The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

British cinematographer, Ben Davis talks about working with John Madden on ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.’ Ben talks about the beauty of India and its people and some the challenges in shooting this film.

"John Madden is one of my most favourite people in the world, as well as being, one of my favourite directors. However, when he called and asked if I would do ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’, I was slightly reluctant because it was a long period of being away shooting. This film was to be shot in Udaipur and Jaipur in Rajasthan, with an equal amounts of time in each place."

"I had been in India before, but only briefly in the past. India is an incredibly interesting place to make a movie. While I was shooting this film, I really had to learn the way things are done with their filmmaking. You really have to understand their processes and make that ultimately work for you. If you were to go in there and say you want it done my way, well you are going to have a very hard time of it indeed."

"For instance, the location we used for the Marigold Hotel had quite a bit of work to do to get it ready for shooting. We had day and night work going on, just to get the cabling and pre rigging that I needed to be done. I had four or five days that I thought I could spend getting all my lighting in place."

"I had a wonderful local lighting gaffer, who explained to me that we couldn’t do it over a week as I had wanted. He explained that it all had to be done in just one day before shooting! To my horror, we must have had about sixty people come in and do it all on the same day. When I stood back and watched what was happening from my perspective, it looked like absolute pandaemonium to me. However, they did get it done - and it was done well. It just had to be done the way they’re used to doing things and not the way I am used to working."

“if you pull a camera out in the street, within twenty minutes you will have a crowd of a thousand people all coming to see what you are doing.”

"To me it looked like pandemonium, but it was obviously a system that worked for them and worked very well indeed in the end. What they tend to do in India, is to throw labour at problems to get things done quickly. Once you accept that this is the way that things happen, it actually works quite well."

"One of the biggest challenges of filming in India, particularly in the bigger cities is the noise. There is this constant assault from the noise of the city all of the time. I found this very difficult to deal with in the longterm. As I come from the quiet of the English countryside, the five weeks of shooting in Jaipur I found to be a real assault on all of your senses."

"Shooting the street scenes in particular, was a real challenge. The thing about India is that they love the film industry and are absolutely crazy about the process of filmmaking. So if you pull a camera out in the street, within twenty minutes you will have a crowd of a thousand people all coming to see what you are doing."

"Obviously, when they all come to see what is happening, they just stand there watching you right in the middle of the shot! So you have to develop cunning strategies to deal with this problem."

"One technique is to keep the camera hidden in a vehicle until the very last moment; which means you will have to discretely rehearse the scene before hand. There is a lot of subterfuge and camouflaging of cameras, such as the building of camera-hides during the night. Another tactic was to shoot some of the street work on a Canon 5D, so that it looked more like a stills camera than a film camera and wouldn’t attract too much attention."

"The upside to shooting in India is the beautiful light. I absolutely adore it. There is this constant breakup between sunlight and the subject matter. Because of all of the particulates in the air, you get these amazing atmospherics that make the daylight far more forgiving to shoot with. Everything has a real softness to the sunlight and a warmth to it - that makes it simply beautiful."

"When I was lighting the cast, I also played it pretty straight. Given the nature of the film and the story, I wanted everything very naturalistic. However, a couple of the cast did have a bit of a response to it being too realistic! I remember John Madden saying ‘that we all have a vision of ourselves that is ten years younger than the reality’. So I had to be sensitive to this, but I still didn’t want to manipulate the light filtration and the way people really looked. I wanted our actors to be as they are."

"This story is all about people at the end of their lives living in India and I wanted the film to really express this, and to feel very real. Rather than creating an overly flattering depiction of that world, I wanted it based on a reality. I didn’t want a photoshop version of India or of our cast. The script already had a certain amount of romanticism to it, so I didn’t want the lighting to feel that way as well. Otherwise the audience may have started to feel manipulated and we could have run the risk of loosing them."

"John Madden is an incredibly experienced director, and he is very instinctive in the way he gets the scene he wants. And a film like this should be like that. This is one of those films that shouldn’t be storyboarded. When you have great actors like Judy Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson and Bill Nighy, you don’t want to be tying them down to a preconceived idea. Their input is incredibly valid with these things."

"With actors of that calibre, you give them a loose idea of what the scene should be, and where they are in that space. And then you sit back and simply watch great actors do what they do best - which is to create the story for you."

"The big thing about ‘Marigold Hotel’ is that it is all about great characters. The one thing I would have like to have done differently, if it had been possible, was to show more of the character of India. I would love to see more of its true beauty."

"I would love one day to go back to India and shoot another film, one that features more of its uniqueness. It is a great place to shoot a movie, because the filmmakers there are absolutely fabulous. They have this wonderful attitude where almost everything is possible to them. I really respect that."

Awards

Golden Globes Nomination

2013 Best Motion Picture

BAFTA Award Nomination

2013 Best British Film

American Cinema Editors

2013 Best Edited Feature Film

British Independent Film Awards

2012 Best British Independent Film

European Film Awards Nomination

2012 Audience Award

Credits

Director

John Madden

DOP

Ben Davis

Editorial

Chris Gill

Gaffer

Michael McDermott

Lighting

Ramesh Sadrani

Colorist

Adam Glasman

Artists

Ben Davis, BSC

Acclaimed British DP, Ben Davis talks about his journey from commercials to Hollywood features.

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Location

Udaipur, India