Location Diaries: Dancing in a storm

Kolaigaran hero Vijay Antony travelled to Abu Dhabi to shoot a song in the desert. “I expected conditions to be hot in Abu Dhabi, and was preparing myself for the change in climate,” he says. “I wasn’t, however, prepared to be hit by a sand storm, and right at the beginning of the shoot, no less!”

It supposedly happened when Vijay Antony and heroine Ashima Narwal were shooting a song titled Kolladhe. “Strong winds began blowing, and the locals told us that it usually was a precursor to a storm,” Vijay says. “Despite the heat, we somehow continued to shoot, even though it was hard to keep the eyes open from the flying sand.” He also shares that there was nowhere to run for cover.

The team apparently secured permission to shoot for only a few hours every day at the desert. “I knew the lighting would change, and didn’t want to inconvenience the team. So we decided to soldier on,” he says. Director Andrew Louis, however, had a problem. “He noticed that I kept shutting my eyes as an instinctive response to the sand,” he adds. “We didn’t decide to reshoot though. The director eventually decided to use those portions, and trusted that they would seem like I was closing my eyes, deep in love.”

Vijay credits Ashima for dealing with the weather issues far better than he did. “She showed no sign that we were shooting amid a storm.” A few days later, the team had to contend with another storm in Abu Dhabi. “But this time, we had learned how to cope. But all the shooting there came at a cost,” he says, referring to his tanned appearance."