Producer Sahil Mirchandani speaks on highlight of his career and creating intricate projects

Sahil Mirchandani has worked on many wildly successful projects throughout his career as a leading producer in the Canadian film industry. His recent work on the award-winning experimental film Equinox allowed the film to be selected for two Oscar-qualifying film festivals, and he was hand-picked by Amazon Prime Video to produce three gallery shoots for upcoming shows that depended on the success of those promotional images. He has worked alongside sports icons for Nike’s new “Never Done” campaign and Juno award-winning musician Tyler Shaw on the viral music video “When You’re Home”. With all this, though, Mirchandani says the highlight of this formidable career was creating the Tate McRae “You Broke Me First” video for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

“It was my first time producing for a household name like Jimmy Fallon. Everyone instantly recognized this, so I was able to watch the premiere with my family and friends,” said Mirchandani.

The video was played live on NBC on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in January of 2021 to an average of 345,000 viewers per episode that season, and the video now holds over 1.4 million views on YouTube. The song “You Broke Me First” has amassed over 1 million individual purchases, giving it a Platinum Record status, and has over 250 million streams on international music streaming platforms. This performance was one of the first for the song on live television, helping boost McRae’s popularity. McRae now has over 24 million monthly listeners on Spotify, making her one of the 100 most-streamed artists on the platform, and being a part of that has been extremely memorable for Mirchandani.

When Mirchandani had first heard of the intricate creative concept that was pitched, he was hooked. They had to film a three minute long, one-take shot that involved multiple projector screens suspended in the air across an airplane hangar sized studio, with specific choreography cues for the performers, lighting cues for over 25 stage-lit fixtures rigged to the ceiling, and a weaving camera attached to a 27-foot crane that had to capture the perfect moments throughout this entire set. For a project like this where there is a tight timeline and they have to pull off the impossible, the production company boldly approached Mirchandani knowing that he would be able to seamlessly execute these complex creative logistics under such a tight timeline. 

“Sahil is very detail oriented and focused on achieving a creative vision even with monumental hurdles standing in his way. He’s a pleasure to be around and an absolute professional at his job. I know that when I have Sahil producing for me, I don’t need to worry about the pieces not coming together. He’s the most reliable producer I’ve had the pleasure of working with,” said Director Jonah Haber.

Mirchandani was responsible for putting the team in place and finding the budget to make such an extravagant plan come to life. Every day he was tracking the progress of the preparation and connecting with the team of 40 people to make sure everyone had what they needed and that everyone was on track. With only 11 days to prepare for the entire project and before going to camera, Mirchandani had his work cut out for him. His ability to think fast and problem solve every step of the way to ensure there were no department-wide bottlenecks was essential to execute this project. 

If you haven’t yet, check out Tate McRae’s performance of “You Broke Me First” that originally appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon here.

Photo by Andre Apperley