Slumdog Millionaire - Production

Explore the factors which affected the production of Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire started out as an unpublished book written my Vikas Swarup which was optioned by the head of film and drama at Film 4 Tessa Ross who saw "emotional power and distinctive cinematic potential" in the story and showed it to writer Simon Beaufoy who was drawn to the different take on the rags and riches tale. Danny Boyle was then contacted to come on as director but he was skeptical at first as he didn't want to make a film about 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?'  but came around after learning Beaufoy wrote the script and he decided to read it and after reading it agreed to come on as director.

Casting then began and an extensive search in India for the role of Jamal took place but fell short as all the young men in Mumbia tended to be overly muscular and well built as its part of their culture and Danny Boyle just wanted an ordinary looking guy to fill the role. It was Boyle's daughter who suggested Dev Patel because she was a fan of his previous work on the show Skins. There was a lot of controversy surrounding the casting of actual slum children to play roles in the movie, they were accused of exploiting and underpaying the child actors and according to their parents Rubina (Young Latika) was paid £500 for a years work while Azharuddin (Young Salim) was paid £1700. A spokesperson for Fox Searchlight claimed "fees were more than three times the average annual salary an adult in their neighbourhood would receive" and trust funds were set up in the actors names but no sum or evidence of the this was provided.

Filming on location proved to be a difficult task as there were many unexpected issues the crew came across along the way. Danny Boyle stated that filming in Mumbia is "like the sea - always the same but constantly changing" this is proven by the fact that after finding a location to shoot, they would come back the next day and find a wall built overnight and have to then work around the restrictions the wall posed. Another issue they faced was the fact that the 35ml cameras they were using felt too static as Dany wanted the audience to be thrown into the scenes and become a part of them and not to be just looking at it, the use of the digital cameras made this easier as they could be hand help with a stabiliser and because easily manoeuvred through small spaces and tight corridors to create the feeling of the camera being part of the scene.