By SHEELA NARAYANAN

THE Mission: Be a fly on the wall on the set of Priyadarshan Nair's De Dana Dan and hopefully not get swatted by the producer, director or the two hot film stars - Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif - for being too nosy.

LOCATION ONE: RAFFLES PLACE

By mid-morning on May 8, as one of the many song sequences was being filmed, sweaty fans had already assembled. Men in business togs whipped out handphones to capture a few eye-catching megapixels of Katrina in a short yellow dress.

When I aimed my camera at the actress, her unsmiling bodyguard waved me away and growled: "No pictures of ma'am". A quick flash of my press credentials and I was back in focus.

When I tried to get an interview with Akshay, he politely asked me to speak with his personal assistant.

Although when he realised I was Singaporean, he managed a compliment: "It's nice here." Some Singaporeans didn't repay the compliment.

One woman, assuming I was part of the crew, asked me if she could walk through an area cordoned off with a red-and-white construction tape. When I suggested she may be better off walking around the set, she exclaimed "Aiyah!" and stomped off in a huff.

As the lunch hour loomed, the crowd got bigger.

Eager fans tried to get as close as possible to the actors. Some shouted to the stars for an autograph. Others took the old fashioned route, begging.

Katrina's driver-cum-bodyguard Dilip Kumar, from Atlas Transport Services and Events, recounted how one woman had pleaded with him and used guilt to get an autograph from Katrina: "She brought her young daughter saying it was her birthday and could Ma'am (Katrina) sign an autograph for her. Another woman begged me to pass a Mother's Day note to the stars. Most of the time she is quite obliging but some fans can be quite pushy," he said.

Fans like these make bodyguard K. Ramesh Kumar, who runs local firm BlackNightz Enterprise, nervous. As one of the three bodyguards hired for the shoot, he's had his hands full. "Most of the time the fans are okay, all they want is an autograph or a picture. Some of them though can be quite rude. They insist on seeing the stars and sometimes shout into our faces for not letting them through," he said.

They weren't the only ones worried about the crowd. Director Priyadarshan, known to be a perfectionist, got so irritated with the peering crowd at times that he changed the camera's direction to focus on a less crowded spot.

When the shooting wrapped up at 1pm, Katrina and Akshay quickly spilt up and headed for their the Mercedes cars that waited for them. Meanwhile, a crewmember shouted out: "Next location, Clarke Quay." Which made me raise my eyebrows in surprise, as I knew it was the East Coast Park. I found out later that this is a ruse used often to prevent the crowd from following them.

I hitched a ride with the crew on their bus and was invited to dig into the packed lunch of roti, dal, rice and vegetables that awaited them.

LOCATION TWO: EAST COAST PARK

AFTER the lunch break - Akshay ate at the hotel while Priyadarshan asked his driver Amit Sandhu to take him to Ananda Bhavan in Syed Alwi Road for a south Indian vegetarian meal - it was back to setting up for the shoot.

Local company Film Equipment Gallery (FEG), which provided most of the film equipment, was setting up a crane. FEG's Jessea Ismail, one of those helping with the crane, said the director wanted an overhead shot. Having worked on Bollywood films like Krrish and Vaada before, he told tabla! that Bollywood directors "always like using the crane".

Katrina had changed into a tight red number - her dresser Anouksha Veljee, who works with the film's designer Rocky S, revealed to tabla! that she picked up the dress from Far East Plaza in Scotts Road.

Akshay turned up a little later with his bodyguard, his personal assistant Nitin, his hairdresser Milan and a skinny pink-haired Caucasian woman whom the crewmembers said was either his personal trainer or manager.

And soon the fans arrived too. Most of them were East Coast residents, mainly from Mandarin Gardens, and had received phone calls from friends who had seen the crew set up. They, in turn, informed their friends.

I overheard one woman speaking into her mobile phone: "Where are you? Akshay and Katrina are here. Come quick."

In the next hour, about 20 fans, mostly women, showed up, some with their children in tow, gesturing to Katrina to take a photo with them. She eventually obliged them with a group photo.

One fan, Ngee Ann Polytechnic mechanical engineering student Randhir Sidhu, spent close to $20 in taxi fare from VivoCity to East Coast Park as he desperately wanted to get a photograph with his favourite actress. After which he proceeded to do a little bhangra of joy.

In between scenes, Akshay and Katrina horsed around with their friends, taking photos, chatting, drinking plenty of Evian and lemon-lime flavoured Gatorade. Katrina later had her pink-haired friend buy her a late lunch of a spinach salad which she ate with her back to the fans.

According to a crewmember who declined to be named, the svelte actress has tofu salad and pumpkin soup for lunch every day. And she works out daily at the gym, sometimes spending nearly five hours there. Considering the number of tight outfits she had to squeeze herself into for this movie, are you surprised?

She didn't seem to mind roughing it out a bit though. In the absence of a vanity van, she had to change into these skin-tight dresses in the park's public toilets. Of course, she had two bodyguards, her dresser and two make-up artistes stand guard at the door.

As they were doing her last shot of the day, Katrina clutched her back in pain and told Priyadarshan she had hurt her back and couldn't do any more takes. He said okay and gave her a big goodbye hug as she was done with her scenes in Singapore.

Katrina then made a dash to the airport to catch an 8pm Singapore Airlines flight to Mumbai - first class naturally, with five pieces of luggage.