About Me

I have been working in the film industry for the last 10 years; all within the Camera and Lighting Department.  I have had on-set experience of every type of production, from low-budget shorts to multi-million pound features.  I have experience of shooting out of helicopters, in private jets, and out of tracking vehicles.   I have been on-location in USA, Jordan, Holland, France, Northern Ireland and Nigeria. 

Before working in the film industry I was a Violinist and toured Europe with various youth orchestras; so am used to being on the road.  I started teaching the violin when I was 15 and studied at Trinity College of Music when I was 16.  I stopped teaching when I went to University as I believed that violin pupils needed a strict weekly lesson routine; something that could not be combined with a career in the film industry!  

I am happy on location and being from England, am used to varying weather conditions and how to cope with that as a Cinematographer. 

I am physically fit and strong; I started working as a Labourer on building sites when I was at University; to fund my studies and the extra costs of camera hire, film developing costs and telecine.  I soon discovered that this was a good holiday/spare time job when the first site I worked on asked me to stay for the whole summer holidays and I was offered triple pay on the basis that I was doing a lot more work than they were used too and they therefore didn’t have to hire as many Labourers. 

I carried on working on sites for various construction companies when I was a Clapper Loader and Focus Puller as it fitted around the film industry work as I was hired on a daily-contract basis.  Construction companies started giving me more senior roles and I took on contracts for painting & decorating, carpentary, dry-lining and demolition. 

I gained a reputation for being a hard-worker, excellent communicator and had good management skills and so was asked to take my CITB Construction Skills Health and Safety Supervisory and Management test, which I passed in 2005; this then put me in high demand as a Site Foreman.  The last site I worked on was the Buxton’s St Bedes school site; which I worked on until hand-over of the first new build.  Buxtons asked me to join them as a full-time Site Foreman and I was given the choice between three sites; all whom were keen to have me onboard.  However, it was never my intention to work full-time as a Site Foreman and I knew that I would not be able to fit working on-set around a full-time construction job and therefore gave up working on site. 

Luckily the managerial skills I learnt from working on-site were easily transferable to working on-set and were especially useful when I re-trained as a Cinematographer with Henry Braham during the making of The Golden Compass.  I thoroughly enjoyed the years I worked as a Clapper Loader and Focus Puller and feel that they have helped make me a more understanding and technically competent Cinematographer.  I understand the importance of a good crew and harmony throughout the department and with other departments on a project; after all we are in the business of creating a product, and that is a collaborative effort; much like building a house or playing in an orchestra.