Blog 001 - The making of Jamie’s Wager

As some of you may already know, Jamie’s Wager was inspired by a personal family story, so in that regard, the making of Jamie’s Wager started when I sitting in a Funeral Director’s office in Hampstead in 2015 alongside my brother and cousin. My late brother, Karim Kardar, had unexpectedly died in a motorbike accident

Sitting in this dated office, peppered with various funeral marketing posters, I took a moment to recognise the comedy in this tradegy, the three of us attempting to figure out how exactly my eldest brother should be buried. Despite the grief, for a split second, a moment in time, I thought to myself this would make a great film. It was resonating in so many ways, a situation that forced you to answer life’s deepest of questions, and the three of us each having different answers, or the lack of, in confronting this situation.

Fast forward a few years, once I had gone freelance, I had finally found the time to finish the script with the wonderful support of Clive Frayne from Script Compass. 23 pages eventually became 15 that were ready to turn into a short film.

Finding a team that could connect to the story was as important as the production experience they had. Zainab Abra was initially onboard as Producer whom I had met at a South Asian Creative meetup. Sadly she had to pull out due other other work commitments but I thank her for helping me with the initial momentum and coming up with the actual title of the film.

I reconnected with an old acquaintance, Derkan Dogan, who I once met at Rumi’s Cave, a beautiful Muslim community in North-West London. A Writer/Director who had made his own shorts and was keen on helping me with Producer responsibilities. He was more ruthless in his approach, which was handy when making certain decisions surrounding budget and crew. He was assisted by the methodical Raha Mahamoud, who recently Produced for theatre shows Dugsi Dayz and Desperate Times. They made a formidable duo. My DOP friend, Chris Nguyen, Kashman Harris as AD and Tuppacc Carroll as Gaffer completed the HOD team.

The eve of Christmas Eve

Finding the Funeral Director location was the most challenging of locations. I had found a great location in Mile End, a beautiful 1960s wood pannelled office. After performing a recee and making arrangments to pay a pricey deposit, to my dissapointment, four weeks before the shoot, the location went ahead with another production that offered them more days. I was gutted but determined to find an alternative. I scoured the internet, hired a location scout, pestered friends, all to no avail. Thoughts of postponing the shoot started to surface.

It came down to a random walk I had with my good friend and neighbour Hussain Hassan on the eve of Christmas eve, 23rd December 2023. The night was cold and the festive christmas spirit was in the air. Hussain was making a permanent move to Oman in a few days so we were just catching up on life and future plans. Walking down South Harrow, with one eye scouting buildings that might have what I’m looking for, I walked into an Irish Pub, perhaps they had a back room office in a similar wood panelled style? “Only a pub garden at the back im afraid, but check out the British Royal Legion pub down the road,” they suggested, “they'‘ll have what you are looking for”. Unfortunately for Hussain, our catch up walk turned into a cold night location hunt!

A short walk down the main road and the lovely Mandy welcomed me in and gave me a tour of the place. The decor was great but alot of the rooms were too large to be a funeral office. We walked past a door that Mandy didn’t give much attention, “Whats in there?” I asked, “Oh thats just our staff room where we have meetings, you won’t like it”. Little did she know it turned out to be exactly what I needed. A small dated wood pannelled office room, the final piece of this jigsaw.

Storyboards, reccees and rehearsals

With the trauma of having worked on one-too-many shoots with little pre-production as a freelance camera op, I knew I really wanted to get this right for my own film. I’m also a big fan of Michael Haneke’s work and his pre-production process, honing in on the shot list and storyboard, fully aware that I didn’t have time to explore on set. For me, production was a time to execute. I knew what I wanted to say.

My DP was brilliant in his pre-prod, designing animated floor plans for each location ahead of time, knowing where the sun would rise and set before we even stepped into the location. Countless of Zoom calls going through the shot list figuring out what order to shoot things in.

I also desperately wanted all the Heads to meet beforehand and reccee the locations together. I knew this was important to identify any potential challenges in advance, but more importantly for the team to meet, break the ice, gel and get comfortable together. Although my budget couldnt stretch to pay for a reccee day, a cheeky Nandos lunch did the trick. An invaluable day I think this was.

Much of my directing experience comes from directing athletes, i.e. non-actors, so I wanted to factor a one-day rehearsal with my lead cast to go over the chunky nine-page funeral director scene. As it was such an important scene. I didnt want the first time we read through it together to be during production, and more importantly I didnt want my first time working with professional actors to be on the actual set. It made all the difference and I actually really enjoyed the experience working with the cast. Working with Kate Maravan, Amy Booth-Steel, Mushi Noor and Usaamah Ibraheem Hussain was just a breath of fresh air. Im certain that the rehearsal led to how smooth the day went during production.

Lessons to be learnt

As smooth as it all went, it was still a big learning experience and there are things I look back on I would have done differently. The most notable was underestimating the work involed in set design, prop sourcing and the roles and responsibilities surrounding the Art Department. Coming from unscripted background in sports entertainment/corporate video this wasn’t something I had really done before. I had found myself hiring vans and doing endless trips to prop houses, ordering things on Amazon, gumtree and FB marketplace. I spent too much of my own time in this department but of course it was my first short with limited budget, it was kind of inevitable.

Working with Kashman Harris as AD was an absolute dream, he ran the set so professionally, keeping me on track with my shot list and ensuring there was enough time to get what I needed or scrap what I didnt. As a self-shooter this was a new way of working for me and perhaps in retrospect I would have pushed back on certain moments, throw a lil Director’s tantrum to try and get an extra cheeky shot. I just need to work on the tantrum side of things!

It’s been almost a year since the shoot and I look back with fond memories. I thoroughly enjoyed it eventhough in the moment it felt very stressful. I always relate it to the time I used to fight competitively, a mixture of emotions, from excitement, doubt, fear and confidence.

Aswell as thanking the crew, a special thanks goes to Sam Ostrove of Cabin Edit who handled the post production like a boss. Without much instruction he understood what I wanted with the pace and tone of this film but also added his own touch on things which I think really worked, for example, the third act of the film became alot more loose, free from dialogue and more emotive. an absolute genius really.

Also a big thanks to my good friend Ehsan Bhayat who helped produced this film and one of my biggest cheerleaders aswell as my uncle Yusuf Hamied who helped me to finance the film and make it a reality.