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©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Bollywood in Budgee Springs
Chapter 12a
Ella Riddell could not
believe her eyes, she took a step backwards, turned around and walked
back into the alley behind the Whistle once more, got her bearings
and then returned to the unrecognisable main road where Julie stood,
unmoved from her spot her jaw dropped open at the sight of her home
town transformed.
Where once had been the
dusty main road of Budgee Springs, with it's wide open areas and
space between buildings, a park and the focus on the main building of
the Whistle, now there was three different streets from an Indian
city or a town. Ella felt like she had been magically transported,
like Dorothy to Oz, but somehow instead she was in a street in
Calcutta, Mumbai or another Indian Metropolis. One of the pseudo
streets, the first one the emerged into was very modern and very
busy, with some of the cars and trucks dressed with new colours and
overlays that suggested modern city life over a serious tarmac
roadway. The other was a more rural town with merchant stalls and
spice baskets on a cobblestone roadway, the street was now paved with
what looked like hundreds of years of history in paving stones. The
third was a more slum based street, the road was dirt but well worn,
using the original dusty road of Budgee Springs that ran along side
the main tarmacked street, the original dirt road which had never
been built over. That third road was dripped in broken doors, wood
and material billowing in the breeze like sails on the bay.
Ella and Julie barely knew
where to start to look, to understand how this had all happened in
such a short period of time, how they could rebuild a whole town like
this. They walked a little further into the first street, cautiously
not wanting to get in shot, but in this street they were alone. All
the action was centred on middle stretch of road, the market place
which was full of actors playing vendors, customers and the
characters all in colourful costumes that added to the sense of
alienation the local women felt so completely in the middle of the
main road that they had know for over sixty years.
There was a difference to
the light, somehow it was brighter and yellower than she remembered
it ever being in town. The faces of the buildings were so very
different now, like someone had built a newer, busier city scape over
the surface of the old town street. The road was now full of carts
and stalls, a thriving marketplace had sprung up in the centre of the
wide road, allowing it to look like it was three streets intersecting
where the park had been, but was now the hub of activity for the film
crew.
The only thing that had
remained constant was the war memorial rotunda at the very epicentre
of town, it's sacred status had been maintained. All about it were
cables and trucks, the equipment centres for the film crew, the
cameras and lighting rigs all generated out of the same area,
shooting into the three pronged street arrangements as sets. The
curved silvery screens that bounced light onto odd angles and lit
faces for close ups were racked and glittering as the sunlight danced
off them and scattered into the remainder of the street, away from
the direction in which they were filming.
Julie reached the front wall
of the Whistle, reaching out gingerly to touch the new fascia of the
familiar building which appeared to no longer be made of colonial
style wooden and weathered boards, but now was a flat surface, like
clay or brick and very Indian or Middle Eastern material. Her hand
shot back to her side as if she had received an electric shock and
Ella saw the surface that looked so earthen, ancient and solid ripple
at the touch. Julie blushed and giggled before touching it again,
once more tentatively but the reaction this time was not so shocking
once she knew what to expect. Ella put her hand alongside Julies and
in that split second the reality of the situation was shattered and
the fact that it was all illusory was cemented in their heads.
The re-surface of the
building was a material skin overlaying the exterior boards of the
hotel. The material was visually convincing, it looked taut and
stretched out, like a completely solid and flat surface, one that had
been beaten by weather and age to give the appearance of centuries,
but was a trick of the mind and the eye. It was cloth, a coarse cloth
treated and coloured to represent the real building materials, but
without any of the physical properties. A mask for a town, to
disguise it's identity, to portray it as someone else entirely.
Taking her cue they walked
to the edge of the modern section and found that the cobblestones
were made of rubber and wood, plotted in tiled sections like a
hastily constructed flooring placed onto the road underneath. It was
utterly convincing until it was touched, then the rough edges, the
inconsistency with reality became clearer by the context that you
were looking for it. The crew were obviously well prepared and the
trucks that had rolled into town had obviously been laden with the
pieces of the set's façades broken down and stored for transport, to
be reassembled and reconstructed like a child’s brick set of a town
in parts.
“Break, Reset, Three Point
Oh Two!” Ash's voice came loud and clear across the space and all
hell broke loose at the sound of his instruction and the men and
women of the set construction crew flew into action and swarmed
through the market set and pulled pieces of it apart, turning what
had looked hardened solid pieces inside out with a flair and visually
stunning air that felt Dali-esque as the dimensions of reality were
ultimately defeated in seconds and bent to the transformative will of
the directors instructions.
Actors scurried from the
middle set to the urban set, their costumes being discarded and
replaced from stashed wardrobes hidden in the set, or reversed like
the scenery was and re purposed for the next scene. The vendors and
customers suddenly became businessmen and women on the street of a
busy modern city, mixed with old buildings and modern glass faced
ones, though they were undoubtedly plastic covered material in the
set, among taxi's and bike messengers appearing out of nowhere and
lining up to ride through the shot for the take, whatever it was.
Kiran saw Ella and Julie
standing the middle of the scenery they were transiting through and
had a quiet word in her assistants ear. Nathan ran from the
directorial centre where he was working with Kiran and Ash, running
errands and watching the bizarre re formatting of the sleepy little
town that he had just days ago hated being within the borders of.
This was another story altogether, this was the most exciting thing
that he could have dreamed of happening, it felt like a dream. Kiran
had adopted him as a pseudo employee and friend, keeping him engaged
and helping her with the myriad of things that just came with the
job.
“Nana, Auntie Julie, come
this way, this way!” Nathan dragged them by the sleeves to the
centre of the action, still dazed they trotted along under Nathan’s
momentum of excitement and purpose. Julie was of course not his
actual Aunt, but most of the women in the town had taken the same
position with any youngster that came to town to visit the elderly
relatives here, everyone who was not family was an Aunt or an Uncle,
it was easier and less confusing to be addressed that way, and it was
a much needed injection of being needed, by definition as a relative
even if you really were not.
