Credits

Award winning film maker Kathryn Millard is a self-confessed Charlie tragic. Five years ago a chance remark about a Chaplin impersonator working in Japan in 1917 set her on a quest to understand the curiously widespread appeal of this silent film star, with his baggy pants, tight waistcoat and twirling bamboo cane. She found his ghosts and reincarnations in sophisticated cities, back street slums and theatres in countries as widely disparate as Mexico, Brazil, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Australia and India.

What is it about Charlie?

I’ve always liked Charlie Chaplin films. They have a wonderful mix of pathos and humour, of being funny and very, very touching.

I was fascinated to discover that people from all over the world find something in his movies that speaks directly to them. I wanted to find out why; and I think it is that Charlie is the outsider, the immigrant, the underdog, the clown, the wise fool. We can all see a bit of ourselves in him. He thumbs his nose at authority, deflates puffed up officialdom and triumphs over adversity. What’s not to like?

No matter how down on his luck, Charlie can always see hope. Landing on his bum in the gutter, he’s soon cheerfully looking for cigarette butts. He has that quality we now call resilience, in spades.

The Tramp is a mentor, guardian angel or confidante for many people. He has a special appeal for migrants. As people around the world have poured into cities, lured by the promise of employment, Charlie’s star has shone ever more brightly.

What drew you to the Charlie Circle of Adipur?

They are a bit like a cross between a local Rotary Club and a film society. The members are dedicated both to Charlie Chaplin and the philosophy of life depicted in his films. The Circle members are very active in their community. They see Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp as a reminder of our responsibility to others. An invitation to join the Charlie Circle is considered a great honour, so as you can imagine, I was delighted when they made me an honourary member!

The star of the film, apart from the magnificent Boot Cake, is undoubtedly Dr Aswani.

Dr. Aswani is perhaps Charlie Chaplin’s most devoted follower. An insightful and compassionate man, he looks after his patients, keeps a lookout for anyone else in town who may need a helping hand and organises Charlie’s birthday party - undoubtedly the highlight of his year. Doctor Aswani has a generosity of spirit – a charming mix of playfulness and reverence. He’s a wise person, I think.

Read the rest of Kathryn's Q & A here (PDF)

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Kathryn Millard started researching Charlie Chaplin several years ago with a view to making a feature film about the cross-cultural and timeless appeal of the comic genius. Along the way she was sidetracked by the beguiling Charlie Circle of Adipur. The result, The Boot Cake, joins a body of work that is highly awarded and internationally recognised. Her 2003 feature film Travelling Light was nominated for four Australian Film Institute awards including Best Original Screenplay (feature) and winner of Best Supporting Actress for Sacha Horler, as well as being nominated for Best Original Screenplay (feature) at the AWGIES.

In 1996 she gave Cate Blanchett her first film role in the short feature Parklands which was also nominated for a Best Original Screenplay award by the AFI. Her 1991 documentary Light Years, about renowned Australian photographer Olive Cotton was nominated by ATOM as Best Documentary. She has also written extensively for print and radio and acted as a dramaturg and script editor on projects including Noelle Janaczewska’s award-winning theatre productions, including Mrs. Petrov’s Shoe (winner of a 2006 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award) and Songket (winner of 2002 Griffin Playwriting Award and 2001 Playbox Asialink Playwriting Competition).

Kathryn is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media at Macquarie University.

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Elena Kats-Chernin was born in the Uzbekistan capital of Tashkent then moved to Yaroslavl where she enjoyed a childhood that included watching Chaplin movies. Trained in Moscow, Australia, and Germany, she is one of Australia’s leading composers. Her diverse output includes operas, orchestral works, chamber and solo pieces for The Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Australian Chamber Orchestra, plus music for dance, film, and theatre. Her music was featured at the Opening Ceremony for the 2000 Olympics as well as the 2003 Rugby World Cup.

Kathryn involved Elena from earliest pre-production, showing her footage as she sourced it over her years of researching Chaplin. The Tramp worked away on Elena’s subconscious. When Kathryn returned from India with final footage for The Boot Cake, Elena sat down at the piano to turn her ethereal ideas into a composition. For scenes of Chaplin at his most madcap, Elena created simple, jaunty rhythms using a combination of instruments to create what she calls, “a slightly bent, silent film sound”. In discussion with Kathryn they decided Elena would play the piano and they would also incorporate mandolin, electric guitar, trombone, clarinet and violin.

Some scenes needed a subtle approach so as not to overburden the atmosphere with music that would be “too busy”. “There is a reflective scene where the doctor is watching Chaplin in The Gold Rush and that called for something quite modest musically, just a bit of piano, violin and clarinet. It is not a Chaplinesque moment. Often music is not what you see on screen but the emotion behind what you see.”

Elena praises the music team she led, including Scott Saunders who worked on preparation. “We knew from the start of working on the music for The Boot Cake that the film would win if we were to choose improvising musicians who would be able to change the style of playing according to the way the film was unfolding. It was incredible fun for me to play piano alongside Paul (clarinet), James (trombone), Carl (guitar) and Shenton (violin and mandolin).”

“Sometimes, when working on a particular sequence we would decide not to use, let’s say, trombone, because it would perhaps add an unnecessary comic flavour to an otherwise serious contemplative scene. However, while recording for another sequence, we would need exactly that sort of ironic sound that was wrong for another scene.

The Boot Cake required a surprising mix of many of Elena’s different skills. “It has an offbeat charm about it. It is an unusual film. Kathryn, as well as the film itself, left me a lot of freedom with the kind of music I could compose. Even though it is not a silent film, I felt that I could sometimes treat it as such and that gave me a lot of creative independence. It was a fun way to work.”

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Himman Dhamija is Indian-born and Australian-trained. The Australian Film Television School graduate has worked in Bollywood, Tollywood (Telugu film), Kollywood (Tamil film) and Australia,shooting documentaries such as Chinese Takeaway, The Trouble with Merle and Black Chicks Talking. He was behind the camera for the multi-award winning My Mother India, the story of his wife Safi na Uberoi and the marriage of her Indian father to her Australian mother. He also shot big Indian extravaganzas Heyy Babyy and The Rising, his work being described as “elegant”, “rich” and in Hollywood bible Variety he was praised for his “eyewatering widescreen compositions.”

Himman, who shares his birthday with Charlie Chaplin, remembers watching the silent star’s movies when he was just six.

“When TV in India was still black and white, having a TV at all was a big thing. Charlie was shown quite a lot but only the privileged got to see him. I used to go to a friend’s house to watch. We loved him.”

Himman shrugs off the various challenges of filming – including shooting on salt plains in intense heat and astride a moving bus. His attitude to shooting The Boot Cake was to remain open-minded and go into the situation without any preconceived ideas.

“It is about being honest to the place and the people. You go in and see what their story is. They are fantastic people and it was humbling to be with them and to see their belief and faith. Being part of the Charlie Circle brings a kind of humanity to the rest of their lives.”

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Kathryn Millard had two words for sound designer Andrew Plain - “have fun”. It was music to his ears. As a triple recipient of Australian Film Institute awards for Best Sound, nominated 10 times, it was clear his work would be technically brilliant, so Kathryn gave him carte blanche to have as much fun as he liked. It was a rare treat for Andrew, who has gained an international reputation through his work on such diverse films as The Truman Show, Lantana, In the Cut and Oscar and Lucinda.

“We were allowed to be playful. Kathryn didn’t want us to be reverential. We put in bangs and clashes and had a lot of fun. The way the music was composed she was trying to inject the film with the same tempo as a Chaplin film.”

Familiar with the frantic pace and challenges of shooting on the road Andrew expected the worst when the sound recordings arrived at Huzzah Sound at Fox Studios in Sydney. “With documentaries that is always the area that causes the most headaches. It is where they scrimp to save money and it makes our job so much harder, where we have to scrape stuff out before we can actually get to work making it better. But she came back with such beautiful recorded sound. The sound from on top of the bus was so clean we had to put wind buffeting in to make it sound authentic.”

Andrew used to be a Buster Keaton fan but after working on this film has switched to Charlie. “It’s a lovely meditative piece. I love it at the end where she says she ended up taking a cake to a birthday party. It’s both funny and very poignant. Just like Charlie.”

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As a director of award-winning films Kathryn had a wide choice of film editors. She chose a former film student she had taught at Macquarie University, believing that his sense of visual rhythm put him among the best in the business. Andrew Soo has won acclaim and awards since graduating from Macquarie (1997) and AFTRS (2003) including Checkpoint, winner of 7 international awards - including the Jury Prize at the 2006 Montreal World Film Festival - and Liu Awaiting Spring, winner of the Teddy award for short film at Berlin Film Festival.

For The Boot Cake Andrew immersed himself in the world of Chaplin film studying footage and absorbing the rhythm into his bones. It set the tone.

“It wasn’t a conscious thing but definitely at the back of my mind was Charlie. When I got a particular piece of footage showing the impersonators I would think what would Charlie do with this footage? At other times I didn’t have to do much at all. The archive footage was so good those scenes dictated themselves.”

The essay style - layering narration with archive footage, impersonator performances and interviews, was a bigger challenge. An early edit incorporated footage of one impersonator so seamlessly with archival footage that it could be easily confused with the real Charlie. Andrew and Kathryn reworked it and found different ways to incorporate archival footage, using it to change rhythm.

“There were pretty much no rules. It was a case of diving into it and not knowing what to do until we did it. Kathryn was quite clear that she wanted an essay style, highly constructed with voice over and archive, many different textures. It is really attractive as a result. It isn’t a formulaic doco with lots of talking heads. It was a tremendous challenge but a lot of fun.”

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Since graduating from the Film and Television Institute of India as a cinematographer, Mrinal Desai has shot features, documentaries, short dramas and music videos. Recent work includes shooting the features The Prisoner, La Terre Ferme and Mahek and shooting second unit on Danny Boyle’s new feature SlumDog Millionaire. Previous credits include the documentaries Tibetan Olympics, Miranagari and Narayan Gangaram Surve. Desai’s awards include a Silver Conch at the Mumbai International Film Festival 2002.

When he joined The Boot Cake, Mrinal told director, Kathryn Millard that he was not a classical kind of guy, preferring compositions that were a bit off- centre. "Perfect – this whole project is off-centre!" she told him. Mrinal has a keen interest in both travel and photography. Check out some of his stills at: mrinaldesai.blogspot.com

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Steve Macdonald joined the project to help Kathryn complete interviews, cityscapes and mock-archival footage of Chaplin imitators. The ever-resourceful Steve has a wealth of experience as a DOP on features, documentaries, short dramas and music clips. His recent credits include the short dramas Bonfire, Leanne Cahill Shoots Through and Syntax Error, the features Dope and Saturday Night. Macdonald was also one of the contributing DOPs to Rolf de Heer’s feature Bad Boy Bubby.

His awards include a Gold ACS (Australian Cinematographers’ Award) for the feature dramatised documentary Kabbarli - A Film About Daisy Bates, and a Silver ACS and the POV Film Festival Cinematography Award for Syntax Error.

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Asheesh Pandya has built a strong international reputation for his location recording on documentaries. He has worked on a number of award winning projects including The Jew in the Lotus, Shadow over Tibet, Great Railway Journeys, When Four Friends Meet and A Night of Prophecy.

Recent awards include a UGC (Government of India) Award 2006 for Technical Excellence in Sound for Tales from the Margins  and a nomination for the ASSG Awards (Australian Screen Sound Guild) for Best Achievement in Sound for a Documentary for Outsourced. 

Asheesh says: "I felt very upbeat right from the very first moment I knew I was going to work for a project on Charles Chaplin – my hero right from childhood.  When I told  Kathryn that I'm a Chaplin fan myself – with 75 of his films in my collection – but was missing The Gold Rush, she  brought me a DVD copy".  Asheesh was an added support to the team on location in Adipur, since he speaks the local Gujarat language.

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Special Thanks: Doctor Ashok Aswani and the Charlie Circle of Adipur
Written, Produced and Directed by Kathryn Millard
Cinematography: Himman Dhimaji (Adipur), Mrinal Desai (Mumbai), Steve Macdonald (Sydney)
Editor: Andrew Soo
Music Composed by Elena Kats Chernin, Carl Dewhurst, Shenton Gregory, Paul Cutlin, James Greening
By permission of Boosey and Hawkes Inc.
Musical Director: Elena Kats-Chernin
Location Sound: Asheesh Pandya
Sound Design: Andrew Plain
Script Editor: Noelle Janaczewska
Online and Grade: Warren Lynch, Intercolour Pty Ltd
Technical Director (Post-Production): David Mitchell
Piano: Elena Kats Chernin
Violin, Mandolin: Shenton Gregory
Trombone: James Greenfield
Clarinet: Paul Cutlin
Guitar: Carl Dewhurst
Music Producer: Scott Saunders
Narrator: Kathryn Millard
Titles and Graphic Design: Alex Munt
Titles Animation: David Mitchell
Web Developer: Steve Collins
Site Design and Build: Elastic Digital
Additional Camera: Andrew Taylor (Sydney)
Additional Sound: Andy Postle (Sydney)
Research: Kathryn Millard, Amrit Gangar, Noelle Janaczewska
Production Manager (India): Amrit Gangar
Post-Production Manager: Cathy Flannery
Translations: Sadhana Jethanandani
Subtitles: Safina Uberoi
Charlie Lookalike (Sydney): Charles Anthony
Charlie Dancer (Sydney): Binh du Tay
Special Thanks: Prevan Kamate (Mumbai Charlie), Viswajeet Devnath (Hotel Charlie)

All images from Chaplin films made from 1918 onwards, Copyright © Roy Export Company Establishment. Charles Chaplin and the Little Tramp are trademarks and/or service marks of Bubbles Inc. S.A. and/or Roy Export Company Establishment, used with permission.

Special Thanks:
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia
Australia-India Council
Macquarie University

Developed and Produced with the Assistance of
New South Wales Film and Television Office and the Australian Film Commission

Principal Investor:
Film Finance Corporation Australia Ltd.

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