The Chef JKP Podcast
The Chef JKP Podcast
What a Life in Storytelling Really Looks Like | Keith Dallison
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This episode of the Chef JKP Podcast steps outside the kitchen and into the world of storytelling, with actor, voiceover artist, and video editor Keith Dallison, for a conversation about craft, creativity, and what it really takes to bring stories to life.
Chef James Knight-Paccheco sits down with Keith to explore his journey through film, television, and media, from early struggles in education to building a career across acting, editing, and voice. From childhood memories in the English countryside to working on sets and behind the scenes, this conversation uncovers the discipline, curiosity, and resilience behind creative work.
At its core, this is a conversation about storytelling, not just as a profession, but as a way of seeing the world, and the parallels between creative industries that demand precision, teamwork, and obsession with detail.
WHAT YOU WILL HEAR IN THIS EPISODE
• Keith’s early life growing up in the UK and how childhood shaped his creative instincts
• Why he struggled in school and how that influenced his path into media
• The moment storytelling became more important than performance itself
• His experience across acting, voiceover work, and video editing
• What happens behind the scenes in film and television that most people never see
• The discipline required to stay consistent in creative industries
• The parallels between hospitality and film, from teamwork to pressure
• Why he focuses on the process rather than the final output
• Advice for anyone trying to break into film, television, or media
• The reality of building a career in storytelling without a fixed roadmap
CHAPTERS
00:00 Childhood memories, growing up around food and family
04:00 School struggles and early life in the UK
10:00 Finding his way into media and storytelling
18:00 Acting, voiceover work, and life behind the camera
27:00 The process of storytelling and creative discipline
39:00 Film, television, and what people don’t see behind the scenes
53:00 Parallels between hospitality and media industries
01:10:00 Advice for aspiring actors and creatives
01:16:00 The reality of staying consistent in creative work
01:28:00 Quick fire round and reflections on storytelling
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SPEAKER_00I failed English language five times. Why was that? I don't know. I think they just didn't like me.
SPEAKER_01Right. A lot of people have seen you in Bollywood films, adverts, Santa Claus. You've become more of a sort of public figure, if you like.
SPEAKER_00What I've always enjoyed was the process. When you receive a script, bigger or small, you're part of a story. And I think it's the storytelling side of it. I often don't watch them. Occasionally I might do. And I would sometimes wish I didn't.
SPEAKER_01What advice would you give to anyone who is wanting to start within the television and film industry?
SPEAKER_00Oh, television and film industry.
SPEAKER_01Um, and a very warm welcome back to the Chef JKP podcast. How is everybody doing today? What's been happening in your world, your kitchens, your restaurants, your offices, your creative space? I always love to hear from you, and I want to know what is going on in your world. Well, before we dive into today's episode, please don't forget to hit that all-important subscribe button on YouTube or press follow wherever you get your podcasts, as it helps us to grow the show, and we can keep on bringing you the most fascinating conversations with the most inspirational guests. That's all we will ever ask. Well, today's guest takes us slightly out of the kitchen, but very much into the world of storytelling. Some of you may recognize him as he is a familiar figure in the world of media. Keith Dallison is an actor, film editor, and a voiceover artist whose work helps bring stories to life across film, television, and media. And here's something super interesting. The world of film and hospitality also have a lot in common, I would say. Both rely on teamwork, they rely on creativity, as well as precision. I would say also both can involve some very late nights and lots of caffeine. Keith has spent years crafting narratives through editing, performance, and voice. And today we're going to talk about the art of storytelling. And you know what's really fascinating, the parallels between these two creative industries is absolutely amazing. So settle in because we're going to have a really incredible conversation. Listen up for a story about a famous band, or one of the most famous bands in the world, Led Zeppelin. Time to rock and roll. Just before we begin, here is a small message from this week's guest.
SPEAKER_00Hello, my name is Keith Dallison, and I'm a media artist. And if you're wondering why I'm on the Chef JKP podcast, then you better watch this episode. And if you like it, make sure to follow, share, and subscribe.
SPEAKER_01Keith, a very warm welcome to the show. Now, as is customary, can you tell me your first or favorite childhood food memory, please?
SPEAKER_00Um, that's a difficult one. Uh, but I th I think I grew up on the edge of uh uh a large city but in a country sort of setting, and I think it's like home cooking. It's my it's my mother uh was constantly baking uh in the kitchen, and uh the the smells and and everything is something ingrained into me.
SPEAKER_01So for anyone who doesn't know, which part of the world are you from?
SPEAKER_00I'm from the United Kingdom. I say England, uh Birmingham, Birmingham right in the centre, yes.
SPEAKER_01Right. So then when you talk about baking, is there any sort of particular smells? Is it bread? Is it more sweet?
SPEAKER_00It's more sweet. Pastries.
SPEAKER_01So what were those types of dishes that she would sort of particularly get?
SPEAKER_00I mean cakes as well. Oh right, there was cakes and everything. Um because we we grew up on right on the edge and there was a lot of farmland, a lot of uh open land, there was uh, you know, I mean like blackberries. I have memories of my mother saying, uh, can you go and get some blackberries? And we come back with literally buckets full of blackberries. There was that many, and she'd just go, Too many, too many. And the pastry and and and the pantry was always full of jars of jam, uh blackberry jam. But the the the garden was uh our back garden was full of um all sorts of fruits, it would be strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, blackberries, uh my father had his rhubarb patch. Um and so, you know, when it comes to apple and rubber rhubarb crumble and and all of these sort of, you know, there was uh you know um blackberry uh uh tarts and just constant. It was just, you know, the the the cupboards were always and the pantry was always full of fruit tarts and and everything.
SPEAKER_01And can I just ask, were you aware at the time that uh you had this amazing sort of cornucopia, you know, around the the the fields and and and the patch? And were you aware much back then about sort of seasonality or not really?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I mean seasonality was a big thing, um, you know, because it you you I mean she would make preserves and and things and and keep them obviously for throughout the year. Uh but we were also uh on the borders of Worcestershire, uh from the West Midlands to Worcestershire. So within Worcestershire you had uh the market gardens of Eversham, which we were close to. So I can always remember as a child being uh hauled off in the car, we're going to get the first taste of the first crop of asparagus and and things like that in some of the uh restaurants that were in and around that area. Right. You know, and of course going uh to the big uh market gardens of where you could you would literally go in and pick your own fruits and and things like that. So it's that was a part of growing up. It was, you know, we couldn't wait, you know, to sort of fill punnets full of strawberries and various fruits and and so yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it sounds really nice because how how big was the family, Keith?
SPEAKER_00It's just me, uh myself and my sister. And my sister was uh seven years older than me. Um not that there wasn't tries between uh myself and my sister, but uh so I was pretty much as you know, when I got to my teens, she'd already got married and left home.
SPEAKER_01And can I just ask, how involved were you in the kitchen and the process of baking or being within the kitchen, or were you just one of those eaters?
SPEAKER_00Both. Yeah. No, there was always that involvement in the kitchen, uh uh, you know, uh making pastries and and so on. And um I I managed to pass that on to my eldest daughter, um uh, who spent time with my mother in the kitchen as well. I mean, she now is sort of always sending me photographs of uh what she's baked for Christmas, her mince pies and the various other uh dishes that she's baked, and she'd go, like, what do you think nanny would make of that, you know, and stuff like that, you know, and her cakes and everything. She's got this, you know, insider. It was, and it was seasonal. It was, you know. Um, it was it was uh I can't say growing up with all the fields at the back of me was sort of boring uh at all. It was just, you know, it was absolutely marvellous, you know.
SPEAKER_01So then during your teenage sort of time, did you move away from sweets? What were the sort of foods that you were sort of having as a teenager?
SPEAKER_00Um it uh the the cupboards were always full of that, and uh uh my mother um she went to work for um we were as I say southwest of the Midlands, and so only a few miles away from us was an area called Bourneville, which was where the Cabry uh brothers first set their first factory, and so she used to work there, and so the cupboard was if it wasn't full of tarts, which it always was, was also full of the waste products that they used to sell in the shops for all the stuff. Uh so you know you'd get to like Cabri's cream eggs with the eggs like poking it at the side, you know, so it was a reject, and they would sell all this. So the cupboard was full of like I mean, I don't know if you can get these products anymore, but there was like curly whirlies and there was crunchy bars and there was all sorts of so the house was full of chocolate too. Oh my god. Yeah, I was the f I was I I had a lot of friends in those days. I wonder why you know, so yeah, it was interesting.
SPEAKER_01That's really cool, yeah. Wow, so she must also had some quite amazing stories about the factory and you know, because of course it is uh it's iconic.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it is, really. It is. Um interestingly, that the Cabri brothers were Quakers, and so uh the actual uh village or town in which the Cabry unit was built, it there was no pubs uh in that area because they were Quakers. So there was public houses being the cornerstone of sort of you know the social community and people coming together. But when they built uh Cabri World, um on and and it's called Bourneville because there is a small uh river that runs through uh the south of Birmingham called the River Bourne. And so that's what it was named. Bourneville was named because of the Cabrey brothers moving there just before uh I think it was at the end of the uh 19th century, I think it was.
SPEAKER_01And how how long did she work there?
SPEAKER_00How long's a piece of string? I think she was there for uh uh five, six, seven years, something like this. Uh yeah. Wow, it was amazing, and interestingly enough, I then went to art school there, but we haven't got into the education yet.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so then tell me about that then. What what was the sort of your the educational path and how did you get into sort of creative arts if you like?
SPEAKER_00Um I think I think it was just a uh a natural path that happened from uh my secondary school, which was grammar school. I was always into drawing and and creating things, uh, you know, it was um it you know building, I mean, we spent our summer holidays as kids in the fields behind where I said all the blackberries were growing and all of this. We were there and it was it was green belt land. Green belt land, uh to anybody who doesn't really know, it's it's it's it's land that um is designated as uh you can't build on it, you can't develop it, you can't, you know. Uh the the best they've done is sold it to people who develop golf courses. It has to stay green. That's the the rules behind it. So we backed uh onto this, and so it was just like wasteland that was, and that's why there were so many blackberries and so many fruit. It was just it just wild, it just grew like that. And of course, the animals were the same. The the there was foxes, badgers, there was rabbits, there was like all these uh and so we used to go up there and we used to uh in the with in the trees build tree houses and build dens and and things like this. So the imagination and and creativity came from all of that, I imagine. You know, in you know, you were constantly building worlds around you, games that you were playing with your friends, you know, and uh so having the best bikes or toys or whatever wasn't really a thing for us. It was, you know, we we were just creating our own sort of worlds and environments.
SPEAKER_01But in school, you know, were you were you studious or were you sort of more uh not really into that and more into the arts and crafts?
SPEAKER_00Okay, well at secondary school um I I didn't do too well in my GCSEs, my O levels. Um I failed English language five times. Mamma mia.
SPEAKER_01But why was that though? Was that just because you just found you just it wasn't because you were you know uh stupid or illiterate?
SPEAKER_00It was just because I know I was reading like furiously at the time and everything. It's I d I don't know. I think they just didn't like me. Right. I don't, you know, uh it got to a point um I it's it's really difficult to say, and it's not something I'm either proud of or whatever, but I it amuses me that you know I find myself these days actually writing scripts. Um and it's so as you say, I I'm not illiterate, I uh read a lot, and you know, so and even at the time I used to read a lot. Uh so it was just interesting. And uh when it came to maths as well, like you know, I know mathematics was like it was just another language to me. I just didn't get it. But when it came to sciences, physics, chemistry, I was getting A's and and and uh things like that. And and there were subjects that I really do I like it? I don't know, I'm not sure. It's it's it's it's strange, right? You know, but of course in the arts, in the in the in the crafting, like uh um and geometric drawing and and and sign and all of these. So they thought at one point I might become a draftsman, for example, um, you know, but that uh went by the wayside uh as I went to art school afterwards in Bourneville, which is which is quite a famous uh art school in in uh certainly in the West Midlands, but also notably outside of you know London. And yeah, I lasted about 18 months there before something else happened.
SPEAKER_01So let's let's take it back. So for example, you you did your high school, you finished at the age of sort of 16.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so, yeah. I think random about it.
SPEAKER_01Then then you decided to go into into arts and you got into Bourneville. Yes. So 18 months. Tell me during that time, what were you mainly focusing on? If you if you're talking about, let's say, study or some sort of diploma, what was it?
SPEAKER_00Um when we first I mean it was A levels, that was what I went there for. And so uh you had to cover certain certain subjects. Um so it was you did life drawing, still life drawing, and uh you touched on the edge of uh photography, which was part of the foundational course, preparing you for college and so on, uh, but also art history and art history. I failed at history altogether. But uh what I discovered was uh art history was something that really captivated me. And I I'm not so sure if it's actually was the you know, just the professors or the teachers that were sort of like, you know, giving that and the way they presented it, it was sort of like wow, this is really cool. Going to the galleries, you know. I mean, it's just you know, to most kids or you know, of that type, you say like going, I could sit hours in the galleries just staring and and uh analysing the the paintings, the images to uh you know it I just found it absolutely incredible, you know. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01And what was the spark that sort of after 18 months what did happen for you to sort of move on?
SPEAKER_00Okay, now this takes uh another now. We're gonna go off in a completely different new direction. All of this time since uh well since I was 11 or 12, I had a hobby of playing music, I played uh guitar. Um it all started from you know campfires and and playing songs around the campfire and um and we got a small band together, there was a group of us, and just sort of like you know, it wasn't really anything serious as such, but it was fun and just that sort of camaraderie of playing with other people and so on. But when I went to art school, uh as you say, I was about actually I was f fifteen going on sixteen and I'd started to I'd joined uh uh a group of guys that were two or three years older than myself, and I can remember them screaming at me, going like, Keith, when are you going to be 16 so we can go and play in the pubs? 'Cause 'cause I wasn't old enough to go and play a gig in the pub, uh as such, you know, you you had to be 16 to be unaccompanied, if you like. So when I turned 16, that was it. We started to play in the pubs, and we started to play at the student union, and the music side of things took over. Uh the other guys they moved on to university around the country, and so the band broke up, but I'd already got the bug of playing in bands and and so on. So I dropped out of uh the college uh to the dismay of my parents, and that was it. It was um they supported me, but you know, under duress, I think.
SPEAKER_01But what was the plan, Keith? If you were gonna drop out, did you have a plan or was it or not?
SPEAKER_00No, we I mean we were we we we we took a manager for the for the band. The idea was we were and we started we we did some recording uh sessions.
SPEAKER_01Um what was the name of the band?
SPEAKER_00The band at that time was uh called Tyrant.
SPEAKER_01That's a cool name, by the way.
SPEAKER_00It was uh well it well it was on the uh the cusp of when all the heavy metal was coming out, right? And uh you had the emergence of uh sort of like Def Leopard and I and uh Iron Maiden and all these bands coming out at the time. Uh we and of course at that time as well, there was a lot of bands in Birmingham that were coming out at that time. Uh Ozzie Osborne had gone solo, um, he was starting his uh solo career. Uh, and and there was a lot of other uh up-and-coming bands, Judas Priest, um names coming out of both. So we were captivated by that. And as it was, um the guitarist who was with us in Tyrant, uh, we we started, he was exceptionally good. He was very good. Uh an Irish guy called Pat Hamley, um, and he then left, joined another band that was and I mean there was a camaraderie between bands as well, so you were all part of a circuit there. So he left and he joined a band where the other guitarist uh was a chap called Stevie Young. He was the uh nephew of Angus and Malcolm Young from ACDC, and they formed a band uh called Starfighters and then went off on various tours uh supporting um uh they supported A C D C. They supported Ozzy Osborne uh on the North American tour. Um and it was just You know, then what do we do? We need to move on. So we had to replace Pat and then so we'd all go to each other's gigs and and you know, whenever we were playing around town. But for me, the whole them five years or so of my life uh was just pure magic. It was just uh yeah, I was sleeping in the back of a van on top of speakers. You know, we were um probably not looking after ourselves in the best possible way we could, you know, scraping together enough money to make it to the next gig and you know, buy a bag of Fisher chips, you know. How many people were in the band? Um uh we were uh uh pretty much a four-piece at times five-piece if we had a keyboard player or another guitarist, but for uh essentially we're a four-piece band uh with uh lead singer guitar bass drums.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And what was your role? I'm a bass player. So you so you played bass, so you have to you had to make sure that yourself and the drummer were in all the time. All the time. And in terms of carrying the kit, so you also had to bring your own amplifiers, drum kit, all of that lot, hence sleeping in the van.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? But during that time, during all of those five years, and you said it was magic. It was. Um now, Keith, I don't know if you know, but uh before I became a chef, I studied music for 11 years. So I was uh I majored in percussion and drums. Right, okay. And I played I still played piano and guitar, and then but I also played in lots of different gigs throughout the world. So um at one time or another I was in a 40-piece samba band, percussion. Wow, uh there we go, then punk rock, heavy metal, things like this. Um so this is literally music to my ears. Yeah, that uh literally, literally, literally, because I understand the the the point of camaraderie, being with people, and also seeing seeing strangers enjoy your craft, shall we say? Yes, you know. So what were your biggest if you if you look back now, what were your biggest takeaways during that time that you loved and and the things that you really learnt from that time?
SPEAKER_00Oh um I the the biggest things that were learned. I I loved the process, um, which I I've now brought with me into other things that I do now. The things that is the process of creation with other people. So, for example, you would be um at the rehearsal rooms or in your space where you would be rehearsing for the next gig or the the you know creating new songs or writing songs, that process of somebody will come up with a lick and the and the writer uh the the lead singer will go, like, oh yes, I can I can come up with a lyric for that, and then the guitarist, well, how about if I put this? And then the drummer says, like, hang on a second, if we put a break in here and you're all collaborating and putting that sort of uh there's a synergy between you that sort of you know, and it comes off on stage as well, you know, when you're writing these, uh you know, you know, not everybody puts in on every song, but you you get you get what I'm saying. It's that collaboration between artists coming together.
SPEAKER_01So like after those five years, you know, it sounded like it was absolute magic. It was. And were you touring all over the the UK?
SPEAKER_00Um well most of the UK, I think we did a few, uh we didn't go as far as Scotland, uh, but we did uh, you know, uh most of the UK and Wales. Um yeah. Sort of but I mean sometimes it would be small gigs, sometimes it would be uh, you know, we'd go in and support uh various artists and and so on like so. I mean we did we didn't uh get to do too many tours, we'd jump in uh on on a couple of tours of of some artists and and uh you know Rory Gallagher for one, uh Tom McRooster for another one. Um and and it was like this. Um I've forgotten the name of the drummer now, but he came and joined us for a gig from um uh he was the drummer with uh Michael Schenker Bang, I think he was. Um and it was a German drummer, it was fantastic. Michael Schenker was the guitarist from UFO at the time, which was a big band at the time of all the heavy metal that was going on. Yeah, it was um it was it was just brilliant.
SPEAKER_01So, how did that fizzle out for you to go on to your next move?
SPEAKER_00I think it it came to a point where you know we I mean you mentioned all about humping all the equipment and everything else. Well, of course, we we we acquired uh uh quite a bit of equipment as as we for our own purposes, but then other people were going like, you know, we could you know borrow your equipment, can we um can we hire your equipment? And there was uh a moment when where we had all our equipment stored, it was stolen. So some of the quit the equipment was stolen. And at the time, yeah, I know it was it was it was gut-wrenching, but uh of course you you never had your guitars there, it was all just the amplification and various, and of course the big speakers, the bins, and so it was whatever, whoever broke into the place, it was whatever they could carry at the time. So it was, you know, it still it rocked us a little bit, but we can't afford to replace it. Uh uh, you know, it's difficult to. There were two places in Birmingham that sold uh equipment, uh secondhand equipment, and we knew the guys there quite well. It it was a small circuit, you know. So we went into uh the one place, um, and the guy, he's a bass player himself, very actually an exceptionally good bass player, his name was Craig, and he said, like, so you know, what happened, guys? And so we explained. He said, Well, have you got anything left? Yeah, and he said, Hang on a minute, and he disappeared out the back, and then he came back and he said, Have you still got uh enough to make up a PA system, you know, with microphones? And we said, Well, actually, yes, that's the one bit because you know we've still got that. He said, Oh, great. He says, Do you want to come in the back, you know, where he's having a cup of tea? Um, and and you know, we could probably do something. And so we went in the back, and um Robert Plant was sitting there. Oh my god. And the lead singer, he was like, So it, you know, the our guy that does the sound was with us, and he went like, all right, Bob. He's like, okay. Um Led Zeppelin had just broken up. Robert Plant had put together a new set of songs and stuff that he wanted to test in the pubs around Birmingham. Uh it was called Robert Plant and the Honey Drippers at the time. So he wanted to uh go and test in some of the pubs. So um he said, Can I use your PA system? Absolutely, mate. You know, so like yourself. And of course, like we we didn't tell anybody who we were doing it for, so it wasn't a case of like we'd have all our mates coming along or anything. So we we did a few gigs and uh um from that we then started to hire out uh two other people, um John Utway and Wild Willie Barrett. Uh so like they had this because they'd been on the old grey whistle test, they had this reputation of playing tennis with the SM58 microphones on stage, like with their guitars, like you know, to create a rhythm, like playing ping-pong. And it was uh guys, not with our microphones, we've only got so like four or five of them. We don't want to get them ruined, you know. Um, and I've still got actually two of them at home, and they're battered, they're sort of like you know, it hasn't got the nice round dome, it's all squished and everything. But uh working with these guys were and it was just that then started to turn the corner, and I moved into uh we were hiring out more, working with other people, uh, and and then getting into uh also well guys, have you got any lighting and and so on? And so I moved into um also learning about lighting, and then I moved into uh there was super nightclubs that were opening up around the UK that were putting in these giant lighting rigs with lasers in the clubs and all that, and so you know, hitting the mirror balls, and it was the age of discotheque in the uh in the 80s. And so I worked, uh I went and got a job, or part-time job as it were at the time, which turned into a full-time job, uh, at a Birmingham nightclub called The Powerhouse. And the Powerhouse became a venue in Birmingham that was the third venue in line to you had the NEC, which put on the big super concerts, then you had Deodie, and then you had us. And so we were taking all the new acts that were coming out on a program on a program on TV at the time, just being launched, called The Tube. So I got to work with Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Bronsky Beat, Um The Cult, uh, REM, and I I mean I know I'm saying names there that you know a lot of people might not remember, but these were big names. They were big names, uh Simply Red, um, the Kane Gang, all of these. And I was doing the lighting for them on stage. And then when the jazz festival was on, they would you know bring in some like you know some of the big stars uh you know uh at the club as well. Um and then the local BBC and the TV and so like all of this started to come together that I was getting experience uh working with um working with lighting and and everything else. And of course, then the advent of uh video walls and uh big screens in the club got me into video. Well, we can't just keep playing there. You know, we need to have stuff that was edited, so I got two editing machines, got this, and and so this sort of that's how it all progressed. And uh next thing I know I'm actually sitting in uh edit suites working with a few editors and and so on. But that was that was sort of the beginning of it all. Um whilst also working in the clubs, I was also put in front of the camera occasionally. And uh of course with the band experience and so on, you know. I'm a show off, I like to be on stage. I like to do that type of thing.
SPEAKER_01So but there was a particularly uh uh I'd say time in your during that time. When was it that you were started to to get on sort of television a little bit more regularly? Um especially back then, because if you if if you think about it, um and let's say the the the UK or United Kingdom, we're a you know that the nation itself is very prone to watching television, and specifically there are four channels that people still very much love, which is BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, and Channel 4. Yeah, right? So channel four was a bit more risque, yeah, if you like, and then of course BBC One, BBC Two, fine. Um, but you know, the thing back then is that people would really sit down, especially Friday nights, Saturday nights, family entertainment was a huge thing. Yes, and let's not forget the internet wasn't around sort of too much, it was just it wasn't there at all, actually. It was it was it was so so everybody was really glued either to newspapers and tabloids, let's say, or television. So in that world back then, how was it, you know, working in in that sphere?
SPEAKER_00Um it didn't really sort of pay attention to sort of um I mean this is in the days when a popular TV program at the time uh had just launched, if you like, was EastEnders. I mean and So it's a sitcom for everybody who doesn't know it's yeah, it's just this Opera, so like uh with these guys, these they were stars because they were household names.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Dirty Den and all these people uh And it's still ongoing, huh? Still pushing on. Still pushing on. Uh but at that time, you know, to have one of the the actors turn up um, you know, to do your special event or whatever was going on was uh you know was was quite something. You know, so we used to do events which were like all day as all nighters um uh and celebrity. This was in the in the in this club. The club was that I worked in, yeah, I was there for about uh say four years, but it was open seven days a week. And you know, to uh we were putting on bands twice a week. Uh there was various other, you know, it was a nightclub as well. The capacity of the nightclub was uh around about 2,000. Uh then we had a secondary club on the side which was had the capacity of I think 700, 800 people, and then there was a party room upstairs that could hold about two or three hundred people. So overall, on a busy night, you'd have three thousand uh people. It's a lot of people you're catering for.
SPEAKER_01It's a serious amount of people.
SPEAKER_00It was called a super club at the at the time. And I mean, we we used to rival uh there was another club in in uh uh Chippenham that I used to work in uh as well. I were uh and that was called Gold Diggers. Uh that was owned by Virgin, and then there was the other one which was a big one, uh, was down in London called Camden, Camden Palace, uh, and that was a renowned club at the time. And it was pretty much these were the sort of big ones, and then there were other ones that sprung up. There was um the one in um Manchester, the Hacienda, and we took one of the DJs from there. Hacienda was where uh a group called New Order was born, and and so this this club, and yet uh so you would have these celebrities from TV coming along, and we'd be putting on shows as well that were televised from the club. And so this is where I got the taste of TV from. And you know, I'd see my mug being flashed up on TV, and people would be going, Oh, you're sort of like, you know, and but you never really I never thought that one day I'd be sort of like, you know, then it'd be like, yes. So I started to do a couple of walk-on parts and different things. Um, and that's us, I guess the rest was history, really.
SPEAKER_01It's but throughout that time, you know, you you would as you said, you you'd do the walk-on parts, and then more and more parts became prevalent.
SPEAKER_00Well, not that many, there was a few. Um I was I was really getting involved more with the technical side of things. And it was okay, so when I moved to Bristol, uh that's where they were making the program casualty, and it was only by um proxy that because they were doing it there, I was also took a part-time job in a in um uh in a nightclub uh just to help them actually when they first launched to do the lighting and and everything else. And then uh they were filming some episodes of casualty there. I met uh the guys and went to the warehouse, more looking at the technical side of things, and then I was sort of dragged into sort of like doing a few more sort of extra parts and and different things, and it and it sort of stemmed from there, but also at the same time I was uh looking at the technical side, the editing side, and that's where the editing really started to sort of take a grip on me. Um it's it's I always use this little story of this is when to me the digital digital world was really starting to take over. So I went into in in the warehouse, there was these porter cabins built inside around the green area. Uh so on one side through one door, that was where the hospital was based for casualty, the the um waiting room and and the sort of A and E side of it. Inside the green area with these porter cabins, in one side porter cabin, you've got all the editing suites going on, and then the other side you got the sound guys, and another porter cabin, and a little ladder going up, and that's where the guy was doing the lighting from, and all the actors and everybody being in the middle. But I was diving into where the editing was, and they were got these screens and a keyboard, and the computers were all this was like at the the time when in the internet was starting to become accessible and so on. And I said, Well, where's the tape machine? So, oh we've got we got a guy over the other side with that. So you you're not he said, No, no, we put all the we put all the footage into this box here. What's that? It's oh is that the storage of the disk drives? He said, Yes. So I said, How big's that? And he said it's it's um nine gigabytes, I think it was. It's the size of a shoebox. Nine gigabytes in the size of a shoebox. And I was like, wow, I was really sort of like, wow. And then I said, What's a gigabyte? Right? Right, right, right. And it's something that size. And now you think of like how much you've got in your phone. Yes. Um, you know, just the size of your hand, uh technology, how it was, and I that was it. I was You were hooked. That's it completely and utterly. Uh, and this form of editing on computers, this nonlinear app. So that was it. I enrolled myself at the um uh at the BBC sort of university, if you like, their college campus, uh, which is actually in Eversham. So we go back to where all the strawberries and all the cruiseries have come from. Yes. So uh back to back to there. And this is where they used to create uh a show called Doctor Who, which I think a lot of people would know. And a lot of Doctor Who was filmed in Eversham at at this, which was their campus, which is pretty much an old farm uh that has been divided up into and um with all its old farm buildings created to make it look like small villages, and there's an actual hotel camp uh on there, and there's a clubhouse, and yeah, that was an interesting uh couple of weeks or few weeks that I spent at the campus there. And yeah, that's when I think that was a pivotal point of turning uh because I came out with the knowledge of how this technology was going to um and so I started putting myself out there uh more on the freelance world uh and uh started working more in London. Uh and I was still doing a few, you know, extra parts just to sort of you know basically anything that would put the lights on and put some food in the fridge. And that's when uh a company called uh MBC that was based in Battersea at the time gave me a call and said, Can you come, you know? I said, Yeah, sure. Like, you know, this is I I'm working with this particular technology now. And they said, Well, we've just embraced that, we've just taken it on board, and um so you know, we could you come and do some freelance work. I said, sure, like you know, and I thought it was going to be on daily, but they booked me like week after week, and so then I had to start taking uh you know, take some accommodation in London, uh, and that's where that started. So and I think MBC at the time was just coming up to its fifth anniversary. Fourth or fifth anniversary. And it sort of spann from there, really.
SPEAKER_01So how did the move from London over to the Middle East happen for you?
SPEAKER_00But that that that was because um I mean MBC was was moving for its its base. From uh London Battersea to Media City here. And naturally they just turned around and said, Keith, we we we'd love you to come with us. And I said, No, thanks. Yeah, it's not gonna happen, you know. Um, I'm not moving to Dubai. Well, what is Dubai? You know, what's that place, you know? So you have a look. Now you can have a look on on the internet, you know, just a little bit. Uh so you know, I mean, of course, the internet was still relatively new at that time. And uh, okay, and everybody was going, oh, you don't want to go there, you won't be able to buy a drink, or you won't be able to, oh no, you can't eat this, you can't eat that, and you can't, and and all of this. This would have been uh around about uh 2001. Um they moved uh fully in 2002. Um I think the actual final switch on was round about sort of April, May 2002.
SPEAKER_01But you'd already been working for the company for five for five or six years. So you all you were already uh super savvy with the equipment, the editing, all of the things.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean the thing that the the one thing that I learned, yeah. I mean, so you could pretty much work anywhere in London and uh you know there was the opportunities of Fred there was uh you know working in Soho, which is the the film industry hub of uh and and so on. I knew plenty of people there. Um there was an actual group of uh like an agency called Soho Editors that uh you know I'd done a few jobs with. Uh it was um it was not like I I wanted so I agreed to come with MBC here, as most people do. Okay, look, I'll come with you guys for six months to help you get going, get rolled, you know, because I know you guys and I don't want to let you down, and so you know, I come with you for six months, and you arrive and you go, This is different. Oh, I can get a beer, oh I can do this, oh I can, and you know, so you know, okay, I'll stay another six months, 12 months roll by, and there was no end to the contract. It was in, you know, there was open-ended contracts that they were offering. Uh and we so within 12 months uh NBC launched MBC 2, and then we were uh launching El Arabia, and El Arabia launched on the eve of the second Gulf War, um El Arabia being the the news channel. Um yeah, so it was expanding and I got sucked into the machine.
SPEAKER_01But what was your your role at the time? Still very heavily editing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was I was editing quite heavily at uh you know at that time, but as we were expanding, we were taking on more editors, and so it became obvious that we needed to develop and create a post-production department. Um and and so my role as editor, um our head of department at the time didn't want me to take hands off. Um it's something which I do love doing, and I and I've got back into recently uh more so uh in the in the past two or three years. It's it and I was becoming more hands-off because I was having to organize and and do the logistics of as more channels were being launched and we were having to handle those uh channels. So yes, I became more into a managerial role, if you like, climbing that corporate ladder. Um I wish I could have seen it coming. You know, you don't at the time you're swept along with the tide, uh, and you're swept up by the you know the the promise of like, you know, bonuses and more money and then and and then life, and then you meet somebody and you you start to sort of form a relationship, and then you're thinking about you know having family, and you start to go and not that I regret any of that, it's it's just that you get swept and I lost myself in that sort of period. Uh I'm not I don't consider myself to be managerial material, although the HR department and all the people there said, like, no, you are, you can, you have the ability to manage large teams. Uh at one point our team was uh that I was it was like over 30 people, which is quite considerable when it was and it's it covered the the broad spectrum of of of uh post-production sort of activities, you know, from editing to sound to you know graphic design and you know uh creating graphics and different and you know special visual visual effects and and so on.
SPEAKER_01So but how long were you in that role, Keith? I mean that I'm and I'm talking about the managerial role because as you mentioned, um it's very I I think still nobody really teaches you to be a manager of humans. No, not only that, you're in a foreign country, you have to understand different religions, you know, all you know, different nationalities, get through all of that, all the culture's web of corporate life. Yes, right? So how did you find it?
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm still here and I still have my sanity, I think. Right. Because it took somebody else to actually point out what was actually happening to my uh, if you like, my mental health at the time. You you're not aware that you know they say like what is it, crazy people are the happy is because they don't even know they're crazy, you know. So but what was happening was um yeah, my mental health and dare I say, sort of, you know, that suffered as a result going to towards sort of like drink and a little bit probably more than I should. And so I was I lost myself. I wasn't who I who are who I am. I'm a creative person. I was now becoming a pen pusher with Excel sheets and going to meetings about other meetings that we just had only a week ago and and so on, you know. Uh when there was an incident um how I can say it's uh there was something that occurred in the UAE uh many years ago, um and it shook the uh the senior people at um at NBC to put them into gear to do their business continuity program. Uh basically, like, you know, if something was to happen here, um, for example, like, you know, uh war was to break out, Iran decided to say um invade or whatever, then we'd need to sort of like, you know, what do we do for business continuity? NBC cannot go off air. You know, what is the actual business program and so on. Um, but it was uh something, but what shook them up to get into that? Uh they needed to sort of, you know, obviously put certain sort of things into place. And I was selected to be one of the there was uh at that time in MBC there was quite a lot of people uh working there. There was like almost 2,000, I think, people uh in in the say 1,500 people here in Dubai, and then the other people dotted around at the various other studios around like in Cairo and in Beirut and and so on. Um and I got a call. Uh Keith, can you come down to the office? I went to see the bus. He said, right, go home, just put a few things in a suitcase, and here's your ticket. You're on the first uh plane now to be here to Cairo. What am I doing, Bus? You'll be told on the way. I'm thinking, like, what's this? I've always wanted to be uh in some sort of James Bond type style, yeah, you know, film. What's going on? Like, you know, so I followed the instructions, went home, I got that, I got on the plane, uh, and I was to be met at the airport the other side, and then I was actually to make a tour of um post-production facilities in Cairo, meet several people. Um in the event of something happening here in the UAE, we need to be able to, you know, and we and go to the offices there in in and uh put the notes, put put what the you know, what need what can be done, what can't be done, what we'd need to do to be able to fix that in order to be able to do what we did. Uh so then we had to look for so that uh went through that, and then we had to look for uh ways of being able to move the transmission to other countries to be able to transmit, should you know, Dubai fall or UAE fall, then we go, and so on like this. And really it was just an exercise that, you know, this because MBC was now on the world platform, the coverage, I mean what people don't realize it's not just being broadcast to the Middle East and North Africa. There's Europe, there's Asia, there's Australasia, there's North America and South America. It the you know, it covers a broad spectrum for the Arab-speaking world. Right. You know, so all these programming, so when we were putting programs out, it was all uh logisticized as sort of, you know, we can play Arabic, but but when we played like on MBC2 movies and so on, this couldn't be broadcast uh some of it in um Europe, for example, because we didn't have the rights, so that uh other things were broadcast and so is a huge um undertaking uh you know in that respect. And it but they for when I was part of this committee and they gave me these uh I mean I don't know if I should be even talking about it, but they gave me a set of um tools, uh phones and cards and things, you know, in the event of an emergency, this is what you do. And then I realized this is just normal, this should be normalized, you know. And of course, you know, people were saying, like, yeah, but like, you know, what was it that kicked it off? That's the question. Is something there was an incident that occurred that actually kicked off this um, you know, the need for sure, you know, uh how serious that that that was that incident? Probably not because it didn't turn into anything, most people don't know about it, but it actually spurred them on to doing it. Sorry.
SPEAKER_01It's okay.
SPEAKER_00But the key thing I took away from this was this is not me. I'm now getting involved with something which at the time seemed, oh, this is exciting maybe. But it's not. It was I'm just going further and further into that sort of corporate world of pen pushers and so on. And no, I'm not being creative at all. You know, so it was.
SPEAKER_01This season of the Chef JKP podcast is brought to you by Valrona, the French chocolate house that's been inspiring chefs and creators for over a century. Valrona isn't just chocolate, it's perfectly crafted from bean to coverture. Every flavour, aroma and texture is shaped with precision, passion and purpose. Whether you're baking, tasting or simply indulging, Valrona's approach is simple. Extraordinary ingredients treated with extraordinary care. Valrona elevates every experience. For more information, head over to Valrona.com forward slash Valrona, Middle East, Africa and India. Now back to the episode. But look, the the the thing is is that uh if we if we fast forward into today.
SPEAKER_00I didn't expect to get into all that today.
SPEAKER_01This is this is this is this is why we're here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If we fast forward into today and your role, your job, your career, a lot more people, of course, they didn't know that side of you, which is incredibly interesting, honestly. But if we look at what you do now, a lot of people have seen you in uh Bollywood films, in adverts, uh Santa Claus, of course.
SPEAKER_00You know, uh Sandekap, he takes me hostage hostage every year. Every year.
SPEAKER_01Um so you're you've become more of a sort of public figure, if you like, and at the same time, you you also have your own company, you're a voice-over actor, you're an actor model. So the the career has taken you quite far, I would say. But if I ask you now particularly, I'd I'd like to sort of know um, first of all, how is it to sort of star in Bollywood films as an example?
SPEAKER_00Okay, um yeah, of course, it it's nice. Uh it it it's great to do um uh filming, it's it's it's you know, to step in front of the camera and and and I was actually, you know, because I've done it before in the past, I never thought about I would ever be doing it again or what the need to do it again or or any of that. Somebody pushed me in and said, like, you know, you need to take some photographs, you need to what do I want to take some photographs for? Like, you know, come to my studio, a friend of mine, I'll take some no, no, six months it took for him to get me into the studio to take some pictures, and then of course that started getting, and this is where one thing snowballed into the other.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00But what I've always enjoyed, and I think I said before, was the process. Um, when you receive a script, as big or small, you're part of a story, and I think it's the storytelling side of it, you know, the process, seeing how you can apply yourself to that character, or you know, how would you visualize that character within um the space in which he you know the context of the actual story and so on like that. When he actually came to the actual movie or or what it or the commercial or whatever it is I've done gets released, I barely I often don't watch him. Occasionally I might do. Um and I would sometimes wish I had I didn't. You know, it's uh very good. I mean, I look back on one particular incident. Um uh they wanted an old guy that could play the guitar. Okay, yeah, I I I fit that sort of um, and uh you you you need to come and meet the director, um Reed Morano. And this is a name which is probably not a household name, and I didn't know what she looked like, and I hadn't took the time to actually see who she was. Um and so I turn up uh for the fitting and uh you know to put some try some clothes on, and I I said to the person who's handing me the clothes, I said, like, uh, and there's a this little woman sitting over on the couch, like you know, and I said, uh I'm supposed to be meeting the director. And she said, Yes, this that's me. And I went, Oh, okay, well, it's nice to meet you, and sort of then went home and I found out who Reed Morano was, um, and uh felt extremely stupid at this point. You know, here's somebody who's worked alongside Martin Scorsese and and various other uh very well-known Hollywood directors, and actually has um uh got won a Golden Globe Award. So like, you know, being up there, sort of um, you know, so you go like, oh, you know, and she was absolutely wonderful, she's absolutely brilliant to work with. Um uh she's she's this little dot of a woman who actually also she is a DOP, a director of photography. And she actually, so you got this when we're on set, um, and it was this is for a uh Dubai Tourism uh shoot. When we're on set, there's this huge monster of a guy standing next to her, this big guy, and he's holding the rig of a huge camera and sitting on it, and I'm thinking, and she sits down on the store, and I'm going, like, he's not gonna put that on her shoulder. And he did, and he just put it there, and she's there, and she's going, Okay, Keith, we're gonna like this, like this. And I'm I'm like, This is insane, this is crazy. I'm in awe of people like this who love their craft, this is part of the process and everything. Um, I was actually sitting next to her was the person I'm doing the scene with, and that was Kate Hudson. Um, and it was great doing a scene with her. Uh, we got into conversation about DNA because of her background. Uh Kurt Russell is not her father, but the father that she's known. But we got into a conversation about DNA, and she said, Oh, you're so British. Like, you know, I said, I don't I don't know what you mean like that. You know, what do you what do you mean by that? Like, you know, we we we just sort of, you know, because it was we're filming in May. No. And so, like, you know, it was absolutely ridiculous. We were outside some of it. We were in the um tea gardens down by the creek, you know, the old the old famous tea garden there. And uh it was uh yeah, it was it was and uh the other two was um uh one was Zoe Soldana and the other um I've forgotten now. Anyway, it was like an interesting excitement, but as I say, it it was more about the process, what goes on and set and the filming, and you know that's why I like the editing side of it. It's the creative process of putting it all together. You know, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01But throughout your the these experiences and working with you know these giants, again, you're the sort of person who would have started to take in all of not not just what your role is, but also what's going on behind in the background because you already have that within you, right? So when it comes to then you know working within your scope and with different clients now, such as Michelin and you know working with different chefs, how has that previous experience then rolled into working with what you do now?
SPEAKER_00Um I I I don't know. I hate to use the word organic, but I think that's exactly what it has been. It's you know, if somebody said like, well, you do acting, yes, okay, you do um you do voice, yeah. Uh you do editing, yeah. And you've done a bit of directing, yes. DOP, no, no, I won't touch the camera. I'd been that's a little bit that's over my that's past my pay grade. Um, you know, but doing and writing script and do it, yeah. So what would you call yourself? Well, so you say people say jack of all trades and probably master of none might fit it, but it's also I'm an artist. I I visualize and see something that I want to be the finished product, and that's what we all sort of you know clamber for when we're actually creating something. Uh the one thing I don't like uh when I'm actually onset uh or creating uh you know, when I'm actually acting or whatever, is if I don't have a good director there or somebody who can actually see the screen.
SPEAKER_01So somebody with a vision.
SPEAKER_00Somebody well also even if it even if it's like a joint vision, if I've worked on certain certain small things like where I'm I've actually written or we're actually creating something, I want them to also know what my vision, but also I have to trust them that they have the vision of being able to frame things and create uh with it with it. Why? Because the thing is I can't see myself. You know, and I and it's not that I don't trust um uh myself, it it's not a lack of confidence, in other words, it is I perhaps I don't trust myself fully.
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SPEAKER_00Um but it's I have the confidence but I don't it it you can look back at something and go like I should have raised my eyebrow at that point or I I should have sort of sat back and just took that extra second before I responded or whatever like this. You know, of course that some of these things can be ironed out in the edit, um but most of the time it's like I have to trust somebody who's seen, so that's why I prefer to be on the other side because I can visualize.
SPEAKER_01But then you know, now you've you're you're on the Chef JKP podcast. I have to ask you, how is it sort of directing chefs who are normally directing people in a kitchen? Because now it's very different for chefs. You know, you've got some guys who have never been in front of a camera before, they might be a bit shy, they might be a bit off ish. So, how do you manage those guys?
SPEAKER_00Well, first of all, you gotta you gotta uh I think I think I think it's important uh when I when I do something how can I put this? Akmel Anwar, he summed up when we actually worked with him, he said, like, I've never had so much fun with the film crew before.
SPEAKER_01Nice, but that's a compliment in itself.
SPEAKER_00But it but in itself, that's and that's what we like to do. We like people just to be relaxed, uh be themselves. This is your environment, it's not mine. This is where you do your magic, not me. I want to see you do your magic and how you're gonna create. So we get them to explain, say, like the processes of what they're going to do and how they're going to go through it, and and so on. And then we look at sort of like how we can, you know, put a camera here, put a light there, put a this, and then and sort of come up with, you know, okay, so we have to understand what the process is, whatever, if we're saying like doing a complete dish, or if we're just doing uh generics, it depends on what you're actually filming. But the main thing would be is to get the chef and his team to just relax and just ignore the fact that we're there, you know.
SPEAKER_01Do you think then, Keith? That just brings me to a different point. In in the same light, uh with a great director, of course they have to have that strategic vision of what they what they wish to achieve. But when they're working again with the with the humans, they have to put the team, the talent at ease. Do you think that's a bit of a gift? Because in that world where where you're you know sort of pumping in millions of US dollars, let's say in major feature films, or it could be an East Enders or whatever, i is that is that a a sort of key trait for somebody that makes a great director?
SPEAKER_00A director is sorry. A director is somebody who's like the captain of the ship. He has the vision, he knows where they're going with the ship, but he cannot get there without all the subness of the parts that make up the ship. The engineers from the engineering room, uh the all the staff that look after the guests or look after certain parts of the ship, the the the cargo or whatever, and so on, and the navigator, the person who's uh communicating with everybody and everything else. If anything, I you know, he he understands all these components, and none of it will actually work without having um so that's why on a film set mostly people will see uh the bad guy is the first assistant director. He's the one who's shouting and screaming at everybody, and he's the one who's shouting, everybody ready, right, but ready for action, and three, two and something like this. Then you've got the second uh assistant director who will be looking after mostly the uh the cast and and various other so everybody's got their designation. And the guy who's sitting there all quiet and just watching the monitor and thinking about how we're going to, you know, that's the director, he's the he's the artist on set, you know, and the everybody else sort of but he needs to get everybody sort of like on his side.
SPEAKER_01Um so it's very much in the same vein as a kind of uh culinary director, if you like, because you're right, without the cleaners, without the pot washers, without the commi chefs, without the delivery guys, without all of these things, the finance teams, yeah, the whole thing doesn't work when you finally push the dish onto the guest. Exactly. Right? So it's just quite an interesting way to do it.
SPEAKER_00No, we we we draw similarities between the two a lot, you know. Um it's the same, like any form of art form, like editing and so on. When you're editing, you're given we used to laugh. Um, because the turnaround of certain uh elements when we were doing the branding at NBC, uh, so looking after all the channels, we'd have all these editors doing, and so we'd have producers, and these producers would come in and say, like, oh right, they're they're putting a program out tonight, they've changed the schedule, and we've got to get a promotion on air to let people know this is coming up, and so on. And we've got and right, here's all the here's all the program, and you've got to make something out of this, or maybe sometimes they haven't got anything, they've only got a little bit, or whatever, and give it to the editor, and the editor would say, Well, what's the brief? It's all like, Oh, make something nice, you know. So, you know, and of course, like when you make something, and then the producer comes back and goes, Well, that's not what I wanted, you know, that's not what I had in mind. Well, what did you have in mind? And I and we've seen the same thing happen with chefs as well. Like, you know, here's the ingredients, you know, go create something, like you know, and the chef creates something, and he goes, Well, that's not quite what we thought, like you know, it's a bit do this or a bit to that, and so on and so forth. So, yeah, interesting. There are these parallels between the two worlds, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Well, the other parallel I wanted to draw on is now obviously we cannot ignore the world of AI, and um you know the the the latest scary thing is that you know AI is going to take over everybody's jobs, so on and so forth. But if if we look first of all to your industry, how is AI actually helping what you do?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so there is two sides to it. Yes, AI is filtering into a lot of products that um people are using um all the time, and what people are worried about is it is going to take over jobs, and it will do. You can't you you know you can't hold back the the tide on this. It it's coming and it's coming very, very, very quickly. There are three phases uh to to AI. Uh and the th the three phases are like ANI, AGI, and ASI. ANI is artificial narrow intelligence. What they're all racing for at the moment is AGI, which is artificial general intelligence. What's the difference between the two? So AI is what we've got actually pretty much at the moment. It's your chatbots like Chat GPT, it's your generative um image makers and and and the uh audio people like Eleven Labs and and all of these. And so when it comes to um 11 Labs, uh and they're creating all these clones of voices and so on, so a lot of people now are using voice. So the world of voiceover has obviously been impacted by that greatly. Um and so I wasn't one to sort of go, no, you're taking my job away. First thing I did was I cloned my own voice to make a really good clone, and dare I say, people haven't noticed because I've used it a couple of times just to try, you know, trial and error. So it ha it is having a an effect on the industry, and it's going to continue to do so. More and more uh generative filmmakers, uh sorry, f uh films or clips, um, but the elements of control are still very, you know, very loose and and and so on. But but what got me interested, and this has really sort of sparked my interest back into the editing world because of these elements that are coming in. It stems back to as humans, we ultimately we wanted to be able to tell stories. Sit around a campfire, tell stories, and they used to paint the the images of hunting and so on on the walls that we've seen, these cave drawings, and of course, then this as communities grew and the phases that human progression has gone through that has been pivotal to, and when we talk about these moments uh that have changed human life, we're talking about it's been a uh a planetary, a worldwide thing, for example, agriculture, yeah. Um when we started to live together and sort of like uh cultivate um not just um f uh food or wheat or stuff, it was animals, domesticate animals and so on and so forth. And how that sort of and it was interesting that you asked me earlier about um uh sort of was it seasonal? Because that's uh you know what when I grew up it what food was seasonal, but now there is no such thing pretty much in the supermarket. You can you you have access to everything, you know, all you know whenever you want. And so AI has sort of helped to optimize this. This is the bottom line with AI at the moment, is AI and will continue to be, is that AI optimizes workflows and jobs uh in a in a huge way. Um and that's uh the the the whole cusp of the thing is that it makes things easier for us to be able to do everything that we do. And I think this is going to sort of uh I think this is something that will is going to grow. The optimization is the one that but it it will impact all industries uh all over. I mean let's talk about the kitchens and and sort of hospitality. Obviously, uh understanding your customers, if you have regular customers, what what their normal tastes are, what what is good this can feed through, optimizing the workflow in the kitchens of sort of like preparations, um being able to perhaps come up with uh some variations on menus and and and and and all of this. Um it can sort of start to uh look at uh when we move it to AGI, which is they reckon will come in the next two to five years, AGI is matching uh a human's cognitive um ability uh and thinking processes. At the moment it doesn't do that because everything is localized. Right, yeah. ChatGPT can only do so much, and this one can only do that, and this one only does sound, and this one only and so on. When all this comes together and it general intelligence means it can think the same as a human across a broad spectrum of different uh and that's what they're all racing towards, but that is the danger, it's a dangerous thing in itself because of what it's capable of doing, but ultimately it's computational, it's um it's data that's being fed in, it just means that it can now process data faster or equivalent to the speed that a human can. It still doesn't have the intuition. Yeah, maybe it might seem like that, but it doesn't, it can't taste, it can't smell, can't do all the things that a chef can do in a kitchen. So to replace a chef, no, it'll never happen. Uh in that respect. But that is not what we need to worry about. That is not the thing. I mean, i each every chef, and the be and the beautiful thing about that is as well, is like it will be uniformed. Um AI will be uniformed, so we know that diversity among chefs and in the kitchen is is the key to why we have so many really great restaurants and chefs and and uh out there because what I smell and what you smell is different. Is what what the chef smells is different, and also that touch, when I say touch, it's the textures you put in your mouth, uh, you know, heart, what you know, and is the texture right against what you're tasting in the smell and so on. All these uh uh senses AI will never do. And even when it comes to the next stage, the thing that is going to change everything is when two things, two technologies, and this is what not uh not a lot of people are talking about this. Um I recommend to everybody if they want to know a bit more about what I'm going to mention now, is to read a book uh which is it's okay I can mention Yeah, the the book that I would recommend for everybody to read. First, the first book, if you're interested in learning about AI, is a book by uh an English um gentleman called Mustafa Sullivan. He wrote a book called The Coming Wave. Okay. The coming wave takes us through, and it's so eloquently written, it takes us through the um the history of man and how it's uh developed and what these pivotal pivotal uh so when we discovered fire, the agricultural wave, all these elements becoming things which affected humans across the world, the uh the industrial revolution, if you like, the invention of the steam engine, locomotives, and how uh uh industrialized machines started taking over people's jobs, uh, and that and that's where we got um uh the Luddites taking over the mills and and uh you know that all of this. So he he he described and but he describes what the coming wave is. It's not AI on its own. There is a parallel technology which is being developed at the moment in line with AI, totally separate, but it's when these two merge, these technologies merge, then we have something. But what is that? So the other technology is uh synthetic biology. Because you can engineer DNA. You're actually encoding DNA to produce new um life, if you like. You're actually messing with life itself. At the moment, it's only humans who are actually working with that, like in wet labs, they're and it's slow, and it's uh you know, they're working with microbes. For example, like you know, the the you know, they now got the ability to there are companies creating um uh seafood. Right. You know, there's a company that's making shrimps and and so on there and okay, some people call it gemetic uh genetic uh GMOs.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Genetically modified and but synthetic biology is like the next step. It's very similar. There are similarities and crossovers, but this is like the next. So what is the hindrance in synthetic biology is actual human intuition and and the speed at which we can actually modify uh and and create these organisms and so on introduce it to AI that can do things computationally so much faster and so much more efficiently than uh humans now we've got something which we can create. So I don't have to go into the details there. I think I think you're getting the picture of what I'm saying. So this is what Mustafa Sullivan talks about in the coming wave. He said, like that we can get to AGI, we can get to the but it's still competitive, we can switch it off. There's no undo button in biology. We've all witnessed something in the recent years that was not controlled or had any input from AI. But the speed at which it went around the globe was quite quite something, and that was when we had the COVID incident. Okay, within when it was first announced that it it it escaped, and there's something that was in the um, I think that was it about uh December, 2019 or something like that, or 2018, I think it was. Was it 2019, 19? Yeah. So it's around about sort of uh September, October. That's right, September October when it was first announced, and everybody was like, like, you know, but by March, I mean here, mo most of Europe and and uh Asia and whatever, everything was closed. You know, so that's five or six months. If AI wanted to do so uh was involved with that, it would have been for five to six weeks. They would have shut down the world. And uh when you get ASI, which is artificial superintelligence, that is putting a speed on things that would be you know, and that is going to come in the next sort of ten to fift fifteen, twenty years. I mean, these are time frames that really are an unknown at the moment. And of course the benefits, of course, like if you mix um AI with synthetic biology, we're talking about creating um seeds, crops, uh, and things which can be uh a real sort of attractive uh element because like they can become resilient to uh the problems we're having with climate change, for example, at the moment. It's really sort of like, wow, really? Drought, floods, all of these are okay. We don't have to use fertilizers anymore. They can get microbes, they can actually inject the nitrogen into the soil and and create and and and so on. Uh when we come to the labs, creating um really good fats that chefs can use and the proteins and the different items and and so on. That I mean they're doing that with fission and everything at the moment, but the speed at which they can actually speed all of that up is quite frightening. Yeah. But here comes the caveat to that, which is like, okay, the the attractiveness of that is is really because I mean you're not affecting livestock, you you you're putting less stress on certain items, uh, you know, the like that in the world. The problem being then is who owns the actual rights to the actual model that creates or builds it. So now it becomes either corporate owned or state-owned. You think about we don't really know how far China has developed AGI. We know that they've got the wet labs and everything, so they're doing synthetic biology because Wuhan is like quite sort of, you know, and but the race for AGI in order to bring together with um synthetic biology is what they're not telling us so much. I mean, there are people talking about it, it's not a secret, but it's not being talked about that much. And that is what sort of I so I mean uh a chef, you know, when you have creative chefs who part of their uh especially the the the higher level chefs there, but they're part of their um program is to sort of talk about sort of the story of how the food that they've created comes from. It's all about the story. Um I think I think nobody probably more so here locally, it's like uh if you go to uh Tressin' Studio, for example, with Himanshu Seni, and they come to the table with the the map of India and they're saying, right, these dishes and it's created from and so on. Here we have a chef that is Extremely creative in what he's he's he's designing with all the spices and the herbs and the various things that come out of India. Actually, incredible what he what he's actually done. But he likes to say it comes from this part of India, or comes from that part of India. And you know what's going to happen in uh uh 10 years' time? Is he gonna say, Oh, it came from that test tube there, and then you see that bottle on the shelf?
SPEAKER_01But it's actually quite uh there's a lot to think about there, Keith, no, because it's it is absolutely right. The the human need to tell stories, and that's partly why we have this podcast, actually, is because we want to know the story of the person and uh our our motto is food is memories.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Because it's all about stories from your grandmother, great-grandmother, the land, all of this. What happens when all of those worlds are are left behind, and then you've got this synthetic sort of landscape. It's it's quite an interesting one to take.
SPEAKER_00Well, the thing is because like most of the things that we do is all driven by economy. We've already seen it here in the commercial world. If we talk about the going back to the film and television, there are companies here, uh, government or like you know, and so on, that have engaged some of the media production companies here who are now not filming, they're actually producing the whole product through AI. And it looks great. So why am I spending quarter of a million durhams or or you know a hundred thousand dollars or whatever? Film crew, five days of filming in the desert for this car commercial or so, or whatever it is, when I'm gonna pay this kid who's just like you know, and we're creating this stuff, and I can do it at a fraction of the cost. This translates through to all uh industries and so on, and certainly the the the food industry will be, you know. So, but let's look at it also from another perspective. Here's another food for uh food for thought as well, I guess. Food for thought. Here's another thing. So when we when we get given these foods, we now become dependent on that food, and the control of the dependency is now being took over from by these corporates, or if it's China States, or whatever. So that becomes um uh something which is very into the sci-fi realm of of movies where you see the big corporation um like in Terminator and so on like it's uh uh it becomes quite scary. When you look also at the giant techs like Google and Microsoft and and and these giant um they uh are already I mean Google, the amount of billions that it makes from advertising is is you know it's it's it's it's incredible. Uh must Mustafa Sullivan, uh the book I mentioned earlier, he was one of the founders actually of Deep Mind, which is uh the company that was bought out by uh Google. Um but he's not uh a computer scientist, he's not a he's a he's more of a philosopher. So his background is more in that realm, and that's why he's brought in. So he works now. Uh I think he was he was I can't remember the actual. I'm not an expert on this, but I think he was actually removed from Google or from that. Um so he's an ex-member of Deep Mind only because of his ethical sort of approach. The problem they've got is is whoever gets to AGI first and declares they've got AGI, it's gonna be game over for a lot of people. So you can understand why um China and all Russia, all the big players are trying to get there first. Uh because once once they've got there and declare it, it's it's a it's a game over moment. Um again, it can be switched off. But once it mixes with with the biology side of things, there's no undo button for the biology. And if AGI, if the intelligence is actually creating the dependency upon which we we survive, then all of a sudden we become slaves to the machine. Yeah. I know that's an old thing, but you know.
SPEAKER_01But it's happening.
SPEAKER_00So the actual it's actually happening. Uh, because Elon Musk, he is a classic example. He was the one who was shouting from the rooftop about these very things that we're talking about now, and about the dangerous, dangerous side of it. And now he's racing to actually develop it first as well. So there's all these uh people within these industries that were actually shouting about the dangers, but knowing that if they go and put these constraints on or try and try and slow down and say, guys, we need to sort of look at what we're doing here, uh, you know, and take a good idea, you know, and that's what Google did, and they fell behind. So Microsoft taking uh open AI with Sam Altman and these guys sort of leaped leapt ahead. And when they released uh ChatGPT, the others were going like, oh no, what's gonna happen now? You know, so everything became, you know, um, so it's it's it's very much a chicken and egg situation. Yeah, you know, if they don't do it, somebody else will.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_00And if they do do it, they know the dangers of what they're heading into and the constraints. It's it's like saying to big pharma companies, uh, you know, uh, would they go and release or put a pill uh or medicine out there without it being tested first? What's happening with AI? You know, it it you know, we we have these checks and balances in in place all over the world for various things uh the airline industry, for example. If an airline goes down, it doesn't matter what country or whatever, there are a governing body of people from around the world that keeps the air, everybody has to collaborate with each other in order to make this actually work. And so there's safety measures and all of that being put into place. Why is this any different? Except for now we've got a race to actually make the most dangerous thing that you it it's potentially dare I say, ex existential. Yes, it is, and that's uh you know I didn't mean to get them toward that level.
SPEAKER_01The thing is the thing is, Keith, it's very interesting because um we've we we had the owners of the owner of three fills, Ahmed, and um we had him on the show, so we run by seasons, so we had him on season three, and in season three, and w and we've just finished recording season eleven, so you can see how far away we did that. He said he had he was watching what scared him the most is he was watching several years ago on television a company in China, as it so happens, and what they were wanting to do is to um stop all sh basically for the country to never have any type of chefs and for it for all to be done with computers. And he said that that realization made him super scared because again it goes back to his history, his culture, again breaking bread with strangers, it's all of this stuff, yeah. So it is very, very, very fascinating that it's now being accelerated at speed and we have to somehow try to control it because it's it's very very interesting.
SPEAKER_00It is. I mean it it will get to a point where um it will go faster than what we can actually, and if it's going faster than we can actually see uh or notice, then are we not going to be at a point where when we do wake up and go oh uh it's too late.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's too late, exactly. Well, Keith, this has been absolutely fascinating. We've now come to the quick fire round of the show. So brace yourself because I'm gonna let you settle in. I'm gonna have some water. So even though you're not a a chef, I'm gonna ask you this question. Favorite ingredient, please.
SPEAKER_00This I don't know, but uh yes. Um favorite ingredient, it's very controversial, I think. Uh why is it controversial? Because that's something I only discovered recently. Um I like vanilla, perfect. Okay, but did can I just ask I don't know you want to do a quick fire, but I just discovered that they actually make vanilla essence out of uh recycling plastic bottles.
SPEAKER_01Oh my word. Okay, we'll get into that a bit later. Uh sweet or salty?
SPEAKER_00Uh I'll split it down the middle because I like both. I um I'll go I'll go no because they're both bad for you.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Uh spicy or pickled? Oh, this is really spicy or sickled.
SPEAKER_00Uh so like um um I'll go spicy.
SPEAKER_01Very good. Fish and chips or pie and chips? Uh fish and chips. Uh Sunday roast or Christmas dinner. Oh Sunday roast or Christmas dinner.
SPEAKER_00Christmas dinner. Boom.
SPEAKER_01Uh if we talk about right this second, can you tell me your top three favourite cuisines to eat?
SPEAKER_00Well, I do like a roast dinner. Um of course that can be a multiple uh different meats or or whatever, but roast dinner. Alright, so we'll say we'll say British, British roast dinner if you like. Um staying with the British. Um I like a good curry. Okay, very good. Very good. A bolte in particular, which comes from Birmingham.
SPEAKER_01Very good. Yes.
SPEAKER_00And last one, top three, um Old Korean.
SPEAKER_01Oh nice, yeah.
SPEAKER_00No Korean, definitely.
SPEAKER_01So then who would you say are your top three food heroes, but they don't necessarily need to be chefs.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, the what one of them is is a chef. Now I wouldn't say he was so much of a hero, but more of a somebody who I admire and insp uh feel inspired by. Um I'd go with Heston because of his uh because of his scientific side. I mean he's a member of the Royal Chemistry Society as well, but certainly um, yeah, Heston Blumethow is uh to me sort of like you know uh and what he's been through in his life as well. Um Anthony Bourdin. Uh yeah, I've been watching his um uh his shows and everything, it was uh really and then third I don't know it's difficult. Uh my mum. Yes very good it has to be, yeah. Now actually I'd put her first.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Uh now from all of your experience, uh whether it's on set uh in restaurants, kitchens, because I know you're filming in kitchens. Can you tell me your funniest either restaurant or kitchen incident that you've seen or been involved in?
SPEAKER_00Uh well off the top of my head there's probably I mean there's probably uh a few, but the f funniest, I mean, it's not funny. It was uh I was I was at um a brunch uh last year in uh and it was it was it's actually pretty bad for the guys really. Uh only uh we were in a um I won't name the restaurant, I won't name it, but uh dishes were being brought out and it's one of those with uh an open kitchen, so you you see everybody working, all the shit so came and it was still it hadn't been fully finished, it was still a little bit raw. So didn't want to make a fuss. So there's about seven of us around the table or so, and called the the waiter, you know, he just like you know, it takes it back. And uh the the chef is there as well. We're only this far away from the table, and and the chef was there and he picks it up and he and he looks at it. And of course, obviously it belongs to being prepared by one of the other chefs, and he just turned around, but when he threw it, he sort of caught the guy on the head and everything, plate, food and everything everywhere. And of course, and it's an open kitchen, eh? And and you know, it was one of those moments in um one of those westerners, you know, when when when the guy walks into the saloon and like the music stops, and everybody goes, Oh, you know, and it was one of those moments, even the DJ I think sort of hiccuped for a moment. It was and it was such a noise. And of course the guy just carried on, he was at the stove, he still carried on cooking away there, like you know, doing whatever he was doing, like you know, and he didn't flinch. And it and there was no language, there's just the guy just glared at him, the chef just glared at him. So, yeah, that was the only one that comes to mind at the moment.
SPEAKER_01But uh yeah, Mamma mia. Um what advice would you give to anyone who is wanting to start within the television and film industry?
SPEAKER_00Oh, television and film industry. Um the same as I would do to getting into any industry because of we've we've discussed about AI. Um, and whatever it is you want to do, um include that within your line of learning and look at how it affects your industry in which you want to step into because you it it's something which will change the industry because whatever you learn today will be different in the next five to ten years, and so it to be armed with how you might have to adapt, which is what we humans do all the time, um, to whatever is the line of work you're going in, it's gonna change everything, you know.
SPEAKER_01So and the final question, Keith, is what advice would you give to a 16-year-old Keith Dallison?
SPEAKER_00Um probably stay off the pup a little bit, you know, focus on um you know the the what you were doing a little bit more, don't enjoy life too much. Nah, just do it all again.
SPEAKER_01So, Keith, if anybody wanted to find you via social media, what are the best ways?
SPEAKER_00Probably through Instagram.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so what I'll do is I will put all of your social media details, LinkedIn and everything, in the podcast show notes. Now, the only thing that's left to say is on behalf of the Chef JKP podcast, a massive thank you for taking the time to be here. Well, thank you very much. It's been absolutely fascinating to actually have the chance to sit down with you one-to-one and discuss all of these amazing topics as well as your history. And I know that you're susceptible to uh, you know, rhubarb and apple crumble, which is also one of my favorites, plus vanilla, but without the essence, let's say.
SPEAKER_00Let's say, yeah, no, get real vanilla buttons, but even I couldn't I couldn't believe that they actually do that with uh recycling plastic bottles. And I was like, you know, so they put bacteria into the and it breaks it all down, and you get vanilla out of it. How? How? It's like incredible, and uh, and of course, um, I didn't realize that, but I know I I knew, but my father just said, like, keep away from the rhubarb, don't touch that, don't touch that, because the leaves are very poisonous. Yeah, yeah, and uh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Amazing, Keith. Thank you so much for being here.
SPEAKER_00Thank you very much, Keith.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your insights into the world of storytelling and creativity. For me, it's always fascinating to hear how different creative industries approach their craft. And you can tell Keith is a craftsman, his art is phenomenal, he's very detailed into what he does. Not only that, I find him to be absolutely fascinating with so much experience under his belt. That conversation is something that we have been planning for an extremely long time, and I was super happy that we managed to finally sit down and chat. If you want to see more of what Keith is doing, head over to the show notes. Well, to everyone listening and watching, if you've enjoyed this episode, please help us to support the podcast simply by sharing this episode. And you know, so many people could be inspired by what Keith said and with these amazing conversations that we have. It really could spark something within them. At the same time, I'm gonna ask you to leave a five-star review, and of course, five stars on any podcast platform. It helps us to grow the show and we can become even more visible in the world. At the same time, a massive thank you to Valrona for supporting us. Please make sure to also go and check them out. And of course, you could also pick up one of our amazing Thermos bottles, which look amazing. So if you want to purchase those, head over to the show notes. I have to say, a super stylish one. Don't take my word for it. All night. Well, gang, thank you so much for staying on until the very very end, you absolute legend. This is ChefJKP signing out. Until next time, food is memories.