Filming in Masai Mara: The Charm of Hot Air Rides & Lion Kingdoms
As a film crew shoots in the majestic lands of the Masai Mara in Kenya, there are glimpses of wildlife, up close.
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I walk under a canopy, reading. A series of arches, made of trees. A tunnel. A curving one. I walk through it. Reading Neruda. A book of ekphrastic poetry. Seeing the world as a series of murals. The tunnel moves me. The tunnel moves with me. Like a giant gentle snake writhing glacially along the savannah.
An alarm goes off and I awaken. It is dark. Where am I? I reach out and touch something. Gossamer? It feels flimsy, textured. I remember that I am inside a mosquito net. In a tent.
In the Masai Mara.
The gossamer web of a spider. So different from the web that keeps away mosquitoes. The first traps spider food, the second one sequesters beverage dispensers for mosquitoes: humans. I wonder if the mosquito thinks for a moment that it has got its prey. Got it! Only to find the victory pyrrhic, as it dies of thirst.
No blood to suck.
Floating Above the Mara
I remember the why of the alarm: A ride on a hot-air balloon. They are picking us up at 5am. I shiver. It is early June and we are just south of the Equator, 5,000 feet above sea level. It is the tail-end of the rainy season. The nights are chilly.
Misjudging the night by the hotness of the sun-baked day, we had refused hot water bottles. That was on our first evening. We took care to get them for the rest of our stay. For there is nothing cosier than being under blankets on a cold night, with a hot water bottle to keep one’s feet toasty. It is the epitome of ‘bedness’.
Plato would doubtless agree.
Somebody calls from outside the tent. Someone with bed tea. I bless him. As he leaves, zipping the tent closed behind him, I smile to myself thinking that people cannot knock at the door when you stay in a tent.
My friends, Shoma and Ashish, and I are ready at 5am, bundled up against the cold. It is still night as we drive off in a 4X4.
The airless balloon is spread out on the ground, sideways. The crew inflates it, first with air and then with fire. As the darkness is suffused by the first light of dawn, the balloon takes an upside-down teardrop shape. Now it is vertical, ready for take-off. Captain Barnabas, witty and voluble, gives us a safety briefing as we clamber into the basket.
Up, up and away, ever so gently. We float along low above the Mara, kissing the tops of the few trees we cross. I read somewhere that the Masai Mara derives its name from a word that means ‘dot’: It is a vast field of grass dotted with trees, animals and cloud shadows.
The sun rises, a white-hot globe in a sky so orange it looks like the painted backdrop of an old movie. How fitting: we are here to make a new film, Murals. Bathed in the auspicious first light of the Kenyan sun, weightless in our floating basket, we sense that the creative opportunities before us are limitless.
Of Hot Air Balloon Rides and a Moving Shadow
My character in Murals is, amongst other things, an avid amateur photographer – something I am in real life as well. So as I click with abandon in this photographer’s paradise, I am me.
And I am not me.
As we gain altitude, we see elephants feeding in a rare patch of forest. They look distinctly blue in the early morning light: a lucky charm for Easterners, offering mystical power and protection.
Shoma is my director and co-actor in the film. She toggles between being herself, being the director and being the actress. Her character and mine were lovers once. He had disappeared abruptly from her life after a misunderstanding. Many years later, their paths cross in the Mara. Dredged-up feelings are confronted and a reassessment of the past takes place through the lens of the present.
On the ground, a clearly-defined shadow of the balloon: It heralds our appearance overhead, as we move westward. Grazing wild buffaloes, bathed in our shadow, look up.
Are we magic to them?
The fire of our balloon, high up in the sky; the sparkling sunrise lighting up our rainbow dirigible; a fairly-tale object for the creatures of the Mara?
The Lion Kingdom
Ashish is our cinematographer. Talented. Tireless. He alternates between shooting the aerial view and us, the two protagonists. He alternates between shooting stills and video. He alternates between two cameras and multiple lenses.
Yellowing tall grass is all around. Animals and birds play peekaboo amongst its blades. The lions’ coat blends especially well with its colour: As if the savannah were designed to be bespoke camouflage for its king.
Nevertheless, we spy a lion, lionesses and cubs from on high. We are promised a closer look on a game drive we would be taken on later. Soon it is time to descend and despite the captain’s warning about bumpy landings and brace positions we alight so gently on the grass-covered ground, it takes us a moment to realize that we are no longer airborne.
A champagne breakfast awaits us – a smashing end to the air trip. We eat and drink heartily, appetites whetted by bracing winds. Then it is time for our drive. We get close to the pride of lions we had seen from above. We watch them, now just a few metres away. They watch us too. The cubs are playful. The lioness, watchful. The lion, lazy yet in command.
The lions come so close we can almost smell their breath. Our vehicle is open-topped but our guide Simon assures us that, unless we step out, we are safe. Perhaps the big cats see the vehicle and its occupants as one big animal. Or perhaps we do not suit their palate.
Simon tells us of a cheetah, affectionately named Malaika – ‘Angel’ in Swahili – who has been known to hop into cars and examine their occupants. I am relieved that we are spared such an encounter. I do not think my heart could take it.
(This is part one of a series on shooting a movie in the Masai Mara.)
(Sumanto Chattopadhyay’s day job is that of a creative director with Ogilvy, South Asia, where he’s won many international awards for creativity. Sumanto is also an actor. He has worked with celebrated directors like Gurinder Chadha, Kumar Shahani and Buddhadeb Dasgupta. His other passions include acting, photography and writing – short stories, poetry, articles on advertising, culture, language and travel.)
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