This year I got a little taste of Bollywood—okay, not quite the romantic musicals this film production mecca is often associated with. My experience involved producing a film that would give an insider’s look at how a major high-tech Indian company collaborates with the U.S. market research giant Nielsen to provide global consumer insights.

The only catch was that we had just a few weeks to secure film crews in three different cities—Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai—along with a hair and makeup artist for this corporate documentary. We also had to audition associates at the high-tech firm to be the main characters, while carefully planning six days of jam-packed filming.

With experience booking crews all over the world, Natalie Halpern Productions, stepped in to take care of all pre-production for this eight-minute corporate documentary.

Having worked on award-winning documentaries for the BBC, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic Channel, the cinematographer we hired for this film shot some beautiful footage that captured the true essence of India and the subject of the film, Tata Consultancy Services, whose parent company owns Land Rover, Jaguar and Tetley Tea.

Candid, well-spoken and passionate, the two main characters we selected for the film, Namrata and Rameeze, were naturals. It was hard to believe this was their first time in front of the camera.

And the makeup artist… Even though she fought through an unbelievably crazy rush hour in Bangalore (many times worse than in L.A.) she made Namrata look like a movie star, which made her feel even more confident.

Who knows where we’ll be planning our next shoot, but with contacts across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, our set spans the globe.

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