Gojek Go-Video 2016 – Arang & Asa

It’s so tricky for me to even contemplate regularly updating this blog as my days are filled with meetings and being on location on shoot days, and every spare minute I have is taken up with having adventures with Samudra. This leaves very little time for updating about what we’ve been up to, and much less I am too tired to lug around the big heavy camera these days. So I have millions of phone photos on my laptop, some now over a year old, waiting to be shared but time goes so quickly that most will never see the light of day!

So I have decided to share some behind the scenes photos on one of our favourite shoots, so you can get a glimpse of what we get up to every day away from the play dates and malls and parks.

There’s no way you can miss all those green helmets and jackets out on the streets these days, they seem to be everywhere, and Samudra proudly points out every time we are out and about “Gojek mumma! Gojek!”…. Once upon a time I wouldn’t have dreamed of using their service as I had my regular ojek drivers all over Jakarta, but once I finally used their service, I was hooked! Gojek have expanded rapidly and they are here to make life so much easier for those of us living in the highly traffic congested city of Jakarta. You can get a ride on a motorbike to anywhere you want, have your groceries or other shopping picked up for you (Go-Mart), order a massage to your home (Go-Massage), a cleaning service (Go-Clean), have your makeup done for a special event and much more, all at the press of a button. They have saved me many times when I have run out of milk for Samudra and they have delivered come rain, hail or shine and now I can’t remember what Jakarta was like without them as I use them so regularly. So we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a video for them for their Go-Video competition 2016, and we are eternally grateful for all the support from everyone involved and are proud to announce we have made it into the top 20 films, with the overall winner to be announced on May 11. Winning or losing doesn’t matter to us, what matters is that everyone involved so happily offered their services to be a part of the film and it was fun making it.

After a walk through our neighbourhood kampungs as is usual for me and Samudra as he has so many friends there and we both love the energy in the areas, we came across an adorable marching band practising for a competition in Ancol (they subsquently came in first place!). I knew we had to change the original storyline to somehow include these kids as they brought tears to my eyes when I watched them proudly parading around swinging flags and banging on their drums. On shoot day when they arrived wearing their costumes I melted as it was one of the sweetest sights I have seen here in a long time. Everyone involved made an amazing effort although it was pouring raining on and off throughout the whole shoot, which was funny considering our Art Department had built a rain maker for effect in our night scene, but perhaps the skies were blessing us so we wouldn’t need to use it?

It was a great a smooth two days shooting and again I personally thank everyone for giving their time to make this film a reality. A huge thank you to all the talent in the film, especially the incredible, humble, and very patient Pak Fuad who had to battle all the elements of the skies during shoot days, and always with a huge grin on his face.

You can view the final film at www.anatmanpictures.com