Music for Slumdog Millionaire

The soundtrack to the film was mainly composed by A.R. Rahman, who is an Indian film composer and record producer. He planned the score for over two months and completed it within two weeks. Danny Boyle chose Rahman because not only did he draw on Indian classical music, but he also brought R&B and hip-hop from America and house music from Europe to create an incredible fusion. Rahman won the 2009 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and won two out of three nominations for the Academy Awards. The soundtrack includes the popular Hindi song ‘Jai Ho’ which has entered the international lexicon and M.I.A, an English songwriter, recording artist and producer with a Sri Lankan Tamil origin. Film critic Goher Iqad Punn termed the soundtrack Rahman’s ‘magnum opus’ which will acquaint ‘the entire world’ with his artistry.

Slumdog Millionaire UK Trailer

Theatrical Poster for Slumdog Millionaire

The title ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ has been written in bold and in a block colour of pink to immediately attract the attention of the audience. The two main characters shown on the film poster are Dev Patel and Freida Pinto and their names are shown at the bottom in small print. This is because they are not well-known and they are young. There are only a few images used on the poster because most of it is taken up by the writing. It shows the Dev Patel and Freida Pinto smiling while confetti is falling on them. Next to them is a question with a reference to ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ which says: ‘What does it take to find a lost love?: A) Money, B) Luck, C) Brainpower or D) Destiny’ with Destiny highlighted, telling the audience one of the main themes of the film.

These images give the plot of the film away to the audience. No setting is given away on the poster. Different colours are used for the title, director, quotes from reviews and the confetti which reflects the different emotions that are evoked in the film. The quote “The Feel-Good Film of the Decade” followed with 5 stars has “Feel-Good” and “Decade” in a larger font to sell itself to the audience. Also, with the image of Dev Patel cheering furthers the sense of the film having a feel-good theme about it. 

Critical Acclaim

Slumdog is highly acclaimed, named in top ten lists for many newspapers:
The film won 8 Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing.
It won 7 BAFTAs for Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Music, Best Editing and Best Sound.
It also won 4 Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture - Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score. It was released widely in the UK on 9th January 2009 and US on 23rd January 2009, just weeks before the awards ceremonies - Academy Awards, BAFTAS and Golden Globes.
Slumdog Millionaire has also been critically acclaimed in the Western World. As of 11 November 2009, Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 93% rating with an average score of 8.2/10. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 86, based on 36 reviews. IMDB (Internet Movie Database) also gave the film a high rating of 8.4/10 - the 73rd highest out of all the movies they have ever reviewed.

Inspiration for Slumdog Millionaire

In addition to Swarup's original novel, the film was also inspired by Indian cinema. Tandan has referred to Slumdog Millionaire as a homage to Hindi commercial cinema. Boyle has cited the influence of several Bollywood films set in Mumbai. Satya (1998) and Company (2002) both offered 'slick, often mesmerizing portrayals of the Mumbai underworld' and displayed realistic 'brutality and urban violence.' Boyle has also stated that the chase in one of the opening scenes of Slumdog Millionaire was based on a '12-minute police chase through the crowded Dharavi slum' in Black Friday (2004). Deewar (1975) which Boyle described as being 'absolutey key to the Indian cinema' is a crime film based on the Bombay gangster Haj Mastan, whose autograph Jamal seeks at the beginning of Slumdog Millionaire. 

The rags-to-riches underdog theme underlying the film was also a recurring theme in classic Bollywood movies from the 1950s through to the 1980s, when "India worked to lift itself from hunger and poverty." 

Casting

Gail Stevens came on board to see oversee casting global. Stevens had worked with Boyle throughout his career and was well-known for discovering new talent. Meredith Tucker was appointed to cast out of the US. The film-makers then travelled to Mumbai in September 2007 with a partial crew and began hiring local cast and crew for production in Karjat. 

Loveleen Tandnan was appointed one of the five casting directors and said "I suggested to Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy that it was important to put some of the film in Hindi to bring the film alive...They asked me to pen the Hindi dialogue which I instantly agreed to do. And as we drew closer to the shoot date, Danny asked me to step in as the co-director." Boyle then decided to translate a third of the film's English dialogue into Hindi. He asked for the dialogue to be 10% Hindi and the president of Warner Independent approved of the change. 

The main actors in the film, Jamal and Lakita, portrayed by Dev Patel and Freida Pinto are both British-Indian actors that were relatively well-known actor before Slumdog Millionaire - Dev Patel was a main character in the BAFTA-winning Skins, who was discovered by Danny Boyle when his daughter pointed him out to her dad. Freida Pinto was a model for four years appearing in multiple advertisements, but Slumdog was her breakthrough. Due to this, it became an advantage because the film would win a large audience of young people.

Cost of Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle was impressed with the way Simon Beaufoy wove the multiple storylines from Swarup's book into one simple narrative, so the director decided to commit to the project. The film was projected to cost up to US$15 million, so Celador sought a US distributor to share costs. Fox Searchlight Pictures made an initial offer that was reportedly in the $2 million range, but Warner Independent Pictures made a $5 million offer to win the rights of the picture. The gross venue totaled up to $377,417,293.

Production of Slumdog Millionaire

To hone the script, screenwriter Simon Beaufoy made three research trips to India and interviewed street children, finding himself impressed with their attitudes. He said "I want to get across the sense of this huge amount of fun, laughter, chat, and sense of community that is in these slums. What you pick up on is this mass of energy." Danny Boyle, after being approached by Simon Beaufoy, initially believed that no-one would be interested in a film about Who Want to be a Millionaire but revisited the script later on.

By the summer of 2006 British production companies Celador Films and Film 4  Productions invited director Danny Boyle to read the script of Slumdog Millionaire, but initially hesitated as he was not interested in making a film about 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' however soon found out that Simon Beaufoy wrote 'The Full Monty' one of the director's favourite films so decided to revisit the script. The film is in production with Film 4, Celador Films and Pathe Pictures International.

I believe that films such as 'Borat', 'Bruno' and 'Enduring Love' have helped Film 4 Productions thrive as a film business. It was rare for a blockbuster to receive so much commercial and critical acclaim that involved so little planning and distribution.

Recent films in Film4 Production

The film I have chosen from Film4 is 'Slumdog Millionaire'. It is a 2008 British film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Simon Beaufoy and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel Q&A written in 2005 by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. Set and filmed in India, the film tells the story of a young man from the slums of Mumbia who appears on the Indian verison of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and exceeds many people's expectations, thereby arousing the suspicions of the game show host and of law enforcement officials. 

It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 2009 and won eight, the most for any film in 2008, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also won seven BAFTA awards including Best Film, five Critics' Choice awards, and four Golden Globe awards. 

Film 4's Drama Chief

Tessa Ross is currently Head of Film and Drama of Channel 4. She was previously Head of Film and was responsible for Enduring Love and Dead Man’s Shoes. Before that, she was head of Drama and responsible for Shameless and Sex Traffic amongst other programmes. Success in drama has lead to an increased desire for drama. She has at present a policy of long-running, returning series across Tuesday nights, such as Shameless and No Angels.   Tessa Ross said 'Film and Drama both function as separate entities, with occasional opportunities for crossover. That has proven liberating for talent. For example, Billy Elliot began as a television idea and became a movie. Good relationships with talent lead to the production of quality work'. In May 2009 was named by 'Time' magazine as one of the hundred most influential people in the world.

Films from Film4

 Enduring Love is a 2004 British film directed by Roger Michell with screenwriter Joe Penhall, based on the the novel by Ian McEwan. The story is about two strangers who become dangerously close after witnessing a deadly accident. It won four awards including Empire for Scene of the Year and ALFS for Best British Actor (Daniel Craig).

 Borat is a 2006 mockumentary comedy film directed by Larry Charles and distributed by20th Century Fox. It was written, produced by, and stars the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen in the title role of a fictitious Kazakh journalist travelling through the United States, recording real-life interactions with Americans. It won 12 awards including a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an actor in a Motion Picture.

Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. Set and filmed in India, the film tells the story of a young man from the slums ofMumbai who appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The film won 8 Oscars and 7 Baftas.

 Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British romantic comedy film directed by Mike Newell, co-produced also by Working Title Films and Duncan Kenworthy. The film follows the adventures of a group of friends through the eyes of Charles, a debonair but faux pas-prone Englishman, who is smitten by Carrie, an attractive American whom Charles repeatedly meets at weddings and at a funeral. It won an ASACP Award and 3 Baftas.

The Lovely Bones is an upcoming film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Alice Sebold. Jackson and his producer partners acquired the rights independently and developed a script on their own, later selling it to DreamWorks. The film will be released on 29 January 2010 in the UK.

Film4

Film4 was originally known as FilmFour and became Channel 4's second channel (after Channel 4 itself) when it launched on 1 November 1998. It was a subscription-only service available on satellite television and most UK cable services. It cost around £6 a month, eventually rising to £7. The first film shown was 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape?' Additional channel were launched such as FilmFour World and FilmFour Extreme, but were discontinued after operating on the time-shift channel FilmFour +1. The subscription service ended on 19 July 2006 and became a free-to-air service four days later. Views then increased from 300,000 subscribers to 18 million households. It broadcast the television premier of Lost In Translation under their new format.