| Q1: What’s the best thing you’ve ever watched? |
| Tricky to say the best but I think the best documentary series (which is the area I work in) was called The Staircase, which was a French crew following an American murder trial. The best storytelling of just about anything I’ve ever seen. I might just have to mention ‘Breaking Bad’ too as best drama ever. |
| Q2. Who was your idol when you were growing up or who is your idol now? |
| Went through phases but probably David Bowie |
| Q3. What was the first camera you ever bought or used? |
| a Kodak 110 instamatic camera in about 1979.First moving picture camera was a Braun Nizo super 8 Camera |
| Q4. What is your favourite camera and why? |
| Probably the Arri SR3 16mm camera. Great images and there was nothing like the thrill of turning over knowing that every minute of footage shot was costing a fortune. It really made you consider carefully what you were going to shoot before pressing record. |
| Q5. What’s the most bizarre/funniest/favourite thing to happen whilst on a shoot? |
| I think the most amazing experience was sailing in the Antarctic last year. We were navigating through a field of skyscraper sized icebergs when a pod of humpback whales came and played around our boat for a few hours. They would literally raise themselves right out of the water and look you straight in the eye, as if to say "I know exactly what you are up to". It was thrilling filming and working around those animals.The most Bizarre situation was going to the summit of Kilimanjaro with comic relief listening to Cheryl Cole moaning all the way to the top. |
| Q6. What’s your favourite or worst place to film and why? |
| Almost impossible to say as the world is, as I’ve experienced, a diverse and remarkable place, but I think it would probably be Africa, for its huge range of cultures, landscape and wildlife. I always jump to it when I get a job there. The worst place or places would be many underprivileged parts of the UK where people are stuck on appalling estates with no real hope of changing their environment or lives. I always find it deeply depressing seeing real cultural and economic poverty in our own country. |
| Q7. Who is the most interesting person you have worked with? |
| I really don’t know how to pin that one down as I’ve met many remarkable people. The obvious ones are The Dali Lama or Stephen Fry but that would be forgetting the non famous, who are often more interesting. |
| Q8. Name one unnecessary item that you cannot do without on a shoot? |
| An iPad to watch all those drama box sets while you are away. |
| Q9. What would you like to film that you haven’t already? |
| I’d like to be Roger Deakins’ operator on a Cohen Brothers Movie |
| Q10. What job would you be doing if you couldn’t do what you do now? |
| Something in the arts I guess |
| Q11. What’s one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring Cameraman? |
| 1) Find out what your style is and do your own thing, which translates into visually knowing what you like and what you don’t.2) Cultivate relationships with directors whose work you admire and who you personally like. Chances are you’ll be spending plenty of time with them so it helps if they are good company.
3) Go and sit in a few edits and speak to editors. You can shoot the most beautiful images in the world but if you can’t shoot a scene that will cut or make narrative sense you might not be invited on the next shoot.
4) if you are buying gear make sure you can make a return from it, and of course buy it from Top Teks :) |
