Recce and Location Scouting, Bhadrapur

Battling a 16 hour drive on our way to Bhadrapur for Recce and Location Scouting

Nepal is full of uncertainties and surprises. While filming in Nepal these uncertainties become hurdles that one needs to work around in order to complete projects successfully. Months and months of prior planning, sometimes, seem irrelevant and ineffective while filming in Nepal. The team of Fixers at Threemm Films were presented with such obstacles during a Recce and Location Scouting trip to Bhadrapur but they returned victorious!

Smaragd Media, a German Production Company, contacted Himalayan Fixer, one of the founding members of Threemm Films 3 months prior to a Documentary Film Project in a community forest in Bhadrapur, Nepal. The task was to provide logistics related to Film Permit, Drone Permit, Custom Clearance, Accommodation, Transportation and other on Location Production Support. All the necessary plans and contingencies had been made a month prior to the International Crew’s arrival in Nepal. 

A phone call two weeks prior to the Documentary Film Shoot made by a hotel that the team of Fixers from Threemm Films had booked in Bhadrapur presented itself as an obstacle for the entire plan of this Documentary Film Shoot. The call was regarding the cancellation of the booking made by the Fixers due to an ongoing poker event in all of the major hotels in Bhadrapur. Since Bhadrapur was an unknown territory for the Fixers at Threemm Films, an instant decision was made to travel to Bhadrapur immediately in order to find alternative accommodation options pre-pone the Recce and Location scouting plan. 

Due to the urgency of the matter and constant flight cancellations, the Fixers at Threemm Films decided to travel by road. The journey began at 5 in the evening on a motorbike and the roads promised a 12 hour drive. However, the heavy but inconsistent rainstorms along the way and the fact that the journey was being made at night on a motorbike bought about challenges of its own. A team from Threemm Films consisting of two Fixers reached Bhadrapur mid afternoon the next day with no sleep or rest along the way whatsoever only to realise that the challenge of this Recce and Location Scouting trip had just begun. 

This poker event posed a bigger threat than initially expected since all of the hotels in the area were fully booked for an entire month. The team had less than a day to figure out the accommodation and also successfully complete Recce and Location Scouting for the Documentary Film Project. Upon searching, however, the team found a hotel that did not fully fulfil the criteria of the clients but was affordable and, not to mention, the only option available at hand. 

The next challenge was to figure out the exact location of the Community Forest at Jalthal where the shoot was supposed to take place and the distance between the airport, the shoot location and the hotel. The team figured out three different routes to the hotel from the airport while timing each of these routes in order to find the most convenient and time effective way to get there. 

After winnowing through such challenging circumstances, the team made sure to finalise the booking with the hotel in order to avoid any unforeseen changes in the near future. The team then had to travel back the same route and faced similar challenges on the way back to Kathmandu. Although, the importance of this Recce and Location Scouting trip was definitely felt during the onset of the documentary film shoot and was highly appreciated by the German Filming Crew since it gave structure and context to the entire project. Such events beautifully capture and showcase the reliability of the team here at Threemm Films and the genuine passion we possess for every project that we take on.