My original script, written in my AFTRS Screenwriting class as an exercise, opened in a rice paddy field. I never imagined, when I first wrote it, that I would ever get the chance to film it ANYWHERE, let alone in the exact location I’d chosen.
Down the line, when I began to question if it was possible to be rewritten as a short film and actually made somewhere, I began to think of budget locations I could use to simulate an asian rice paddy field.
Somewhere in Cairns might be tropical enough, but do they grow rice there? Yes, but differently – not wet paddies. How about Bali? I’d never been to Ubud/central Bali where the paddy fields are, but suspected it would end up being not very budget to get cast & crew there.
In the end, it wasn’t as “budget” as I’d have liked, getting cast and crew to Siem Reap – but I stumbled on an ingenious plan to make it much cheaper than it otherwise would’ve been. This involved the discovery of “Filmmaker Abroad” – but that story can wait for another blog post!
Anyway, this is a pic from our recce day (checking out the location that our on-the-ground fixers had arranged for us). Ticketty-boo!
I’m not sure if those magnificent cows will end up in the final cut, but we sure filmed them. More than once we had to leap out of the way with our gear, to let the enormous creatures through. More on production problems resulting from using a wet rice paddy field to come in another blog post too 🙂
