TRAILER

SUMMING UP

For a production like this, there would normally be a lead time of up to six weeks. A team of researchers would be fine-tuning locations, characters and stories, and local fixers would be hard at work, making sure everything was in place, ready for the arrival of the crew at each stop. And before a single frame had been shot, the commissioning broadcaster would be confident in knowing almost exactly what programme they would eventually be putting to air.

For us it was different. We’d stumbled upon The Rickshaw Run at the last minute, so we didn’t have that luxury. Two HD camera crews, transport, flights, food and hotels don’t come cheap and we’d arrived in Goa, thirteen strangers with less of an idea of where we were going than what we’d be doing when we got there. But when everything fell into place, day after day, for two weeks, what had initially been our biggest challenge, quickly became the show’s biggest selling point.

It didn’t take us long to realise that what we were making was something totally original. While too many travel programmes bombard the viewer with facts, figures, strange characters and quirky stories, we found ourselves focussing more on the actual experience of getting from A to B. After all, arriving in Pokhara was our number one goal. Whatever happened and whomever we met along the way would be a bonus. For us, the real story would be in how our three drivers would handle the journey, how they would react to what they saw and how they would get along while bumping cheek to cheek for two weeks.

Daily interviews provide the narrative, the story unfolding in a completely honest, reflective and immediate way. I think we’ve come up with a totally fresh and original approach to the travel format and I think that could well be a welcome change for many viewers.

By the time we arrived in Nepal, we’d seen every inch of that road from Goa at ground level. But without all those facts and figures, there’s plenty of room left for a much more entertaining story – the story of three people laughing, crying and bonding as they clatter their way into the unknown.