A city doctor treks across India's downtown streets via auto rickshaw, then through a winding, rural road aboard a bus and finally down a grassy slope by bicycle to administer to a village patient in need of a cardiogram. It's all in a day's work for the doctor and for GE, whose mission to bring modern healthcare to rural India is illustrated in "Backpack", through BBDO, New York.

The brief specifically called for the action to occur in rural India, so the next question facing BBDO, spot directors Traktor and the production team from Partizan was exactly where to shoot in the region's vast spaces.

"We narrowed it down to the Mumbai area because it offered a lot and it has a great production community," says BBDO director of TV production Regina Ebel. "So we scouted based on Mumbai being the base. From there, we narrowed it down to the city of Pune, about three or four hours away, so the crew could travel there easily."

Located 150 kilometers to the east of Mumbai - home of Bollywood, the largest film producer in the world - Pune, at five million people, is the second largest city in the state of Maharashtra, well-connected to most of India's major centers. That aspect satisfied the practical requirements of the shoot - all crew, equipment and the main cast came from Mumbai. Pune's city district also fulfilled the need to film the first part of the spot in a downtown core, but according to Traktor, the collective also wanted to achieve a "small town poignancy" for the village scenes, with which Pune was also suitably equipped.

"Pune is a small city in India but it's still a huge city, which offered us the whole beginning of the story," explains Ebel. "Within the two-hour range of Pune, there was tremendous opportunity for [shots of] rural India and really an untouched kind of lifestyle, [with] big vast open spaces and people indigenous to the community that gave us a real local feel."

Shot over three days in November, the spot was filmed in the midst of India's high season for tourism. "The practicality of getting rooms for a large crew in places like Rajasthan or Kerala also had to be considered," says Srila Chatterjee, EP of Highlight Films, who looked after production services for the spot.

Although Pune offered cheaper travel and room availability in India's expensive and tourist-heavy high season, there was still the matter of the volume of people - practically unavoidable anywhere in the world's second most populous country.

"Crowd control is a huge issue," says Ebel. "There are so many people and they are just so curious. Even in the rural country shots, we'd be up on the edge of a mountain shooting down on the road, and all of a sudden people would just start to gather even though there wasn't a house in sight."

The large population also meant traffic congestion, which was managed with increased prep-time.

"The traffic is like being on 42nd Street on New Year's Eve," warns Ebel. "To get to a location, chances are you're giving yourself an hour to two hours."

With the action of "Backpack" taking place on various roads it was crucial that the congestion not interfere with shooting. Pune's more rural areas were adequately remote for the production to shoot with relative ease.

"Our farthest drive was under two hours in peak traffic," says Chatterjee. "The roads were remote enough to virtually be at our disposal." Strategically-placed security crew members were able to lock up traffic and people for each shot.

Aiming for an authentic local feel, Traktor shot in a village near Pune, whose name they are carefully guarding since film productions don't regularly, if ever, shoot there. Still, the locals were very accommodating despite the village's unfamiliarity with the bustle of a film shoot.

"They were receptiveness embodied," say Traktor. "During scouting, they invited us into their homes, gave us interesting teas and asked about Charles Bronson."

A local couple was also willing to let the production redress their home to stand in for the village clinic. "The kindest of gentlemen, 70-plus years old, and his wife allowed us to use their home," say Traktor. "The color was his, the dressing was ours."

The locals were generally open to the shoot - some even participated, with the "patient" being a non-actor cast in Pune, as were the group of children excitedly surrounding the visiting doctor. Still, Chatterjee recommended that the team be as non-invasive as possible.

"Our only advice was sensitivity to the locals because we were shooting in villages that had very little contact with the outside world normally, and even less with foreigners," she says. "The whole production of a film shoot, with its excesses and waste, was something we tried to tone down, and we had the [participating] locals play what they would normally be as much as possible."

Despite the challenges, Ebel is enthusiastic about the outcome. "The traffic and the humanity are shocks to the system but it was honestly a fabulous experience."

GOOD TO KNOW
Currency: 1 USD = 40 INR (rupees)
weather: India's high season roughly takes place from November to March, which means higher prices and tourist traffic. Its low season runs from June to August, where prices are reduced but monsoon season rears its head with temperatures that regularly exceed 100F.
Transport: Pune is connected to India's three major film centers Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad and can be accessed via road and by rail. Traktor note that the crew faced a four-hour freezing train ride back to Mumbai - and Pune Airport.

BBDO http://www.bbdo.com
Partizan http://www.partizan.com
Highlight Films http://www.highlightfilms.com