A beach shoot in Goa is timed backwards from sunrise, which comes at about half past six in October and about seven in January.
Take seven in January. The camera can work about twenty minutes earlier, your hair and makeup come before the camera, and the drive comes before both. Models who have done beach days mostly put the alarm between half past three and five.
Our own ranges are shot in a room, and a room has a door, shade, a toilet and a floor that stays still. Here is what stands in for them on the sand, and what to ask.
Why a swimwear shoot in Goa starts in the dark
On a beach the light is low twice a day, and this close to the equator it goes quickly. About an hour and a half after it rises the sun is throwing hard shadows, and the morning is over somewhere between eight and nine.
The second window is the last hour and a half or so before sunset, and it ends in the stretch people call golden hour. Sunset is at about six in November and December, and later at either end of the season.
Two short windows, and a long gap that nobody on the crew chose. Find out whether your booking uses one or both, because a day that uses both ends at dark.
The day in four parts
The order of the day is that of a studio day, from call time to wrap. What moves is the clock.
The alarm and the drive
Set by a map. From the north of the state to the beaches of the far south is about two hours by road before dawn, and longer by day. So where you sleep decides your alarm. If the stay is yours to arrange, ask where the beach is before you book it.
Ask the day before whether anyone is collecting you, and when, because a car at four in the morning is not something to start looking for at four in the morning.
The morning window
From first light until the shadows go hard. Dawn is about twenty degrees from December to February and about twenty-four in October. Wet, in swimwear, in the light breeze off the land, that can raise gooseflesh while the picture says summer, and the crew are usually wearing more than you are.
Look for a robe or towel put round you the moment a frame ends. Bring your own down to the sand, since the vehicle is at the road.
The beach fills on a timetable: cleaning crews start at about six, shacks can open from seven and water sports are allowed from eight. The quiet is short.
The middle hours
Light that crews avoid, and where everyone spends these hours varies.
By late morning dry sand in full sun can burn bare feet, which is what your flip-flops are for. The midday sun is strong in every month of the season. Sunscreen goes on more than once. We carry it on shoot days, and the notes for the week before say why to bring a matte one.
Sitting or kneeling prints your skin with sand and a texture that takes time to fade. Between frames stand, or sit on a towel.
The second window
The light now comes off the water, and the sea breeze that arrived around the middle of the day is in your hair.
The waterline has moved too. Goa has two high waters and two low waters a day, and on a flat beach the edge of the sea moves tens of metres between them. A bag put down near the frame at low water is in the way of the sea later.
A beach has no door
Vehicles cannot be driven onto the beaches of Goa without authorisation, so the vehicle, and whatever lives in it, stays where the road ends. What stands in for the room varies. It can be a pop-up tent, the vehicle at the road, or a room nearby. The differences are time and who can see in. A walk to the road and back comes out of the morning window.
Licensed beach shacks may open only from seven, and each has to provide a portable toilet. Early in the season they have often not been built yet, and not every beach has them. At a dawn call a shack is not a plan.
How deep you go is decided on dry sand
The water is warm all season, which says nothing about what it is doing. In October the sea is often rougher than in the months that follow, and the beach face cut by the monsoon stays steeper into November, with abrupt changes of depth. Waves knock people over, and wet fabric is heavy.
The lifeguard service the state appoints works from seven in the morning until sunset. A shoot that starts at first light starts before it. The service itself says rip currents can occur anywhere on the coast.
That is why, on a bikini shoot in Goa, you agree the depth of a shot on dry sand, before the frame. Ask how deep the deepest one goes. A deeper frame asked for from the water is a new decision, taken the same way. If you do not swim, say so when the booking is offered, and again on dry sand. It is a planning fact, like a shoe size, and of more use before the day than on it.
Pale or thinly lined fabric shows through more when wet, most with the light behind it. Ask whether a pale piece is lined before you go in wearing it, and look at the first wet frame.
Other people and their phones
Models describe tourists walking up and taking pictures. The state tourism department has advised visitors not to photograph strangers without permission. It is advice, and not everybody has read it.
A stranger's picture is one nobody checked, and nobody agreed its usage with you. Ask who on the crew deals with people filming, so that when a phone appears you have one person to tell. The photographer is looking through a lens and can be the last to notice.
Who is holding the permission
A shoot that films in Goa needs a film shooting permission, issued through the Entertainment Society of Goa. An officer can stop a shoot that has none, on the spot, and seize the equipment. The rules as published do not settle whether a shoot that takes only stills needs one, which is why the answer you hear might be that this one is stills only. That answer does not cover video.
None of that is your paperwork. Your one question is who is holding the permission, because a morning stopped by an officer does not come back.
Questions for whoever is booking you
What the weather will do on a beach has no answer. We once lost two days to rain learning that. The other questions have answers, and they vary by client:
- Which beach it is, whether you are collected and when, and how you get back
- Whether the day uses one window of light or both
- Where you change and wait, and where the shade, the water and the toilet are
- How deep you are expected to go in the sea, and who is watching
- Who deals with people filming, and who is holding the permission
The second has money in it, so ask how a split day is counted and paid.
Ask before you accept the booking. By the time your alarm goes, the answers are whatever was packed the night before.