Production day 2 (does not exist): to be or not to be
At this point I’m not sure either. Everything that you can imagine could go wrong went wrong. Let’s begin with the "wonderful" weather (I vented about this earlier as well). Us procrastinating the entire summer holidays, the perfect time we thought was between monsoon (aren’t we so smart) we had to film a few scenes with the characters in the fields but they were filled with water.
We shot our preliminary task on an iPhone and wanted to shoot the film opening on a camera (idk why either) but guess what ? None of us owned a camera. In return to which, we had to do a lot of “begging”. We did have our Disney happy ending for a little bit when my (not so very nice) cousin agreed to let us borrow her camera. We’ve finalized the location, everything is ready then my cousin finally decides to tell me she didn’t have any batteries (yay) and Rija had her SAT exam.
This is turning into a diary entry where I cry about everything.
What else can happen right ? A day before our final shoot Fadilma disappeared (she got sick) a final phone call where all we did was cry which led me to even explain everything to my (not so very nice) cousin’s mother (this is a big thing because I would never willingly start a conversation with anyone) ,she had school tests going on (imagine us crying in a corner) but thankfully one of Meral’s friend agreed and we finally had our happy ending (we didn’t).
Production day 1 : Echoes of the past
The following are the locations we visited:
1. Badshah e masjid
2. Lahore fort
3. Delhi gate
4. Gali Surjaan Singh
5. Sabeel wali gali
I already had plans (which for some reason he forgets EVEN IF YOU WRITE HIM A LETTER) with my brother to visit a few cultural sites so we (me and Zahra) decided instead of going ourselves again later I would just get them now. This endeavor of constant begging lasted for a couple of days until finally he agreed and we decided that we will go there on the upcoming Saturday.
It was a typical hot morning of Lahore. Thankfully the car air conditioner provided us with refuge from the extreme heat. The cultural sites were about an hour’s drive away from our house. About halfway into our journey, we started to see some clouds form (I may or may not have cried because my brother said we should go back lol) and eventually had a little bit of rainfall.
By the time we reached our destination, the rain had stopped and I could see some rays of sunlight shine through the gaps in the clouds. The rainfall came as a blessing as it cooled down the temperature and made being outdoors a lot more tolerable.
I started taking videos and photographs of the Minar-e-Pakistan which is a historical monument marking the location of the ground where the idea of Pakistan was announced to the general public. Eventually we started making our way towards the interior of the Lahore Fort where I spent a long time making videos. My brother was sometimes helping me and at other times just roaming around looking at the sights by himself. We explored the rooms inside the royal buildings and admired the old Mughal architecture.
The Lahore Fort is huge and it took a lot of time for me to cover its entirety and record all that I needed. After that we went over to the Badshahi Mosque, which is an enormous mosque built by the Mughal kings. We went inside the mosque and visited the museum which is located within the mosque’s walls.
We were a bit skeptical about using our phones in public like this because there is always a risk of being robbed in tourist destinations like the one we were at. We later explored the narrow streets or old Lahore and recorded some videos there. To my brother’s relief, after a good number of hours, I finally said that I have enough material so we could go back home hehe
