Sahil Mirchandani Honors AAPI Month with Gymshark Campaign

Producing, for Toronto-based Sahil Mirchandani, is all about making art possible. Not only is he a renowned producer, but he is an artist, always looking at the creative industry at a macro level and understanding what projects he must take on in order to bring good art into this world. When taking on a project, Mirchandani focuses first on the story, and then on the vision of the team.

From there, the logistics are like his paintbrush and canvas, as it is up to him to figure out the reality of bringing grand ideas to a reality. He does this with thoughtfulness and an unparalleled dedication that has become so recognizable to his peers, and he has no plans on slowing down.

Audiences around the world have enjoyed Mirchandani’s work on projects like Tate McRae’s “You Broke Me First” performance for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Tate McRae’s performance of “Slower” for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Tyler Shaw’s music video for his hit song “When You’re Home” and Nike’s new campaign “Never Done” for Summer of 2022. Working on promotional photoshoots for Amazon Prime’s original series Kids in the Hall, Last One Laughing: Canada, and The Pines, Mirchandani brings that same passion as he does for a motion picture, proving that he can conquer any medium.

“I love how tangible and real producing feels, because we get to take words on a screen, in a script, or pictures on a pitch and actually bring those to life with our creative problem solving and self-determined attitude to make things happen,” he says.

Another recent commercial project for Mirchandani is Gymshark’s AAPI Heritage Month campaign that was released worldwide in June of 2022. Even when making commercials, a spot audiences may only see for half a minute, Mirchandani takes that same artistic approach and focuses on the story.

This commercial’s story was incredibly important, as it celebrated Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which is observed during the month of May, and recognizes the contributions and influence of Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans to the history, culture, and achievements of the United States. Mirchandani wanted to work on this project as it was featuring all Asian athletes during AAPI month and making an effort to feature a majority BIPOC/Asian crew behind the camera as well.

“I was happy to produce this project and increase Asian representation in the creative industries both in front of and behind the camera. We dug deep with our talent to really find out how they feel as Asian creators and Asian athletes in these spaces, and amongst their professional circles. It was really insightful to bring their stories to life in a creative way that appeals to broad audiences,” says Mirchandani.

As a South Asian producer, Mirchandani was the perfect fit for the project and was especially proud that they had such a heavily BIPOC team behind the camera. As the producer, he was responsible for hiring all heads of department, crew, and post-production teams on this project and had so much fun working with talented athletes and creators to develop content that felt authentic to their stories, their lifestyles, and their platforms with a team of BIPOC creatives and bringing Asian heritage into widely distributed mainstream content. This involved a heavy amount of talent interviews to ensure he extracted relevant data from their life stories and infused that creatively into each of the spots they were featured in.

“I loved working with Asian creatives in these industries because I feel like we don’t see that representation here enough. It was a great few days on set working with creators to focus on their Asian heritage and lifestyle. I enjoyed the fun, fast, and energetic product that we brought to life in each spot as well. I also enjoyed working with Gymshark as a client who was very supportive of our creative decisions on set,” he describes.

Mirchandani was responsible for the leading of all day-to-day operations. This involved ensuring all heads of departments were getting their necessary prep elements done in time for production, as well as the management of the set day to ensure his team captured the content needed to successfully deliver these spots to Gymshark. In the end, he ran everything flawlessly and gave the client a stellar campaign to run with that really touched the hearts of audiences all over the world.

“I feel very grateful that this project was received well across Asian, creative, and athletic communities. I’m thankful that the message we were trying to spread with these spots was dispersed far and wide upon this project’s release,” he says.

Click here to learn more about AAPI month and how you can help.

Photo by Andre Apperley