying to find where all the money is going day-by-day, his years in business school were a help, that was for sure, but no one on the payroll was that good at keeping receipts and track of where things were going.

When he had bought into the film company it had been a good investment, on paper at least they made a decent amount of money. It helped that they had the stars and the talent to make movies that were not only good but also popular. His parents had pooh poohed the idea of his taking on a project like this. It was doomed to failure and they refused to invest what they thought was good money after bad, in their eyes. At first that had been fine, the need to stand on his own two feet forced Ash to make competent and hard choices about how the company was run and how things would operate in the massively inefficient production company.

A number of employees, some in key positions, were gorging themselves on the fat of the expenses and operations budgets, and with little shame or pretence. They had to go, but it was not a calm or collected blood letting when tearing off the leeches. Ash learned the hard way that when these particular suckers came off, they tore their pound of flesh, and had many more teeth than they appeared to on the first glance. It was brutal and it depleted the coffers by a decent margin, but they were still in the black by a little bit. They needed to invest in newer, more trustworthy staff. They trolled and poached through the older employees of other production companies, ones that would find it harder, if not impossible, to make career leaps at their age. People not desperate, but in need of finding a steady employer, people dedicated to the craft, whatever it was.

At the core of the company, the man he had purchased along with his business was the heart and soul of the art that was made in the company. He had a number of protégées who directed film after film, all with the signature of his guidance stamped firmly on them. His name as a producer was like gold, his name as a director was a licence to print money. Ash and he had made two pictures together before he died, suddenly shockingly and without any of his future contractual obligations signed up.

The younger directors whom he had mentored, were poached before the body was cold and Ash left his funeral and came back to the office the next day with himself, a skeleton crew and a few hardcore and loyal employees. The great man had presence and had style, everyone wanted to work for him, to be like him. No one needed a contract to make them be there. That had been Ash's doing that contracts would need to be locking certain key talents in place. They had the crew, the cinematographer and Hardeep locked in and with an iron clad contract with their company before he passed. There was no out for them, Hardeep took it badly to see all his competitors taking all the talent he had so patiently developed with his former boss, all that wasted potential and he was tied up tighter and tighter but a piece of paper, one Ash had cemented around him.

Kiran had been the easiest get after the Director had died, she signed on without hesitation. Kiran knew Ash through his family and hers, they had history and a connection that was shared. Kiran was the insider that drew on her knowledge of the players and the business to help him settle on this as an independently run concern, away from his family's influence. Their money would have shored the company up when the great man passed away, they could have bought back the people they had lost, but Ash had made his bed and now he was lying in it, on borrowed money.

When they had taken the loans to re-invest in the future films they had a stable of actors, directors and a marquee producers name to bring in the punters and fill the seats of every theatre they could distribute to. That game had changed and now he needed to deliver a knock-out punch of a film, make the money back to pay them off, get their claws out of the business. Ash could not quite see how close the wolves were, he could sense them just outside and baying for whatever blood they could bleed from them, maybe even turn the deal around and lock them in to producing money making films, at the cost of their souls and whatever other corners could be cut.

This needed to be a hit, needed to be in the theatres fast and it needed to cost less and less than it was, but without anyone else getting behind the lines and interfering with it. The amount of information and influence that the 'investor' had in India was stunning, he was being told how to correct and change a movie that he had not even seen the daily rushes of, before the sun was down on the filming day. Australia was just foreign enough, juts far enough to get out from under that all seeing eye, at least for a while.

“How's it all going then? Do we have a hit on our hands?”

Ash jumped, he had not seen Max arrive at the open back door of the truck, but there he was climbing up and in to see how he was going.

“How’s the crew settling in?” the Mayor seemed genuinely concerned.

“As well as can be expected I guess. You know how it is …. a new place, even if it is for a few weeks only. Things seem to be OK, which is good. Things are always … interesting on location.” Ash wondered how much the Mayor knew about the film, the position they were in and how big a chance they were taking. He decided to distract him with an as yet unshared detail “The elephant arrives tomorrow, and shooting begins the day after with the main street dance.”

Max sighed, it was sooner than he wanted, the plan had been to get the Townsfolk a little more hooked on the idea of being in a film, before they got to the musical numbers, he knew his Dad would be dead set against that. “The Big Dance eh? Listen, about that, when I kind of arranged this movie, I didn’t really...”

Max took a deep breath as he processed the information he had been given. “Which Elephant is this exactly?”

“There is but one Elephant, it is the one crucial to the theme of the whole film. We have made all the arrangements, the transporter arrives tomorrow and we'll make as much use of him as quickly as we can. The wrangler will be along with him, it will need to be quick.” Ash could see the Mayor thinking.

“When you say Elephant, do you mean like, Grey, Giant and.... “Max made a “PAAARP” noise and a trunk motion framed as a question.

“Yes, it is an Elephant, like you have in the Zoo, like we have in our country. I assume you could think of it like a Kangaroo, it is recognisably Australian and you could easily source one if you needed to, yes?”

“And you can do the same with Elephants?”

“Not quite, but it is more common than you think, weddings, parties, Massala films... Elephants are a part of the business.”

Max wondered how this news would sit with the townspeople, it could either be the 'straw and the camel' or it could the perfect distraction, like the circus was coming to town. He kept his fingers crossed for the latter. “I guess it would have to be the right kind as well?”

Ash rolled his eyes. “Indian audiences are very astute, if they see an African elephant in an Indian movie? They’d be all ‘look at the ears on that!’ and stuff. They don’t care about post synching, but they have to be authentic in Indian details.” The conversation about the look of the Elephant had already taken too much of his time when they tried to pass off an African one on him from a catalogue online when he arrived in the Sydney offices of the Elephant supplier.

“It's not good being judged on the tiniest details of everything you do, especially when it's all out on the open like that.”

“Making movies isn’t as easy as it looks you know.”

“Try being Mayor in your fathers footsteps sometime.” It was an offhand remark but instantly Max thought he had spoken out of turn and he looked up too quickly at Ash who was staring at him.

Silence hung between them for a minute and then Ash looked around the trailer.

“A father's example and expectation is a burden I can... appreciate.” It was an invitation of sorts, Ash pointed to the second chair and Max sat down, breath leaving him in a rush as the tension was let out for a moment.

“You have people who need you, I am twenty years younger than anyone except my wife in this town. They don;t need me, not really, the town is dying with it's inhabitants. I want it to live, I mean to grow and pass something on. I want Budgee Springs to have a legacy, to be more than it was and be something it can be.”

“We’re not too … we are both trapped by the expectation of the past you and I. We can make this movie work my friend” It was a frank and bold assessment to make, but Ash felt an affinity with this man, and he had seen the way that the town looked at him, the way they tolerated him to move forward, but ready to pull back on the leash at any moment.

Ash knew exactly how that felt.