Tag Archives: Filmmaking

Oct13

The Producers

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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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Aug20

Eddie Hamilton

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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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Jul18

Adrian Smith

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Director Amit Gupta and his team have had the privilege of working with Adrian Smith on two feature films. Adrian is an extraordinary and talented production designer who awes everyone with his understated ability to breathe life, colour and energy into the projects he works on. His attention to detail and his artistic vision are universally respected. His credits have included ‘The Warrior’, ‘Bronson’ and ‘The History of Mr Polly’ which he won a BAFTA for. Once filming on Jadoo had wrapped, we sat down with Adrian for a chat about filmmaking and the experience of working on Jadoo.

What does it take to be a good production designer?

It very much depends on the film itself. But generally I feel the production designer is responsible for filling in the backstory around the film itself…. that you’re creating the world that the actors and the script itself inhabits. So that you’re really filling in the blank spaces and joining the dots for the whole narrative structure of the film.

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

It was a comedy and the last comedy piece that I designed was Shameless and I always really enjoy working on comedies. They allow you to exercise a bit of wit in the look, style and feel of the film. The script was lovely, very funny, warm and interesting. It was also set in Leicester which is one of those places that everybody goes through and never stops and looks at. It was just interesting seeing it because in a lot of ways it told a story of recent contemporary British social history. It was an interesting place in a very surprising way.

What was the atmosphere in Leicester like?

I designed two films in India and spent a fair bit of time painting there. I’ve watched it over the last five or ten years and it’s changed a lot. The strange thing about Leicester is that it’s almost a vision of India that has largely disappeared. It’s almost like a retro version of Mumbai or Deli.

How has the local community got involved with the making of this film?

They’ve been really fantastic! Everybody really went out of their way to help us. A lot of people were extremely generous with a lot of the locations and I found the people in Leicester very lovely, warm and generous.

What look have you gone for in Jadoo?

What we’ve tried to do is avoid any cliches for the whole look and feel of British Asian life. It meant we had to be ruthlessly honest of what we found and what we saw. The reality of what we saw was very unexpected. A lot more minimal and paired down. The overall palette that we tried to do was not going completely overboard but to build it to a climax in the Kings of Curry competition. So up to that point, with a few exceptions everything was very muted and not completely over the top.

Why did you and Amit decide to show similarities between the two feuding brothers?

The idea that Amit wanted was that two brothers had almost copied each other. That there’s a similarity all the way through. Right the way down to the ripped up recipe book. This was to show that really these two brothers in reality were very close and shared a lot of common taste.

What is it like working with director Amit Gupta?

Amit is a really interesting director and I really enjoy working with him. This is the second film I’ve done with him now and it’s always very good working on a second, third or fourth film with a director as you start to develop a shorthand. You also start to build up a degree of trust in each other in terms of the aesthetic, you bring to the look of the film. Amit has got a wonderfully visual imagination. Some directors find it very difficult to visualize anything but I’ve found with Amit you can talk through ideas and then can do sketches or models. You then develop the ideas and take them on. It was very good working on this with him as he was very clear about exactly what we wants and doesn’t want. While at the same time allowing for a lot of creative freedom.

What was it like re-creating the Holi Festival of Colour?

It was an interesting challenge because we had to create the idea that there was an absolute mass of people and that the whole anarchic quality of Holi. We had to basically re-create that with a very limited number of extras so we found a location which in fact where the real Holi festival takes place in Leicester. We then set about to create a very skeletal sense of colour by using a small marquee and put lots of coloured banners all round and just fenced off an area so that it feels like an area of the park that is given over to the Holi Festival. It all worked out fine and went really well.

Why is food such an important part of Jadoo?

I think it’s a crucial part of the film because it’s around food that the story hangs. At the very heart of the story is the cookery book that is divided by the two brothers. It was quite important in the film that the food actually stands out and is only ever swamped, colour wise, in the cooking competition at the end of the film.

How did you and your team make the recipe book look and feel so authentic?

What we wanted in a sense is that this had been a notebook or a file in India 40 or 50 years ago.  So we had this progression from Hindi in India and then slowly, as time progresses, the recipes turn into English-  and then from being handwritten to an early type writer. It was a fantastic, a really considered piece of work.

What is the most rewarding part of being a production designer?

I think one of the most rewarding things about being a production designer is that you actually get to see into worlds that normally you’d never get to see and also have the ability to re-create them. I’m always surprised on every film that I work on. It’s like coming to a sealed room and opening the door and going into another complete world you’d never imagine.

 

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Jun15

Roger Pratt BSC

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The Jadoo team were awed and humbled to have had the opportunity to work with Roger Pratt BSC.  He’s worked as director of photography on two Harry Potter films, 12 Monkeys, Troy, Chocolat, The Fisher King, Batman and Brazil to name a few. His feature films have won both Oscars, BAFTAs and he’s worked with some of the most influential directors of our time including Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam. While on the set of Jadoo we managed to grab him from his busy schedule to ask him a few questions about his astonishing career and what it’s been like working on the upcoming feature film Jadoo.

What made you want to be a part of making the feature film Jadoo?

It was mainly because of Amit the director, who I met in the Groucho Club in London. We got talking and he explained the idea of Jadoo. He’s a very clever and nice man and I decided I would help him out by being the lighting camera man and here I am. I’m still glad that I’m here.

What is it like working with director Amit Gupta?

It’s very creative… directors come in all different kinds of manifestations. Some who know absolutely nothing about lighting and camera, some who know a lot. Amit is sort of in the middle ground. He himself understands what he likes – which is a good thing – but probably what he needs is help “getting it”… and I’m that person and I’m very glad to do it for him.

What is the role of a cinematographer?

Well, essentially that is a moveable feast. But basically I’m the head of the camera department, which is roughly three or four people. There’s a person on my team who looks through the camera and work out the moves; and then there’s someone who keeps all the images in focus  - which sounds crazy but when you have a moving target it’s someone who’s very important – and someone who looks after the equipment and the ordering of the film. Then we have a loader who makes sure the film is managed, ordered and put into the camera.

The person who is also important to us also is the one who moves and constructs the movement of the camera; whether it’s placed in one spot on a tripod or it’s a moving shot – where a sort of railway system is installed, that we call tracks, to get from A to B to assist in the telling of the story.



What’s the most important aspects of a cinematographer?

It’s telling the story, it’s making sure that the intention of the writer is fully realized with what you do with the camera and the lights. Those two things.

How do you go about lighting a scene?

My primary objective to begin with is to light faces because I feel that’s the most important job of a cinematographer unless it’s a wildlife documentary about elephants. With a drama the way you light the faces is key to it all. For that reason it’s good to be able to influence and talk to the designer so that in the end the places that are backgrounds – whether it’s a house or like we are now, a theatre – allow you to illustrate the story.

Food is big part of this film. How do you go about making it look so delicious?

That was very lucky for me because I use to do hundreds of food commercials, so I was able to draw on that experience and when needed make the food look stunning.

What look were you trying to achieve for the Holi Festival?

We were shooting outside so I have very little control of the actually illumination of the scene, that was a given and if you remember it was a bit dull with moments of sunshine. So one of my concerns for exterior shooting is to make sure a scene that was shot over two or three days look like it was 5 minutes of continuous look. The look has to be kept similar.

That’s quite hard in Britain and that’s why they invented Hollywood! Because the sun was always shining and the early studios were all outside, and a lot of the studios in Hollywood when they first started revolved with the sun so everyone was always back-lit.


How have you found working with the actors on Jadoo?

Absolutely brilliant, they’re very receptive to everything and they’re very good actors. I think in a director of photography’s career it’s the big stars that are the most difficult. Not in that they’re difficult in themselves perhaps – though sometimes they are! – but they require flawless cinematography. Especially girls and woman who want to look glamorous. They would be difficult to relate to if they you weren’t making them look their best. So, I use a lot of soft light – with the tracing frames – to light faces with soft diffused light. Obviously anything that’s hard, like an open light bulb, gives harsh shadows.

You’ve had a long career as a director of photography. What is it about films and the making process that you like so much?

The process itself engages the intellect, and then the emotions are engaged because of the people you meet. And then interesting actors, the directors that you have to have a very close relationship with…

What’s been the most challenging setting that you’ve worked in as a director of photography?

China. We did Karate Kid with Jaden Smith and the Smiths. Being away from home, we were contracted to do three months but it ended up being five… Because we were in China there were no unions. I don’t follow that construct that unions are completely a good idea but when you work abroad and there are no unions things going completely haywire. You find yourself working too many hours without much break. Unions do have their place in controlling the hours that you work.


What advice to you have for young people looking for a career as a director of photography?

I would encourage them to start at the bottom of the tree. That gets you familiar with the procedures of a team. However much you think you know about lighting – which you may very well do – you won’t know about the procedures and the hierarchy. And you’ll probably be able to learn from the cameraman or DOP more than you knew before. So I would recommend going up through the ranks. I know not everyone does that and they’ve made very good cameramen but I think it gives you a human appreciation for the rest of the crew.

How do you think you can get someone to trust you to take the next step up the tree?

You have to go backwards in the sense of the project. For example you might have been loading on a major motion pictures but you probably won’t be asked to focus pull on a major motion picture. You might be able to focus pull on a documentary and then with your contacts progress as a focus puller into motion pictures. It is difficult and some people have opted not to go up. I know some focus pullers and loaders that are so good no one wants to give them a promotion, which is a shame but it does happen.

How did it happen for you?

Well I probably wasn’t very good at focus pulling more than anything so I had to go up! (laughs)

What has been your favourite project that you’ve worked on to date?

One of the Monty Pythons, I think. Terry Gilliam is one of the most creative people that I’ve every met. Although he’s not a normal person in some ways! To work with him is an education in what’s possible and what the possibilities are to create something really beautiful and interesting.

Roger leaves with a thumbs-up and a grin on his face before heading back to set to finish the afternoon’s filming. Roger Pratt is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and is so humble. It was a pleasure to see him at work and doing what he loves. I hope one day to work with him again.


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