Neil Sadwelkar, based in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) India. Was born and raised right here in Mumbai. Both his parents were well-known artists (painters) - Vijoo and Baburao Sadwelkar.

Spends most of his waking hours working as an Editor and Edit System Consultant - for Avid and FCP systems.

After school, Neil tried unsuccessfully to get admission to the FTII at Pune - India's premier film school. So he ended up doing a Masters degree in Physics with specialization in Electronics.

Took up his first job at the Nehru Planetarium as a maintenance person - to help repair the exotic electronic systems they have there. Sometimes they even let him do some repairs all by himself.

While at the planetarium, Neil assisted on an animation film on Astronomy. Also worked on the production of over a dozen "sky-shows" on Astronomy. Nearly half a million people see these shows each year.

Later, he worked as one of the sound recordists for a long-form film series "Bharat ki Chhap". Created by Chhandita Mukherjee and telecast on Indian Television.

He also interned as Asst. Director (the guy who writes continuity and claps) and Edit Asst. (the guy who winds reels and syncs sound) for the same - on Steenbeck and other "manual nonlinear" devices. Yes, those were the first "nonlinear" editing systems.

The editors on that project were Reena Mohan, Renu Saluja, and Dipti Bhalla. He watched them closely and tried to learn their craft. And the DPs were Anil Mehta, Inderjit Bansal, Ranjan Palit, Fernando Cabral, Murlidhar, Mohanan, some of the best this country has produced.

Worked his way upwards and made it to Senior Scientist at the Planetarium, and then Technical Manager of a museum on Indian history - the Discovery of India at Nehru Centre, Mumbai. Eventually worked at Nehru Centre for 16 years - 1982 to 1998. In those years, he worked closely with a college friend, Nivedita who also worked there till recently. They married in 1987.

Later and over ten years or so, he produced and co-directed (with wife, Nivedita) several documentaries. On non-conventional energy sources, building of a bridge, Radioactivity, Astronomy, and other such.

As far as post-production goes, Neil has worked on and tinkered with a variety of post-prod equipment - "low-band" & "hi-band" Umatic edit suites, A/B roll setups. And then nonlinear systems on NuBus and PPC Avids going on to today's MacPro, and iMac based Final Cut Pro systems. From 1983 till today, and won't stop.

Taught film students at the Xavier Institute of Communications between 1990 and 1999. Also was visiting faculty at the Bachelor of Mass Media Course at Wilson College (Univ. of Mumbai). Has given some talks at C-DAC's Advanced Computing course, and a multimedia course at Edit Institute.

When the TV boom happened in the nineties, Neil worked with old friends Indrajeet Neogi and Dileep Subramaniam and did sync sound. Indian film industry term for sound recording on location that is not overdubbed. Between 1992-98... he did sync sound for
over 200 TV shows - soaps, game shows, talk shows, corporates, ads.

Some years ago Neil was a contributing editor at Misenscene a meeting ground for media professionals from the Indian sub continent. And wrote for their magazine creative-i. Niether of these exist any more, but we're willing to give it another go if anyone will foot the bill. Until then you can still read these articles here. (Some are outdated by now)

Neil now writes for two publications - Studio Systems, and Digital Studio - both published in India on various aspects of post-production.

From 1996 onwards he has been editing ad films and other films, for production houses in Mumbai. To drop a few names. Squirkle, Ramesh Deo Production, Picture This, POV films, Performance, TropicFilm, VideoKraft, Trapeze Films, Love & Faith and some more. 

He's done a bit of post overseas in Dubai and Singapore. Made video capsules for the web, for the Dubai Shopping Festival from Dubai.

On some occasions, films edited by him have even made it to the short list at the Cannes Ad film awards and won other awards. And he has been awarded at the Times Asia Pacific Advertising Awards 2003 (for the Hitachi Electric Bill commercial) and at the IDPA awards 2005 (Indian Oil Elephants Commercial)

Has lost count of how many TV commercials he's edited, but from studying TDS certificates he estimates these to be around 300.

Was associated as "Technical Consultant" with a FCP setup to edit a real Hindi feature film called "Lakshya", directed by Farhan Akhtar. And another feature called "Akoori" directed by Homi Adajania. The film was later called "Being Cyrus". Both these happened in 2004 when editing film in an FCP system was not very prevalent in India.

In 2006 Neil, along with partner Anand Subaya, co-edited a Hindi feature film called 'Don', Produced by Ritesh Sidhwani, Directed by Farhan Akhtar, and featuring Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, and others.

From 2004, Neil was a technical consultant for the setup and operations of a large post house in Mumbai. Its called Pixion. It is part of Century Communication. Pixion is a complete end-to-end film and video post setup - with a Spirit 4k Datacines, Northlight scanner, Quantel eQ and iQ and Autodesk finishing systems - smoke and flame. And, of course, editing systems from Avid and Apple(FCP). Pixion also has hundreds of CGI and VFX systems.

He also supervised the Pixion post and visual effects facilities at Chennai and very briefly at London.

In past 6 years, Neil has been associated with film Digital Intermediate or DI projects. About 160 odd films had their DI supervised by Neil at Pixion, Mumbai. 

Indian and some overseas films like - Barsaat, Chocolate, Don, Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd, Namastey London, No Smoking Jaane Tu ya Jaane naa, DevD, Rock On!!, Luck By Chance, Broken Thread, Golmaal (all three), Dabanng, Fashion, to name just a few.

For a brief period, Neil moved on from Pixion and went to Prime Focus - the huge international post-production and visual effects and 2D-3D facility with offices in Khar, London, Parel, Los Angeles, Hyderabad, Vancouver, Goa, Chennai, Goregaon and other places. As Head of Technical Operations. But in just 6 months, he moved on once again.

Now, Neil is completely independent of any one entity. He consults part-time with some production and post-production entities - Yash Raj, Film Lab, Babble Fish, and Excel Entertainment. Edits when time permits, or assignments beckon.

Now, Neil conducts workshops on editing at the Film course at Whistling Woods International, FTII (Film & Television Institute of India, Pune), MET (Mumbai Educational Trust).

In his spare time, Neil tinkers with PCs and Macs and has 'made' many PCs before completely 'converting' to Macs. He also does some one-off projects in deploying high-end projection and playout systems.

Neil also helps people out with DI projects, 'Stanley ka Dabba', 'Nobel Chor', 'Sahib, Biwi aur Gangster' and others. And has helped setting up editing systems, and as a hobby,  dabbled with DVD authoring. Neil has authored the DVD of completely several films - 'English, August', 'Split Wide Open', 'Don', 'Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd', 'Rock On!!', 'Luck By Chance', '1971'. 'Game', 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara' and some others.

Menus, compression, builds everything up to the glass master.

Neil is also one of the hosts in the Creative Cow Final Cut Pro forum and other forums there.

In whatever time he can spare, Neil maintains web pages on Apple Final Cut Pro and on the film Digital Intermediates or DI. He also writes a blog on Digital Film Post.

Back to Neil's FCP page

Back to Neil's DI page

To Neil's blog

mail me to know more or just with your comments  --  Updated 1 Sep 2011