how to make monkey man Indeed, it was a marathon ordeal in which Patel's opponents were no other fighters, whether in the arena or in the slums on screen. Rather, it was all the dangers a filmmaker could face. Your video card breaks and you lose days of work. Your star (who was also Patel) endured multiple injuries including broken hands and legs. And, oh yeah, the coronavirus shutdown happened during what was supposed to be the first week of filming.
Patel vividly remembers standing in the middle of one of Mumbai's busiest districts in March 2020 when the news came that principal photography would be delayed.
“I remember that moment because I was there for a few more days,” Patel said. “And we were like, 'Oh, this is OK.'” And after a few days, it was like, 28 days later In Mumbai. There was no traffic jam on the road. The fog has cleared. It was empty. And I literally got off the last seat on the last flight. At that point the movie was dead. ”
monkey man was a film that survived a catastrophe, and each day Patel found a chance to shoot a few scenes or set up a few cameras was a victory. Ultimately, much of the film was shot in Indonesia after Patel convinced investors that “I can do it, I can do it.” I've been there too and it's amazing. Perfect fit. (He had never set foot in Indonesia in his life.) But that didn't stop Patel from eventually buying a camera with his own money and working against the pandemic to capture some key moments. I flew back to India on the side. “I needed to add a bit of an Indian feel to the textures, so I snuck out during editing and shot some material and sequences and wove them in,” he added.
The result was a film that was completely different from what he originally had in mind. For example, the film's entire opening sequence (in which Patel is introduced as a “monkey” in an underground fight club run by a creepy South African expat played by Patel's real-life friend Sharlto Copley) was changed after production. Remade on the spot. The reality of relocating production to Indonesia.
“It started out very different,” Patel says. “We weren't able to shoot the first 15 pages of the script because we had to lose a lot of money due to coronavirus restrictions. Having all the actors quarantined for two weeks took a big chunk of the budget. . So we didn't get to shoot the opening we had envisioned, so we had to come up with another way to get into the movie, and that had a ripple effect.'' We eventually found out why. monkey man Flashbacks are interspersed throughout the running time, which highlight the protagonist's trauma.
