Akshay Kumat The most Bravest in Bolly Ever

Mumbai:
Blue director Anthony D'Souza gives a glimpse into how it feels to scuba dive with 20 killing machines circling around you

The first time you freak out, but it soon becomes second nature. When Blue director Anthony D'Souza first swam with sharks in the Bahamas as part of the location scout for his first film, he admits it was more than scary. "I went scuba diving with my underwater director of photography Pete Zuccarini. It's such a wonderful world down there. There were about 10 sharks where we were swimming and the first 10 minutes when they swim near you are really scary. They were less than two feet away!"

Touted as one of the biggest-budgeted films and releasing in Diwali this year, the Ashtavinayak-produced Blue has shot entire sequences underwater. Anthony assures you that sharks have been misunderstood; that Steven Spielberg's Jaws has given the predators a bad rep. Given the best safety precautions, swimming with sharks can be quite the exhilarating experience, as the cast and crew of Blue found out.



Some ground rules

>>Don't wear brightly coloured swimwear or gear. "Surfers are attacked because they wear bright clothes and look like fish to sharks. That's why divers wear pale shades," reveals Anthony.

>>Don't wave your hands the shark doesn't see your fingers as separate digits and that's why it makes a grab for it.

>>Don't get into the water when sharks are being fed. "They get into a feeding frenzy and might mistake you for fish." The shark's eyes roll up and become completely white when they feed, which makes them look eerier.

>>Sharks go into a frenzy when they smell blood their bite is lethal and can rip a person apart.

>>Unlike dolphins, sharks are unpredictable and predator-like, the perfect killing machines. "They're like any other dangerous animal. They feed and procreate," says Anthony, grinning.

Baiting sharks

To invite sharks on the sets of Blue so they could shoot, Anthony's trained team of shark wranglers had to bait them. "You chomp the sharks by feeding them so they swim around you. But of course, you have to be wearing the chain mail to protect yourself from their jaws," he says. The stuntmen who took on the parts of leading men Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt and Zayed Khan, had fish all over them to attract the sharks. "When the sharks chomped, bags of fake blood on the stuntmen would tear," Anthony explains.

Stars and sharks

>>Akshay Kumar had a close call on Blue. For one action sequence where he had to take off his oxygen tank and glasses, the action hero hit his head on a rusty steel beam and started oozing blood. Anthony had his heart in his mouth as the sharks made a beeline for the blood. " Luckily, the safety guys closed in on Akshay and took him out immediately.When he came up, I couldn't see his face, it was covered in blood.[/color] I thought that was the end of my film, but Akshay just asked me, 'Did you get the shot?' and walked away."

>>Sanjay Dutt had an encounter too. When he rehearsed a scene, he had a good shark, but for the actual take, Sanjay ended up trapped with a "badly-behaved shark. He tried snapping at Mr Dutt, but we pulled him off".

>>Of the three men, Zayed Khan was the most experienced scuba diver, but this backfired on him. On the first day, an enthusiastic Zayed went down 140 feet and his ears almost popped. Once out of the water, Zayed was down with an ear infection. Akshay was the most comfortable in the water, but Sanjay struggled, as he had a lung problem.

>>So, did Lara Dutta, as the only female star on the watery sets, behave differently with the sharks? Anthony grins. "Yes, she wanted to go feel them! She swam with a less dangerous species, the nurse sharks."

Shooting underwater

While Anthony had Director Of Photography Laxman Utekar for all the scenes except the underwater ones, Pete Zuccarini manned the ocean camera. This involved a hydroflex camera, one that's put into a box to prevent water going in and sharks from eating it. "We even got a shot of the inside of a shark's mouth."

Oscar-winning technician Resul Pookutty has done Blue's sound, using special mikes and software. "When I was down in the water, I noticed that a ship creaks like a haunted house, so Resul actually went down to record that himself." Resul also used a simulated pool at the Warner Bros Studio to record splashing.

Turtles and dolphins

Anthony says that apart from sharks, he also shot scenes with the stars riding on the back of a five-foot turtle. "Dolphins are fun. We went to a place to stay overnight where we could shoot them and once they came out, they stayed for about five hours. Dolphins are so friendly, they're like pups in a park. They come into the frame even when you don't want them to!"