A Recount Already??

In one word? Fun.

I know that sounds kinda lame, but I honestly had so much fun.. mostly because Rija was with me. Everyone, please take a moment to thank Rija for being my ultimate ‘media partner’ :)

So, we left home at 7 in the morning (yes... I was half-asleep), and made it to our one and only location by around 8:30-ish. We felt pretty on time, which was kind of a miracle considering the almost disaster that happened on the way.

Basically, the roads were blocked with containers because of a religious movement, and there was no way we could reach the fort by car. So we had to go from the back of the fort and walk the rest of the way. On foot. In the heat. With me in full shoot makeup and already starting to sweat... so yeah, not ideal.

Anyway, we finally got in, got our ticket, and took out our equipment, which was just a phone and a gimbal. But as Rija was taking out the gimbal, a guard came up to us and said it wasn’t allowed. And that was just... so weird?? Like, a gimbal literally doesn’t have a camera, it’s just something to help you hold your phone steady. But apparently, only foreigners were allowed to use one. Make it make sense please.

And the best part? If you do get caught using it, they fine you Rs. 5000. Yeah, no. As two extremely broke students, we weren’t about to take that risk. So yeah, the gimbal stayed in the bag. Problem one, handled.

Once we actually started shooting, things went pretty smoothly. Since we were only working with one location and had already done our preliminary there, we knew exactly where to go and what to do. No transport problems, no wandering around clueless.

Rija was behind the camera, I was in front of it, and honestly? It was so much fun. We were constantly joking around either about how I looked, something weird we saw, or just being generally unserious, and it kept the energy up.

Now... let’s talk about my shoes.I chose the prettiest pair of khussas ever because, obviously, aesthetic over comfort. Always. But about three-quarters into the shoot, my feet actually started bleeding. Like, genuinely. From four different spots. And because I was dumb and didn’t bring any bandages, I had to rely on the two that Rija had in her bag. But, were two bandages enough? Absolutely not.

I ended up putting on socks mid-shoot and then taking them off depending on the shot. It was... a situation. But I pushed through, and honestly, proud of myself.

Other than the gimbal drama and the khussa chaos, everything went mostly according to plan. We even decided mid-production to reuse some of the clips from our preliminary shoot because they turned out really good. Some areas, like the Elephant Staircase, weren’t the same as last time—there were tables stacked on both sides—so we couldn’t recreate certain shots. But since we already had solid footage from before, we focused on grabbing anything new or stuff we missed.

The only other thing? The heat. It was honestly pretty gross. Not unbearable, but just hot enough to make running around in full outfit extremely uncomfortable. By the time I got home, my clothes were soaked and I was exhausted.

But overall? It all went surprisingly well. No major disasters, no equipment issues, no location flops. Just two girls, one phone, one gimbal ban, and a ton of chaotic energy. Would totally do it again.