In the Studio

Mira Nair is one of the world’s great film directors. Born in India, but now a self-called ‘global citizen’, she has spent over 30 years making her mark, from Hollywood to Bollywood, and from the fun and laughter of Monsoon Wedding to the sharp politics of The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

In the Studio joins Mira on location in the ancient city of Maheshwar, for her biggest and most ambitious project to date - a six-part television series for the BBC, based on Vikram Seth’s epic novel, A Suitable Boy.

The novel encompasses many of the filmmaker’s favoured topics - family conflict, the portrayal of India, love, humour, beauty and politics. So when she heard it was being made into a TV series she says, “I threw my sari into the ring…It was something I had to do with every fibre of my creative journey.“

Mira Nair talks exclusively to Ravinder Bawa about her own creative journey - from small town girl, to world famous director – and shows how some of the most evocative and dynamic scenes are put together, with the film crew she uses in almost every film she makes.

As Covid-19 has swept the world we’ve become used to seeing musicians in lockdown presenting videos of virtual performances. But for the Grammy-award winning American composer and conductor Eric Whitacre, the idea of a virtual choir is nothing new, because he pioneered the concept over 10 years ago. His first choir of 185 singers became a global phenomenon and has been seen by millions on YouTube. More virtual choir projects followed and the choir videos have featured as installations and as part of the 2012 Olympics and the Davos World Economic Forum.

Now Eric’s just released his largest Virtual Choir project to date, which premiered on YouTube a few days ago. It features 17,572 singers from around the world performing his new piece “Sing Gently” for which he’s written the words and the music.

Eric talks to Emma Kingsley about creating this latest project, the inspirations for his other compositions, the idea of the musical “golden brick” and how his early dreams of becoming a pop star changed through singing Mozart in the college choir.

The artist and sculptor Janet Echelman works on huge pieces of public art that combine high tech design, history and visual imagination to soar above the heads of the public and interact with the environment. Her latest, Bending Arc, has been waiting out the Covid crisis before finally being unveiled to the public in St Petersburg, Florida.

Spanning 427 feet, and held by some 180 miles of twine, this giant net sculpture has needed a team of architects, model makers, computer scientists, aeronautical and structural engineers - all led by Echelman - to create a billowing, multi-coloured artwork that will cast shade and inspire the pier walkers of St Petersburg. It is also an artwork that draws directly on Echelman’s own family history in ready-to-wear fashion.

Andrea Shea has been documenting Echelman's creative processes and now, all that awaits, is the grand opening scheduled for July when the artist’s imagination will billow and dazzle in the sea breeze.

This week our guest is a Dutch icon - The Night Watch.

This masterpiece by Rembrandt is nearly 400 years old and sits centre stage at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where more than 2 million visitors come to see it every year. So when it became clear the painting needed a serious makeover, taking years to complete, the idea of removing it from display was rejected. Instead the museum’s Director, Taco Dibbits, decided to make Operation Night Watch accessible to all, by building a specially-constructed glass chamber for restorers, scientists and conservators to work under the public's watchful eye; both in the museum and online.

Anik See follows Taco and his team during this key phase of Operation Night Watch, diving into state-of-the-art imaging techniques and discovering the masterpiece’s secrets and storied past, to find out why this painting remains so important to us.

The British-Turkish writer Elif Shafak is renowned for her award-winning novels including The Forty Rules of Love and her most recent 10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World. She’s also known for being an advocate for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights and freedom of speech, which have led to her being investigated by the Turkish government. Now she’s writing a new novel and has completed a manifesto on staying sane in an age of division, which will be published later this year.

Covid-19 has meant that Elif has been experiencing what it’s like to create and write in lockdown in her London home. In conversation with Emma Kingsley, she describes her new routines, how ideas come to her and the way in which her working life has been altered by the pandemic. She also talks about the importance of using fiction as a space to ask questions about contentious issues and the role of literature as a means of keeping people connected during this new age of self-isolation.

Cellist Matthew Barley connects with composer and conductor team Eimear Noone and Craig Garfinkle, as they race to complete a film score from their temporary lockdown studio in rural Ireland.

Eimear and Craig create soundscapes and soundtracks for feature films and video games, including the global hit World of Warcraft. Early in 2020 Eimear and Craig and their two young children travelled from the US to Dublin to compose and record the score for the animated movie Two by Two: Overboard. They recorded the first half of the score in February but then the Covid-19 restrictions radically changed their plans. They had to leave Dublin with what little equipment they could carry and head to Eimear’s family home on the West Coast of Ireland.

With an out of tune piano, limited IT resources, no access to a recording studio or live musicians, and the delivery date looming, the pressure is on. From trying to write upbeat music at a moment of crisis, to managing the baby’s nap time and homeschooling while working out the perfect chord progression for a scene of utopia, Craig and Eimear are navigating new territory. Will they do it?

This week’s In The Studio is presented by acclaimed actor and New Orleans resident Wendell Pierce (The Wire, Suits, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan). We join him as he meets Demond Melancon, a fine artist from New Orleans who is also the Big Chief of a Black Masking Indian tribe, the Young Seminole Hunters.

The Black Masking culture of New Orleans is a centuries-old African-American tradition. Around 45 neighbourhood groups - or tribes - spend thousands of hours each year hand-sewing exquisitely beaded ceremonial suits, trimmed with rhinestones, velvet ruffles, and hundreds of brightly coloured feathers. On Mardi Gras day they take to the streets to compete against each other for the prettiest suit.

Every suit tells a story, and this year Demond is depicting Ethiopian history and culture, beading an ancient Nyabinghi warrior on a white horse as the centerpiece of his front ‘apron’. Surrounding it on the left and right sides will be beaded portraits of Empress Menen Asfaw and her husband King Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. On his arms are patches with portraits of reggae music icon Vaughn Benjamin and an Ethiopian soldier.

Usually it takes 12 months of beading to make a suit, but Demond is a rising star of New Orleans’ contemporary art scene, and in high demand for exhibitions and art fairs across the USA, so this year he has just three months to prepare. We join him and his wife Alicia as he works night and day in his Bywater studio doing ‘the needle dance’, as he calls it, in the run up to the city’s world-famous Mardi Gras celebrations.

The award-winning science fiction author Nnedi Okorafor always has a project - or three - on the go. From her home outside Chicago she creates stories driven by what she describes as Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism for children and adults - a legacy of her Nigerian roots. Her work now ranges across comics for Marvel, screenplays and yet another new novel due out in the summer.

But she wasn’t always destined to be a writer. She spent her youth training hard to be a top class athlete until she developed curvature of the spine, which put an end to her dreams. After corrective surgery she became temporarily paralysed and it was then, during her darkest time, that she began to create stories.

Now, as Chicago, like the rest of the US endures lockdown, Nnedi’s been adapting to her changed life and restricted movements. Mark Burman talks to her about her work and how her creative process has been affected during the Covid-19 pandemic. During recordings made in April and early May he eavesdrops on some of her writing moments including her fruitful collaboration with the Kenyan director Wanuri Kahiu and their story of an A.I. traffic police robot – and hears about the therapeutic distraction of her trumpet-playing daughter and magnificent cat which now has his own Twitter account!

Starring Russell Brand and Matthew Goode – and featuring Michael Caine – the film Four Kids and It is a culmination of 8 years hard graft by award-winning British independent film producer Julie Baines.

Never afraid to take risks to achieve her cinematic dreams this film demands more of her talent, insight and sheer hard work than ever before.

Based on Jacqueline Wilson’s best-selling novel, itself inspired by the E Nesbitt classic 5 Children and It, the story requires an array of sophisticated special effects including flying, dare devil rock climbing and the staging of a pop concert at the O2 in London.

After two failed attempts to finance the film, it was finally given the go ahead and shot in Ireland in the summer of 2018. It’s a wrap, the film is in the can – but this is where our story starts.

Will the film be completed on time avoiding hefty financial penalties? Will the special effects make the grade, without access to the type of budget Hollywood studios can command? And finally, how well will it sell in a very competitive marketplace in a bid to get it in front of the family audiences it was made for?

Hilary Dunn follows British independent film producer Julie Baines for a period of nearly two years, on a revealing journey into the little known art – and science – of post-production.

British film producer Julie Baines knows all about long lead times. She often has to work for years to get a project financed before any filming can happen at all. For over six years, Julie had been fighting to bring ‘Four Kids and It’, a script she loves, from page to screen. The story is based on a retelling of the 1902 book ‘Five Children and It’ by the hugely popular children’s writer Jacqueline Wilson.

When we first met Julie in March 2017, filming was scheduled to start in just a few months but there were still deals to be done and actors to be cast. Film stars, including Russell Brand and Academy Award winner Michael Caine, were on board and the locations had been earmarked but would the money start flowing in time for filming to begin?

Film director Joseph Adesunloye followed Julie through the ups and downs of wrangling with lawyers and financiers as she worked to get the cameras rolling.