Jadoo had a truly wonderful reception at the Berlin Film Festival in February, where it was one of only three UK narrative features in official selection. It was wonderful to hear the comedy working so well for a German audience reading German subtitles.

The success of the film at the Berlinale prompted invitations from over a dozen festivals worldwide. As a result we have re-assessed the release strategy to focus on these festivals and use the momentum and interest generated before the UK release later in the year.

First up on the festival circuit is New York where Jadoo will be having its North American premiere as a special screening at the New York Indian Film Festival early May.

Most of you might already know that Jadoo is represented for international sales by Resolution. Resolution is Los Angeles-based and is Jeff Berg’s new venture. Jadoo is the very first film for Resolution’s portfolio;  here is the official announcement:  http://www.screendaily.com/news/resolution-signs-uk-comedy-jadoo/5051758.article.

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Today we were shocked and saddened to hear of the death of our cast member and friend Sophiya Haque. In the brief time I came to know her working on our film, I found her to be wonderfully talented, incredibly warm and a fantastic presence on set. None of her fellow cast or crew will ever forget the final shot of the day’s filming with her. Backlit by beautiful evening sun, standing on a box in the middle of a Leicester street, looking straight to camera, radiating a star quality that is so rare, we were all left utterly charmed and totally seduced. Sophiya was magic in front of a lens and a delight behind it. All the Jadoo family are so proud of Sophiya’s performance. We also feel privileged to have spent time with her. Rest in peace Sophiya, you will be missed. – Amit Gupta (Jadoo – Director/Writer)

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Amara Karan (left), Nikesh Patel (middle) and Amit Gupta (right)

We managed to grab an interview with Jadoo’s busy writer/director Amit Gupta and chat to him about what inspired the story, what it was like filming in his home town and the reasons behind his stylistic choices.

What’s Jadoo about?

Jadoo is about two brothers who fall out, and they are chefs. They set up rival restaurants opposite each other across the Belgrave Road, in Leicester, and go to culinary war. One of the brothers has a daughter who’s getting married and she wants both brothers to cook the wedding feast, so she goes back to Leicester, where the film is set, to try and get her father and uncle to talk. She wants them to start co-operating so they can become family again. In this film food is a metaphor for family.

What inspired you to write Jadoo?

Two things really. My family have an Indian restaurant in Leicester so I grew up around that Indian culture. We’ve had it for thirty six years and a great deal of my formative years were spent in the restaurant. The second thing was I was asked to write a play for radio four. I was sitting in the restaurant when I got the call so I thought, “I’ll do something here.” I also love food movies so I wanted to tell a food story.

What influence did your mum have on this film?

My mum is the chef in the family so she had a great deal of influence on it, because her food is my favourite food in the world and it’s just fantastic. I learnt everything I know about food and what food means from her.

 Amit’s Aunt (left), Amit’s Mum (middle), Madhur Jaffrey (right) 

What was it like walking into the set of your mum’s restaurant?

It was weird because it was inspired by my mum’s place, but it wasn’t the actual place. It was fun seeing a set that reminded you of somewhere else. What was really great was to see my mother and my aunt’s reaction because it was a completely unpredictable moment, they’ve never been to a movie set before. They had no idea what to expect. [But they loved it…]

How detailed was the set?

The art department are fantastic and what they have to do is age the place. They build something new and then age it which is a really weird thing to do but that’s what you have to do to give something a feeling of authenticity. All the wallpaper, all the paint, everything was degraded and aged to make it feel like a restaurant that has been there for a long time.

 What visual style were you going for in Jadoo?

I like symmetrical framing, so quite a lot of it is symmetrical. I knew I wanted to shoot wide screen because I thought that represented the dining tables. It was a way of viewing the area in a way I hadn’t seen very much. I had an idea of what I wanted to do but it was really based on my experience of shooting my first short and feature film and looking through the lens and trying to understand how the story would want to be told.

What was it like growing up in Leicester?

 It was great because it’s a very multi-cultural city. Where I grew up, which is the Asian area of Leicester, it felt like growing up in a part of India really because all the shops were Indian, all the people around there are Indian, my mother had an Indian restaurant and we played in the streets a lot.

Amit Gupta (left) and Roger Pratt (right) 

What other things influenced Jadoo?

I remember the way that Spike Lee shot Brooklyn, it’s got this sort of nostalgic feel to it. You almost feel like you’re in that place, and what I was trying to do in the filming of Jadoo was capture something of my childhood – and those memories are very much tied up with seeing the place in a certain way. It’s about childhood nostalgia of an area. I think quite a lot of storytelling in filmmaking is about trying to capture your past.

How has the community in Leicester got involved with this film?

The community has got really behind the film. They were excited because they love movies around this area, So, seeing a film crew and seeing how many of us were there on any day, 30, 40 people – sometimes less, sometimes more – and then noticing me around, knowing me from being a child there. I think that was quite exciting. People just coming up to me and having a chat. They were getting quite involved with what was going on and they were watching enthusiastically, sometimes cheering at the end of scenes. It was quite fun!

Amit Gupta (left) and Roger Pratt (right)

What was it like working with Roger Pratt?

Roger brings a lot more than just his photography to a film. What you’re really going to get is amazing light because director of photographers are the masters of light, and they control the light for the film. I don’t need to tell you how good Roger Pratt is, just look at the work the man’s done! He’s an extraordinary talent in every way. Roger was just smiling the whole time, he was just a fantastic presence. For a director it’s very comforting to know your DP is unflappable and the crew love him. He is always open to suggestions and it’s a conversation, not, “this is how I photograph a movie”. He was looking to shoot the movie I wanted to shoot and trying to work that out the whole time in a kind of fun and interesting way. Seeing Roger behind the camera giggling when the scenes were funny or being moved by something was a really wonderful thing.

Why did you choose to shoot on film?

Film to me is still superior; there are people who have switched over completely. I haven’t done that because I haven’t needed to do that so far. I know there are top DP’s and top directors who work digitally. I don’t like doing millions of takes so that takes one of the advantages of digital away. I don’t need to shoot lots of footage. I like quite a focused shoot. I like to move quickly so burning up film isn’t a consideration. We’re obviously exposing film, but I don’t do 50 takes – but if I did, perhaps I’d be shooting digitally.

What was the atmosphere on set like?

I like people to have a good time on set. I think there are some people who believe the only way to make a good film is by fighting as much as possible, and they think the creative process benefits from conflict. I fundamentally don’t believe that. I like to have a nice time on set. I like people to go away happy and feel inspired. I had a lovely time and I think the atmosphere on set was excellent.

What was it like filming the Holi Festival?

We were re-creating Holi, which is the festival of colour in India where you throw paint and cover yourself in different colours. I think the people who turned up had a really good time. It’s obviously a worry for a filmmaker doing a scene like that because you have 200 extras, a limited amount of time, limited amount of paint and a lot of equipment while trying to get the best possible footage. It’s exciting and fun, but at the back of your mind you know you have to get a certain amount of shots.

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We sat down with our extremely hardworking producers to talk about what was involved with making Jadoo. Here’s what they had to say:

How did Jadoo as a movie begin?

Nikki Parrot: My friend was listening to a radio play on New Years day and she said listen to this it’s so funny and it was Jadoo. I didin’t know anything about it and didn’t know who Amit was at the time. I just kept thinking about it and thinking what a great radio play. It took me about 6 months to find Amit via a friend and I said I’d like to meet up with you and perhaps we could turn Jadoo into some type of drama. We went to a local restaurant in white chapel where we use to have an office and it went on from there.

Isabelle Georgeaux (producer), Amanda Faber (producer), Amit Gupta (writer / director), Richard Holmes (producer)

What was it about the script that made you want to be a part of Jadoo?

Richard Holmes: I worked with Amit [director] on Resistance. I love comedies and I liked the authenticity of the script, in that Amit was brought up above a restaurant on the Belgrave road and it just felt like he knew what he was talking about. It’s a comedy based in reality. It’s a perfect combination for me.

Roger Pratt (Cinematographer) & Amanda Faber

As a producer what difficulties did you have bringing the script to life?

Amanda Faber:  The main challenge was to initially raise the funding. One of the other producers had got the script developed with EM media and that was ready. But raising the rest of the funding presented its own challenge. We’ve managed to get around that and have moved forward. The next challenge was putting together the cast that we wanted. We did have a few hitches with getting visas and bringing people over from India and that sort of thing. Other than that it’s been pretty much plain sailing since then because we’ve had such a tremendous reaction from people locally in Leicester. They’ve really helped us to make a tremendous film.

How does this film represent everyday life?

Isabelle Georgeaux: Nothing in in this film is foreign to any of us. And, in fact, from children to older people – we’ve screened it to children from about age eight – everybody related to it in more than one way. Obviously the relationship with food – whether you love or hate food, you can still have a strong relationship with food. The family dynamic; the fighting and reconciling, and the jokes, and the brother-sister relationship, which I think is also very important; the daughter loving her father and her uncle, but them not talking to each other. All of these are very familiar feelings, I think, to pretty much anyone.

What did you enjoy the most about the script?

NP: Probably all the moments that I enjoyed in the radio play. The humour the wit, the characters, the way that Amit writes characters. He’s very good at making you feel like you know them, like they live next door to you. I liked the way that he drew on his experiences from working in a restaurant. It gave it an authenticity. It’s also about food, which is a universal thing and that’s what’s great about the film. It makes you want to eat curry when you watch it, which I think is a really good thing to come away with. Another thing I loved about the script was the pathos of it, one minute you are laughing and then it kind of hits you that you’re quite sad about it. That’s a joy for me.

How important was it that we filmed Jadoo in Leicester?

RH: The more I’m here, the more vital I think it is that we filmed it in Leicester because not only is it a story completely and utterly focused on one place, Belgrave Road, but walking down the Belgrave Road we couldn’t have re-created that anywhere else. Not the true kind of authenticity of the Golden Mile where every fourth shop is a jewelry shop, the others are restaurants or sari shops. That would have been a very difficult atmosphere to re-create anywhere.

What was it like seeing the Holi Festival scene come to life?

AF: Lots of people just came along to the park to take part in the film, but there were also people passing by who joined in. There was a tremendous feeling of spontaneity and it was absolutely wonderful. Everyone really got into the spirit. At the end everyone didn’t stop dancing, they just carried on for the rest of the afternoon joining us on the streets and it was the most wonderful, joyous occasion. It just looked fantastic.

What have been the highlights?

IG: There are two actually. It’s getting the bear-hugs from Harish Patel, who is our main actor, and is just a wonderful character. He came from Mumbai, and we’re glad every day of the shoot that he agreed to jump on a plane and join us. He lit up the film with his personality; he lit up the set with is personality, and he made all of us feel like we were eight years old and wanted to be hugged all day! That was one highlight; the second highlight was definitely the shoot on the day we reconstituted the Holi Festival, because I think we brought two hundred people from Leicester that day as extras, and they really had fun! They danced, and then we threw the powder, the coloured powder. I did it, I was there, and it was a lot of fun and it was quite special, and again – luckily – thanks to Roger and his crew in particular, I think it looks really beautiful on the final cut.

Roger Pratt, Amit Gupta & Rob Hart (Camera Operator)

Why should people go and see Jadoo?

RH: It’s a great fun movie, but with a heart and a fundamental truth about families. There were stories that were constantly picked up on the Belgrave Road about families who have done very much what Amit has written in the script. But I think all of us come from families with the mad crazy uncle or the cousin you don’t speak to anymore for reason no-one quite remembers the details of. I think that humour is captured brilliantly.

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Here’s an interview we did with our wonderful food stylist Nicole Herft while she was busy preparing the food for Jadoo.

What does a food stylist do?

A food stylist is the person who organizes all the food that’s going to be shot on film and makes sure it looks beautiful. Usually you have to under cook things or not cook things to its entirety so that it looks fresher and not all limp. But you’re in charge of all the food and how it looks.

Why was it so important to have a food stylist on Jadoo?

Jadoo is completely based around food and it’s based on the merits of how they cook, so we’re trying to make our food look like traditional Indian as much as possible – as fresh, vibrant and colourful as possible.

How are you using food to bring director Amit Gupta’s vision to life?

We’re trying to use as much colour as possible when it comes to the food and use all the traditional favourites. Some of the food’s scripted and a lot of the food I have to make up, as far as what’s going to be shown in the film. Amit has been very clear with what he wants.

What’s involved in getting the food ready to be filmed on set?

I do all the ordering; it arrives here. We do all the prep a day before and if there’s anything last minute, we’ll do it on the day. We keep everything in the kitchen fridge and then cart it all into the car along with all the equipment, utensil and other ingredients we might need.

How do you make the food look so delicious?

Most of the time it’s quite simple because Indian food looks beautiful as long you don’t over cook it. You do things like adding tomatoes and coriander at the end so it stays nice and fresh and it doesn’t look all over cooked and soggy. I don’t really like spraying things onto the food that aren’t edible so I just spray water on top of things which give it a bit of a gloss or with things like tandoori chicken I’ll brush some oil on it so it’s still edible – a bit oily, but it gives it a nice sheen.

What does it take to be a good food stylist?

I think you need to be super organized. You have to be anal really. I would probably say that I’m difficult to work with in the sense that if I don’t like it I won’t just say it’s ok, I’ll say do it again. I think you need to have those sorts of standards because you can really see it in the end product. You’ve got to really think things through with how they’re going to look on the plate, with how you do your prep, how much you cook it, how you store it. You’ve got to be really careful with those sort of factors in order for the end product to be as good as it can be. Also not just going with something if you don’t have time. I’d rather just say no, everybody’s got to stop, we need another half an hour. I’m starting this again. That sort of thing.  You’ve got to be quite fierce about it.

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Roger Pratt BSC is a British cinematographer. Pratt has been the director of photography for more than 35 films. Among his body of films, he has worked on Batman (1989), Frankenstein (1994), 102 Dalmatians (2000), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Troy (2004), and more recently Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Inkheart (2008), The Karate Kid (2010) and most recently Jadoo (2013).

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For all those in the Jadoo post-production crew it was a great honour to watch Oscar-winning composer Stephen Warbeck at work. His music credits include Shakespeare in Love and Billy Elliot. Stephen’s wit, passion, and friendly persona made for a wonderful few days recording the Jadoo soundtrack. His music made for an amazing vibe that was brought to life by his outstanding team and world-class musicians. While making the music for Jadoo we managed to grab Stephen for an interview in Air Studios, which was started up by the Beatles’ producer George Martin.

-What is the role of a composer?

Well, to illustrate, there was a very nice moment when we did a film recording here [Air Studios] for a man called Roland Joffe, who’s probably most famous for a film called The Mission. He said, “Do you mind if I say something to the orchestra before we start?”, and I said, no of course not. Orchestras like it if a director comes and speaks to them because it makes them feel part of the whole process. He came in and said, I’ve created the flesh and bones of the film, now it’s your job to breathe the soul into it. That sounds kind of precious and I don’t want to elevate the music beyond its real status. But in a way it can be a short cut to some of the emotions which are probably suggested by what you’re watching and listening to – and then you see a sequence and the music adds a further dimension to it. A lot of films work really well without music, as you know! But I think this film benefits from the music intensifying all the emotions and various relationships.

-What was it about the film Jadoo that made you want to be a part of it?

I got a message to say would I read it, and I read it. I thought it had a very wonderful human dimension and it didn’t feel artificial at all. The next step, which is also very important, was meeting Amit [Director] in central London. That’s such an important relationship, the composer and the director. The fact that we got on well and that I liked him pretty instantly makes a big difference.

 -With the musical score in Jadoo who’s perspective were you telling the story from?

I suppose the big single thing once I started looking at the film was the performance of the actor playing Raja, Harish [Patel]. I find it sensational and so multi-dimensional! The detail in his performance is amazing! I think as a composer you need a kind of way into the film and I think it’s through him. You know that the brothers have split up but you know behind that there’s still a huge amount of love and he’s not bitter. It’s so complex, what he plays! He was definitely my way into the film.

I think what you’re doing is sometimes telling it from a perspective, in a way revealing the heart… or trying to. It sounds a bit grand; you might not be doing anything except playing a succession of notes on a piano but you’re trying to open the heart, not surgically, of a character. Perhaps you might feel you’re starting from Raja’s point of view and in a way you need to empathise, so you need to start to imagine you can feel what he’s feeling. You then have to start empathising with the other characters as well. It would no good if you just wrote from Raja’s point of view. The film isn’t all about him. His brother for example, you might say he’s quite tense and quite brittle and quite annoyed about a lot of things. So he’s taken the breakup of the two brothers in quite a different way. But you can see if you actually play it emotionally with the scenes with him and his wife, you soften that, and behind the anger you start to feel there’s actually a regret and a sadness that that love and the closeness of the brothers temporarily, as it turns out, is over. You don’t want to go viciously with his anger and annoyance. You go against it and you play something which is about the warmth of the past, which they’ve temporarily lost.

-Do you write the music for a film in chronological order?

I don’t ever remember writing chronologically, expect if I really don’t connect to anything, then you might say I have to start somewhere, I may as well start from the beginning. But normally I’d start where it meant something to me. I’d think of a theme and think, well maybe I’ll try that theme against this scene and against this scene. You work in little islands and then maybe come up with another theme, and think that might be more useful for Shalini. So you jump from place to place, and then perhaps when orchestrating you might go in order. There are advantages with going in sequence at some point in the process, as you need to check there isn’t a horrible key jump or a tempo change between two bits that are close together. But mostly it’s not in story order. 

-Why did you choose to record Jadoo’s score in Air Studios?

Most musicians or composers would tell you were they’d prefer to record. I suppose I have a list of favourite people I want to work with so my favourite engineer to work with is Nick who was free, my favourite room to work in is this one [Air Studios] and it was free. Not free in financial terms but it was available. Also, to an extent you choose something that is suitable for a project. This room wouldn’t be right for everything as it’s got a lovely natural acoustic, and it would be annoying for some kinds of music. It was the room I really wanted and it was available so that’s how it came about.

-How did you come up with the feel and colour of the score for the film?

 That was a gradual process. I tend to write on the piano, and I said to myself and also Amit, I don’t think there should be any piano in this. Then little by little I thought, actually these places piano is quite nice. I wanted something delicate that worked with the piano. I liked the idea of guitar and then I played Amit a piece of music that I’d written for a film called “My Son the Fanatic” which is piano, guitar, tabla and soprano sax and he liked it. I said, those are the kind of colours I’m imagining. All those decisions come about not in a very organized way. I think I would like to use tabla… and then I know John Parricelli the guitarist has been working with a tabla player and he says, you should work with him. Gradually you start to say, that will be nice with that, maybe we should have double bass to give a bit of warmth, rather than electric bass, have a solo bass rather than just using an orchestral string player. It’s a little bit at a time, and also the whole thing is done within the constraints of a budget.

Richard, one of the producers, says, you can only have this much money, – and then you have a little bit of bartering, and then you have to say, I do want strings so this leaves me this much to spend on specialists. I suppose for this film it would be true to say I wouldn’t have wanted anything more than what we had. You don’t have to tell Richard that [Laughs].

Because the film’s quite delicate and personal – I’m not saying it’s slight, but it’s quite a contained story – the scale of the music can’t be massive. It doesn’t want to be a huge symphony orchestra.

-What was it about being a composer that appealed to you when you were first starting out?

Well, I think it was before I started, it was when I was a child. What appealed to me was that if you were supposed to be practicing the piano it was actually more fun to make tunes up than practice the scales. That’s what first appealed, and then there was a film club at school and the man who ran it, Mr Vaut, played us loads of French and Italian films of the 50s and 60s. The scores are so wonderful and characterful; you start to think this is a very interesting aspect and side to filmmaking. I suppose it started like that.

-What advice would you have for aspiring composers?

 Just say ‘yes’ to as many things as possible. Of course there’re limits in terms of what’s practical and what’s not practical, but if somebody says, would you do a student film for nothing, do it! Don’t wait for a kind of massive opportunity. I think everyone should keep their musical imagination alive by playing with different people. Maybe play in a band, be in an orchestra, listening to all different types of music and ideally watching lots of different pieces of theatre or film. Try to keep everything alive and open. Be positive about the whole thing so that you don’t become either fixated on being successful and doing the next Batman movie, or too narrow in terms of being just a film composer. I think you need to keep all the other things happening.

 -What have been the highlights of your career so far?

The last twenty minutes of the recording session for Shakespeare in Love when they played the end tune, that was probably one. Before I got sunstroke on the island of Kefalonia recording the scene in the square where Captain Corelli is playing the mandolin. I think that was pretty fantastic because there was also a really good tavern that everybody, actors, director went and all ate and drank Greek wine. It’s sort of unbelievably perfect really. A swim, a bit of filming, a bit of music, some wine and Greek food. It’s kind of perfect! So those would be highlights. Often doing gigs as well, sometimes it’s appalling – “God, how did I play so badly?” – but other times it can be very enjoyable!

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The Jadoo team have had the great privilege to work with the very passionate and very talented Eddie Hamilton. Eddie’s credits have included Kick Ass and X-Men: First Class. He’s somone who’s dedicated to his profession and creates world class results that have been seen by millions of people around the world. Eddie’s love for films and filmmaking is so contagious that anyone who comes into contact with him can not help but love movies too! While on the shoot of Jadoo we managed to sit down with Eddie to have a chat about his love for film and editing.

What is the role of an editor?

The role of an editor is take all the footage that is shot by the crew and put it together to tell the best story possible. When you’re editing, all you’re thinking about is character and story as that’s all the audience are thinking about when they watch the film. The audience cares about the characters and wants to find out what’s going to happen to them. Everything else is secondary to that. When I’m editing scenes I’m just thinking about the characters and the story. After that I’m thinking about making sure the shots look nice, that they’re in focus, that the warderobe looks great, that the lighting looks great, that the makeup looks great, the sound is great! Making sure that all the crews’ best work ends up in the movie. But the most important thing is character and story.

How did you get into editing?

I started to realise that I might want to work in the film industry when I was about seven, and I remember very clearly watching Star Wars on TV for the first time. My parents never took me to the cinema so I only watched films on television and it came on in nineteen eighty. My parents recorded it on a betamax tape and because the film started at eight pm and ran till ten pm, and my bedtime was nine pm so I missed the second half of the film. But the next morning I got up at four O’clock in the morning and I snuck downstairs, fast forwarded the tape to the right place, and I watched the second half of the film with the sound right down so I wouldn’t wake my parents up. I remember at about five thirty in the morning when the film finished seeing peoples names going up at the end and thinking, these are real people, they must work in film… I want to do this! From that day on I was a total film nut and read about film and watched as many films as I could. I initially thought I’d want to be a director, which is what everyone thinks when they’re that age but when I was about seventeen I started to think editing would be more appropriate for me.

What was it about the script that made you want to be a part of Jadoo?

The story is a very familiar story but it’s set in a very unique world of this kind of restaurant business in Leicester and it’s a unique glimpse into the Indian culture in Leicester and how the families who live in this environment relate to each other. Fundamentally, it’s a very simple and funny story that can appeal to a lot of people, and a lot of the best films are simple stories well told, and I think Jadoo is one of those.

What is it like working with director Amit Gupta?

 We have very similar tastes cinematically and I really respect him as a writer and a director. To have that healthy respect for each others opinion means that we can be very creative, try a lot of things out and not take it personally.

How have you gone about editing Jadoo?

When I watch the material that Amit has shot I try and remain very independent of the emotion from the set and I let the material speak for itself. I will gather my own opinions on what the strengths and the weaknesses are of the material that has been shot. Occasionally I’ll get a feeling that something is not going to earn its place in the finished cut of the movie but at this stage, generally I will put everything in that Amit has shot. I feel it’s respectful to the writer and director of the film, in this case same guy. It’s important to give each scene a shot at earning it’s place in the film. But I do have my own opinions on what will come out and occasionally I will do another cut of the scene and try something out by removing a couple of lines of dialogue where I feel the rhythm of the scenes around it would dictate that it would be a good idea. Obviously I could be completely wrong and a lot of times I am, but you try things out as the most important thing when editing is to leave no stone unturned in the quest for the best film!

Do you edit with music?

I try and edit with music a lot, especially later in the editing process. Generally what happens for the first half of the shoot I’ll just be putting the scenes together as they are and maybe using the occasional bit of music.  In the second half of the shoot I’ll start to build the film as a whole in the computer and I’ll start to feel where music needs to be present to act as a transition or to heighten some emotion in the film. By the end of the shoot I’ll have built the whole film with temporary music where I think it should be. I think it’s important to use music as much as possible when editing.

Can you talk through your workflow? 

Our workflow in simple terms is this: The film leaves the camera, it goes to the laboratory, it gets developed, it gets put onto high definition video tapes and it gets digitized onto hard drive that we have in the editing suite. The sound comes straight from the set into the editing suite. My Assistant using a sync clap at the top of each slate will sync the sound and the picture together and prepare a little graphical window of all the shots for a particular scene. That allows me to see what has been shot for each particular scene. I will cut the scene together very quickly, not watching all the footage but just having a look at maybe one wide shot and then starting to cut the scene. I found it very useful to have gone through the process of cutting the scene before you watch all the footage for the scene. I find it more helpful having a pass of the scene, even if it’s only five minutes just quickly throwing the scene together, then you know what your looking for. Invariably you’ll find little nuggets of gold that you’ll need to make the scene really work! I will slowly build the scene up on my own and then when the film is finished shooting, I sit down with Amit, we work through the film for a few more weeks. We then show it to the producers, they came in with their notes and then a few weeks later we start showing it to small test audiences of twelve, fifteen people. We listen to what they say, we recut and then we’ll show it to a few hundred people and every time we screen the film we are very sensitive to what the audience is telling us about the pace, the story and whether they understand it or not. Every time we screen it we want the jokes to get better and to get more laughs. Hopefully by the end of the process we have a great film!

Why is it important to have an editor present in the cutting room while filming?

It’s very important to have the editor around during the filming process and any experienced director or producer will probably agree with me. It’s important to show the investors of the film how it’s all coming along. Whether that’s a film studio or an individual it’s important that they can see how the film is starting to come together and it’s important for the production to know that the story is working. If there’s anything missing I can tell them to shoot it as they’ve still got the locations and the actors. It’s a lot cheaper and easier to fix problems during the filming process than it is, say, six months down the line when everyone is around the world working on different films.

What do you think of the ending of the film?

I challenge anyone, even someone who hasn’t been blessed with much luck in the love department, to not find the end of this film very romantic. It will melt the hardest of hearts and I think that’s really hard to do. Amit the director and the cast, I feel have really nailed it!

Why do you use Avid over other editing platforms?

There are lots of editing platform you can use to edit a film and I choose to use Avid Media Composer. It’s what I like to use, I find it completely robust in terms of the actual software. Very rarely crashes! It does a great job of keeping a track of everything, I can work collaboratively with other editors and assistant editors on the same project. It has been developed for professional purposes. Some software out there hasn’t been developed for professional usage and can be fine for a short film, but when you’re on a very big film with lots and lots of footage, you need to know the software will keep a track of that and when you press play it will play and it will be in sync and work. I can deliver on an Avid Media Composer timeline absolutely world class work to the producers of a film or a film studio.

What advice do you have for young filmmakers? 

I highly recommend, if you think you might want to work in the film industry, watching lots of films, reading any book you can about it. Go and make one short film a week for a year, on your phone and put it on YouTube so that you’ve got 50 films and believe me you will learn so much about storytelling, about what you have to shoot, how to work with actors, how to use music, how to edit, how to light, how to do visual effects and that will be like a film school. That’s all you’ll need to know. Read books on screenplay writing, write lots of scripts as it’s hard to write really good scripts. There are tons and tons of resources online, totally for free. Filmmakers being interviewed, filmmakers giving talks about what they do! I question whether film school is worth the money quite frankly!

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About six months ago one of the producers of Jadoo was sitting in a jazz club in Streatham, The Hideaway, watching a unique band called The Khippers, fronted by the actor, Paul Bradley, and Oscar-winning composer, Stephen Warbeck.

His wife elbowed him in the ribs and said, “What about him then, Stephen Warbeck, to do the music for your film…?” The producers took a welcome opportunity to scoff, “Don’t be absurd, woman, he won’t do our film… he’s got an Oscar.”

Sixth months – and a grovelling marital-apology – later the team is assembled in Air Studios in Hampstead watching twenty-five string players add the finishing touches to the film’s superb, witty and emotional score.

How did we get here? Serendipity, of course.

The elegant Lynda Mamy, Stephen’s agent, had an in-passing chat about Jadoo to Amit Gupta’s agent, entrepreneurial Sean Gascoine. Both work for United Agents, an outfit that regularly shows there is an actual meaning to the word synergy. Lynda was pretty sure Stephen would like the script. And he did.

So, a few weeks later Amit sat down in Stephen’s home-studio in Sussex and they watched the film together whilst Stephen picked out themes on the piano and talked about instrumentation.

A few meetings later and the music was scored, arranged and drafted in pencil… which is when Stephen’s amazing team sweeps in to action.

First up, Andrew Green, a multi-hyphenate acting as our copyist in this instance, whips the handwritten sheets off Stephen and, in double-quick time (and with some help from chums), turns the pencilled sheets into a clean, numbered and beautifully organised score.

We all meet at the deconsecrated church that is Air Studios and sit in the booth with Nick Wollage, the recordist/mixer, as he sets up the booths for the session artists will sit in, positions the mics with great precision and starts to test the results.
And then the session musicians arrive, all booked by the unflappable Charlotte Matthews of Isobel Griffiths. Initially; Martin Robertson, on duduk and sax; Mark Bousie, on accordion; John Parricelli on guitars; and Kuljit Bhamra on tabla and percussion.

As the tracks are laid down to picture the Music Editor, Lewis Morison, makes sure the cues are covered, the music fits precisely and the next cue is selected in the most logical order.

As the sessions build we’re joined by trumpeter, Chris Batchelor, bassist, Steve Watts, and extra percussionist, Magnus Mehta.

Then the quiet, smiley figure of Terry Davies our conductor (and Olivier-winning composer in his own right) arrives to manage the strings session,  along with orchestra leader Rolf Wilson. (Terry is bearing recent facial lacerations from one of Stephen’s semi-feral cats but that’s a much, much longer story…)

All this time the indefatigable figure of Stephen Warbeck is flying in and out of the mixing booth: playing the piano parts, calling out on-the-hoof corrections to the score, and, whenever a new set of musicians arrives, outlining the story of the film to help them get the tone of the music just right.

We chunk through it, and it feels just like a shooting-day – seemingly impossible to finish but, in the hands of hugely experienced professionals, we squeak in Saturday evening with eight minutes to spare.

By the middle of the next week – and after Stephen and Lewis have done their magic – the music master files are delivered ready for the final mix.

Which is next week. Nearly there.

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We’re delighted to be in the safe hands of our all-hearing and all-seeing Supervising Sound Editor, Harry Barnes, under the auspices of Anvil Studios, based in Perivale and managed by Mike Anscombe. It is Harry’s job to cast his eyes and ears over all the dialogue and action in the film, and decide which lines will have to be re-recorded in sessions known as ADR or Additional Dialogue Recording, with the help of ADR Recordist David Sendall.  This is because noise from the set, the equipment, traffic, wind, and other external factors often results in unusable production sound.

Not only does Harry focus on the main dialogue, he watches the film as a whole and decides with the Sound Effects Editor, Martin Cantwell, if any additional background sound must be recorded to enhance the quality of the audio and make it feel more authentic.  These sounds are split into two main categories.  The first, Foley, is the recording of everyday sounds from the swishing of clothing to page turns of the family recipe book, to pots and pans being used in the kitchen.  Our Foley artists Jack Stew and Andrea King devise any number of imaginative techniques to create exact matches for these sounds.

The second type of sound recorded in post-production is of background actors, also known as ‘crowd’.  While it is the production sound mixer’s responsibility to record the dialogue of the main actors, Harry will ensure any background artists are also represented in the final audio giving the film a luxuriously thick and genuine soundtrack.  This involves casting a number of crowd artists whose accents and voice must represent, as accurately as possible, the background artists appearing in the film.  And so the production team cast the net far and wide to recruit a number of voice artists – with authentic Leicester or Midlands accents – to spend an entire day endlessly chit-chatting, whooping, clapping and moving around.  No easy task, but our troupe of artists delivered with great energy and enthusiasm – the hard part was ensuring their conversations were sufficiently ‘bland’!

Now that all the elements have been recorded to Harry’s satisfaction, we move onto the Final mix with re-recording mixers Gareth Bull and Adam Mendez.

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