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The dominant theme of every Last Man Standing location up until now has been its remoteness from the trappings of civilisation. Concrete has been nowhere to be seen... until now.

For this location, the athletes stayed in a rather ramshackle wrestling school in the middle of the city of Kolhapur, and were surrounded with little else but concrete.

For the production team this had its advantages and disadvantages.

We got to stay in a hotel during the shoot (a rarity for Last Man Standing) but it wasn't exactly the most comfortable or modern.

But it at least guaranteed us a power supply and somewhere secure to store equipment.

The downside of this was that we were further away from the athletes, as ordinarily we would camp only a short walk away from where they were staying. This meant daily drives to and from the training school through the madness that is the hugely crowded roads of Kolhapur.

The rituals of the training school and the Ustaad had to be observed not just by the students, but by the production team also.

So anyone entering the training area, and particularly the wrestling pit had to first ask permission of the Ustaad and ensure that their feet were bare.

Filming the athletes in the final event was hugely exciting as it tested them in ways that other locations have not, and the tension and excitement as the fights grew closer was infectious, but the pressure they felt to perform well in front of so many people must have been immense.

Unfortunately that night, one of our assistant producers was taken ill and confined to his bed for the evening. This meant I was promoted up our batting order and found myself filming in the wrestling ring as second camera.

Mike Garner, our excellent cameraman, and I discussed beforehand just how to handle filming.

This was complicated by this being an event that happens in a circular ring with fast movement and plenty of people 'needing' to be in the ring also.

We attempted to keep at 90 degrees from each other. But with the action moving so fast this wasn't always possible... and I think we both end up on screen at some point.

My biggest memory of the final event was the noise coming from the crowd – it really was just staggering and something I'll never forget.

Tim Pyke, Production Co-ordinator

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