Inside The Credits 060: The Spot Producers
The Producers of The Spot— The show where musicians go to their favorite hometown eateries with host Miki Hellerbach to dissect visceral memories over their favorite plate of food.
So…this will be a bit of a break from our regularly scheduled programming. First, I will be expanding the definition, as it exists on this Substack, of the term “producer” to include film. The reason for this is I have begun to launch a promotional campaign with my team for the interview show of my dreams.
"The Spot” is an episodic series exploring the integral connection between music, culture, and community through the intimate lens of food. Over meals at hometown eateries that evoke nostalgia and belonging, musicians open up in conversation about the flavors and memories that shaped them. Think Anthony Bourdain meets Zane Lowe. I waxed poetic about this idea a few years ago to who would become the show’s main producer, my partner, Suswana. I presented it as if it was this moonshot idea that didn’t really have a chance of being actualized. She instantly encouraged me to believe that the show was possible to do and was something to commit to. Yet, still, I needed to see some action to fully commit. Sometimes we have fun ideas in our head that need an outside push to make a reality.
Luckily for me, Suswana Chowdhury is not only a ridiculously encouraging girlfriend, but also has a plethora of production credits proving a track record viable to execute something this daring from the ground up. She is an award-winning producer who started her studio deaf&mumbles to develop projects with new voices for the screen, stage, and immersive. Suswana's short films Dawat, Unbroken, and Willow: State of Emergency have run on the film festival circuits worldwide winning multiple awards. She is also a Telly Award Winner and Shorty's Impact Nominee for her commercial projects with The California Endowment. Most recently, she even produced and directed a sold-out Off-Broadway theatrical poetry show, Into the Deep with Jean-Sebastien Surena, an artist she manages. The show included original music performed by a live jazz band and 3D rendered projections. Once I knew I had someone with this level of background fully behind the idea, it was time to push forward.
As a producer of a show does, Suswana began to build a team around us necessary to make something like this happen. I moved to Los Angeles in December of 2023 and one of the first things Suswana set up was a meeting with potential production partners for The Spot. She sent Rianjali Bhowmick a thorough email asking for a meeting. Rianjali spearheads the independent production company Mild Mannered & Timid where she has produced films and composed for award-winning projects like Seeing God and Saltwater, but her credits reach much further. She is an award-winning singer-songwriter and composer committed to reshaping the South Asian diaspora’s presence in music. Rianjali found her breakthrough when Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman invited her to collaborate. She’s since worked with him on multiple projects, including the Emmy-nominated Daughters of Destiny (Netflix), Le Musk (Rahman’s Cannes-premiering VR debut), and Amazon Prime’s Harmony. Her credits also include songwriting for Blinded by the Light, Love Sonia, and performing with artists like U2, Shawn Mendes, and Bishop Briggs. She’s graced stages from the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show to Barclays Center, and was Oscar-shortlisted in 2017. Lastly, her first feature documentary, executive produced by Vanessa Roth, is currently in production alongside a short film starring Thomas Sadoski.
Rianjali is also only one third of the MMT team. Their other producers include Kunal Patel and Kush Parmar. Kunal is an entertainment attorney for 10+ years, currently at Appletv+, previously at Maxim, Universal Music Group, and VICE. Worked on CODA, Napoleon, SEE, Desus & Mero, F*ck That's Delicious, Most Expensivist, Dark Side of the Ring, as well as on Original/Companion Apple Podcasts. He’s also a musician, director, and producer by night with original music on a Playstation game (Haze), in Bollywood films (Ok Jaanu, Sachin Sachin, Robo 2.0), has performed at Metlife Stadium with A.R. Rahman, and directed a docu series featured on Thrillist and currently is an Executive Producer of Hoop Like This: The India Rising Story. Now, he may not mention this in his credits per se, but he is also a burgeoning photographer with a specifically keen eye for social media ready images as displayed on his Instagram, seemingly daily. Another set of stacked credits. Kush Parmar, is an Audio Engineer, Musician, and producer who has released multiple full projects of his own, while being credited for instrumental work on multiple indie albums. Kush is also a competitive and professional dancer and improviser who graduated from Upright Citizens Brigade. He also has produced and arranged music for a multitude of professional clients and edited multiple podcast episodes for MMT. With a team like this on board it was time to set up a meeting.
We gathered at Sightglass Coffee in West Hollywood in December of 2023 to discuss the show. At the meeting, I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of alignment. Not only did the show seem to make sense to everyone as an idea that could be brought to life, but everyone seemed to fit naturally into necessary roles we would need to execute. I would conceptualize and host the series as well as help Suswana book our first guest via my prior journalistic connections and skillset. Suswana would handle the day to day producing and assist me in the full conceptualization. Rianjali would compose any music necessary to complete episodes or trailers and Kush would handle all of the sound editing. Kunal would offer any legal support needed when necessary along the journey to actualization and take bts photos of all the work on set. MMT as a whole would also handle all physical production needs. Over morning drinks of our choices it all seemed pretty organic and exciting. We even took a photo to canonize the link up (featured at the top of this piece).
Let’s skip ahead a bit. We worked our butts off to get everything set up to shoot a pilot including booking our first guest, multi-hyphenate vocalist and producer Asha Imuno, straight out of Moreno Valley, California—whose work I wrote about extensively through the lens of his producer Zach Ezzy on ITC 049. We locked in his favorite hometown spot, Harry’s Cafe, all set up by our incredible location scout/line producer Colt Kozal who was looped in via MMT. He’s worked as a production assistant on sets from second unit of The Avengers to HBO’s The Deuce and Prime’s Sneaky Pete, with work at Nine Stories, headed by producers Riva Marker and Jake Gyllenhaal to start off a dope round of credits. He also supported Academy Award nominated documentary producers Lucy Walker and Julian Cautherley until the pandemic brought everything to a halt and he began pursuing producing independently. He completed his MFA in Producing from American Film Institute Conservatory and some of the films he produced there have gone on to play at festivals across the country and as far as Finland and Poland, claiming awards such as the Student DGA. He’s best known for his work on the shorts Mort (2024), Dreams (2022), and the Ones We Keep (2022) and The Bullfighter (2023). Needless to say, he made the locational elements of shooting the pilot feel seamless.
What we desperately needed to secure though was an absolute wiz behind the camera. Rianjali sent me and Suswana a bunch of options for potential cinematographers along with their reels and previous work. We were both struck by how much the shooting of a particular documentary, about the NHL of all things, aligned with the aesthetic of our series. Praveen Elankumaran was behind the lens. His credits are also off the charts. A graduate of The American Film Institute's MFA program as well as New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, he has lensed narrative projects such as feature film Bleecker (Ben Stiller, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Christine Taylor) and short films that have played at film festivals like AFI Fest, Cleveland Int'l, HBO's NY Latino Film Fest, and a WME Showcase, as well as commercials for clients like H&M, Major League Soccer, Adidas, TBWA/Chiat/Day, and of course the NHL. He has also worked on lighting teams for various films and television shows, including If Beale Street Could Talk, Broad City, High Maintenance, and The Greatest Showman. In short, the look of our pilot is about as great as we could’ve imagined because of him.
Now, I need to speak about the shooting day itself and how important it was to have people with essential credited backgrounds to make it a success. I was able to feel like I was in a state of pure purpose while we were shooting the pilot. The two passions I feel most connected to, music and food, being thrust together into a show where I was interviewing an artist whose work I felt deeply connected to felt cathartic. Watching Praveen capture its essence, while Suswana directed and kept the story points aligned, while Kunal and Ria kept the crew organized and took bts photos, while Colt coordinated with the staff at the spot, felt like being in the middle of a modern version of a classic movie newsroom where all the journalists are synchronized in real time to execute the story. I was home.
Once we had the pilot shot we had to get it edited. In film, editors are essentially engineers, meaning the core vibe and flow of everything relies on them. We were lucky to have Patrice D. Bowman as our editor with assistance from NY based production company Project Feel. Patrice is a New York City-based award-winning filmmaker and owner of the film production and post-production company Bowman Pictures. Great credited start. She received a B.A. in Film and Media Studies from Yale University in 2015. Currently, her experimental short adaptation of the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes, "Under the Sun After the Wind," is on the film festival circuit. Her previous short, "Saturday Grace," was selected to screen at the Academy Award-qualifying Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival & Lecture Series. Her first short film, "Lean on Him," won the Howard R. Lamar Prize Film & Video at Yale University. Her color grading and editing work can be seen in a variety of places, from PBS Reel South to Facebook's branded content. Now, Project Feel is a Latinx-owned multimedia production company based in New York City that creates films and experiences rooted in authenticity and connection. Suswana and myself have worked with them on multiple projects and Anthony Alvarez is basically our collaborative brother on another coast. Project Feel empowers artists and organizations to tell their stories with purpose, crafting visually striking & emotionally resonant content that captivates audiences. Whether through powerful documentaries and films or live events, their work bridges creativity and community. Without them, we would have no pilot or social media clips of it to share with you.
I am blown away by the credited background of our team. I am but a journalist with a dream that could not have been executed without them. I would be extremely grateful if you followed along with our social media push. Follow @convosatthespot on IG, TikTok, and Youtube to see a variety of clips of the show we’ve released thus far to get a full preview of the pilot we are so deeply proud of.
We think we’ve cooked up something really special, and shooting in 4K isn’t free. Thus, we’ve had to self fund most of what we’ve done so far with little bits of help from friends and fam. Turns out fried chicken for a full crew, driving to Moreno Valley and back to LA, and hiring consummate professionals for essential roles is not free. Feelings of immense passion and purpose also don’t fund post-production (rude, honestly, I mean wtf).
But stick around! We at The Spot have got a lil somethin’ launching soon that you can actually help with if you’d like to see more!
As much as Inside The Credits is a culmination of my work over my career of highlighting producers, “The Spot” is the zenith of my work aligning food and music as adjacent passions. I hope you will join the journey with us :)
Ps. Here's a playlist of songs with food in the name just for fun!
Ps number two. My sister Eva and MMT’s intern Nithya have been essential on social media strategy, ShahRukh Tailor was our pilot camera operator, and Maya Raman was our awesome PA for the pilot. I think that’s everyone!
How exciting!! Hope to see ya around town 👏🏽