The whole thing started simply enough. A board comes through the fax machine, we put our brains to work, do some serious research, and quote this sucker. Sarah Ker-Hornell prevails upon her many contacts for advice and information. We pore over reams of material culled from the Net and provided by the agency. We’re quite a team. We’ve got this covered. Nothing can surprise us.

Some weeks later, the wished-for words: the job is awarded. High fives and drinks all around, the team is assembled.

The client: Kraft Canada, Nabob Coffee, Golden Java Sumatra Blend. The agency: J. Walter Thompson; Shenny Jaffer, producer; Dean Hore, copywriter; Andy Brokenshire, art director. The production house: Angel Films, Sarah Ker-Hornell, executive producer; Peter Nydrle, director/cameraman; Nina Valiquette, line producer; Lisa Broadfoot, coordinator (who doesn’t get to fly to Indonesia but does get to tangle with paperwork and write this pithy article). The location: Sumatra, Indonesia.

And so our trials begin. We embark upon the long and arduous journey coordinating with the Indonesian consulate. We learn to navigate through the labyrinth of bureaucracy entailed in acquiring work permits, and we become minor experts in tropical diseases and the prevention thereof. We find and book reputable crew. (Did we mention that Sumatra is 11 hours ahead?) We all become used to living in three time zones.

Bits and pieces about Indonesia start cropping up in the news everywhere. An article detailing a number of deadly tiger attacks on the island of Sumatra. A travel advisory warning travelers of rebel attacks and kidnappings. Brush fires have been sparked all over northern Sumatra. This is the year of El Nino, a tidal anomaly known to wreak havoc with weather systems across southeast AsiaÉ

Nonetheless, we persevere. As the departure date draws near, the paperwork multiplies almost of its own volition, the job folder becomes the job binder. But we have followed the rules, we have played the game, we have jumped through the hoops. Being good, law-abiding Canadians well-versed in the ways of complex bureaucracy, we assume that this means all is well, that we will be rewarded for our trials with the cooperation of the Indonesian government.

The big day arrives; we send Nina off to Los Angeles to meet with the director, and then she’s off to Jakarta to do a preliminary scout and start prepping.

Suddenly, the director is no longer on the government list of approved work permits. Mysterious fees begin to emerge, harbingers of much graft to come.

The dry season in Sumatra has gone on too long, and lush and green has become sparse and brown. Soldiering on, however, Nina and Shenny put together a workable shooting schedule with locations before the rest of the team arrives. An elaborate dance with customs to release our film ensues, a lot of cash is dispersed. (Dear cost consultant: how does one receipt a bribe?)

The weather begins to rebel in earnest. Locations which have been scouted, approved and prepped are burned to the ground in the waves of forest fire traveling to the south. For example, not one, but three soccer pitches were burned, equaling 16 permits. So we rescout, repermit – ah yes, once the government location permits are acquired, one must sit with the ‘wise man’ of each village for his piece of the pie. Submarines are spotted off the coastÉ

A pissing contest between the military (from whom we have diligently acquired location permits) and the navy (which has decided to expropriate the land for a secret naval base) has erupted, and our crew is caught in the middle, their papers and film confiscated.

Representatives are dispatched to Jakarta to the Department of Intelligence to attempt to reverse the revocation. Bribes are accepted. The permits never are. They do, however, manage to retrieve their passports. A note to all working in such lands: the Canadian embassy is powerless until the point of actual incarceration.

Devil’s luck prevails, and our intrepid team manages to shoot (ever tried to move nine elephants around 100 kilometers over a period of three days?).

Thanks to the wonders of a fabulous color correct by director/ cameraman Peter Nydrle and his l.a. colorist, Sumatra miraculously appears once again lush. Gillian McCarthy at Third Floor begins to work her magic, and two spots emerge where once there was one. This is, after all the madness, what we went there to get: beautiful film, a great commercial or two, and a satisfied client. And it is a damn fine cup of coffee.

(Now, if our production box could only get out of Indonesian customsÉ)

Lisa Broadfoot is production coordinator at Angel Films, Toronto.