It’s something to have an idea, but it takes an exceptional amount of drive and talent to make that idea a reality. That is what a film producer does: taking a vision and bringing it to life. That is what excites Sahil Mirchandani, a distinguished producer in the Canadian entertainment scene.
“I look at producing like a puzzle and I always try to piece project logistics together perfectly to make the final product on screen as amazing as it can be. I love the challenge of working against a time crunch, with limited resources, to try and truly achieve something great on screen. It always feels like I’ve made literal magic when we successfully execute our creative intentions,” he says.
Mirchandani’s creativity and drive to get anything and everything accomplished have been essential to the success of his projects, such as the award-winning music film Equinox that has recently been selected for countless film festivals, the “When You’re Home” music video by Tyler Shaw that has almost two million views on YouTube alone, and his commercial work for athletic brands like Nike and Gymshark that highlight diversity while promoting the clients.
Mirchandani is fresh off the set of his most recent project, a commercial series for Adidas. The three-spot campaign focuses on the branded partnership between Adidas and Carnival Nationz for the 2022 launch of Toronto’s famous Caribana Festival. Mirchandani is producing two profile pieces on the Carnival Nationz owners and their lead designer, as well as a creative piece that focuses on three women getting ready for the Caribana Festival together. In order to organically infuse the partnership between these two brands on screen, the team re-worked Adidas clothing and footwear items into the actual Carnival Nationz Caribana costumes themselves, so audiences see traditional costumes with touches of modernity from Adidas’ clothing lines. For Mirchandani, promoting a meaningful partnership in the BIPOC community with a mainstream juggernaut of an athletic brand like Adidas was incredibly important and made him want to work on such a unique concept all while getting audiences excited about Caribana.
“I enjoyed paying homage to the roots of Carnival Nationz and allowing passionate Caribana-goers in the audience to connect with a festival that has meant so much to them for decades. I also enjoyed how behind the scenes we go with our Carnival Nationz designer to show the process of how these incredibly intricate costumes come to life at Caribana,” says Mirchandani.
Mirchandani began working on this campaign in early July, delivering the final product to Adidas within just two weeks. With three spots shooting over two days, and large scenes with many cast and complex Caribana costumes involved, Mirchandani had to ensure that the cast and crew had everything they needed to seamlessly execute the creative on the shoot days. He had to think fast and problem solve every step of the way to ensure there were no department-wide bottlenecks and they were continuously pushing forward to execute this project. Such a task load was easy to manage for this producer, who focused on the excitement and meaning of the project.
“It has been a wonderful process so far and I’ve enjoyed creating beautiful pieces that highlight the culture of Carnival Nationz, Caribana, and infuse them with the modern touch of Adidas’ branding. I thoroughly enjoyed working with powerful BIPOC creators in the industry, both behind and in front of the camera. We had a majority BIPOC crew, largely BIPOC heads of departments, and an all BIPOC cast for these spots. We really focused on highlighting cultural roots and infusing that in all facets of our creative content for these spots,” he said.
The commercial series was recently released all over digital platforms, print media, paid media, Adidas websites, and physical media at Caribana. You can get more information on the products and the campaign on the Adidas website.
Photo by Andre Apperley
