About Me The Horrendously Long version
Getting Into Filmmaking
I’ve always been a lover of movies since I was a child . I’d watch my favorite movies over and over. I could repeat them word for word almost sometimes .
There came a time in secondary school where I had the opportunity to do the Duke of Edinburgh(DOE)award . The program was full up in school so I had to go to a youth club outside of School based in Wandsworth .
For the DofE award . You had to learn a skill ,do a service , a Physical Recreation , & also go on an expedition . The list of skills I could choose to learn were long but to cut a long story short I chose video editing . Because I loved films & knew video editing was a big part of it .
At the youth centre there was a man who was supposed to be teaching me video editing. I believe his name was Henning . We were editing on old Final Cut Pro. I think I did 1 session with him. He showed me where all the tools were and he didn’t show up again so i had to just play with it and figure it out on my own .
I was still keen to learn editing so I managed to experiment on the system .The youth centre had lots going on people making music ,doing drama classes and all kinds of arts and projects .They had an xl1 Canon mini dv camera wish i used to film interviews music videos & little skits and capture with a fire wire card ,put them into the mac & edit them together . By doing this it gave me a chance to learn on my own and be creative by doing these various projects trying all kinds of crazy random effects and more .
This was my first intro into media and making media and it was a lot of fun .The only problem is that the youth centre would always lose my work when I'd return the next week my projects would be gone .
Meanwhile I did some light presenting for the interviews I’d conduct around the youth centre. I met Basil who ran the Drama club and he said if I wanted to get better at presenting /media /Filmmaking in general the drama club is open & could really help . so I switched my skill from editing to drama. It seemed like the logical choice at the time.
Editing R & D
The editing /Filmmaking Bug had already bit me even though I wasn’t doing it in an official capacity .I still wanted to continue learning .I figured out I’d need a few things a PC (Dell pentium 3 ) , A Camera ,Fire Wire Card & Editing software .I think during the course of a year I managed to persuade my dad to get me the PC , I had a friend who gave me a cracked version of adobe premiere and saved up for the firewire card I got my brother who was good with computers to put in my firewire card .I got my Dad to get me a mini dv Canon camcorder for my Birthday and I was off to the races .
Experimenting making short film experiments , Test commercials , test music videos , Editing birthday party video and home movies etc etc . I could never find or convince anyone to be in my home made movies .So I had to go and act in them myself and learn camera tricks to edit scenes together . Most are lost files now but it was a fun time of experimenting and learning
College and into Getting Film Industry
One summer when I was finishing school . I had the idea all year that I was going to make a movie. I had written part of the script, needless to say it didn’t go well and that film was abandoned even after my months filming .I just didn’t have all the pieces I needed and I made all the classic mistakes .
I went to Lambeth college to take a media moving image Btech course , Video Creation , Photography ,& Dark room Developing ,Multi media and website design .All I was really interested in was photography and video Creation and I felt this was my strong point .
Soon after I left college to get into the film industry . I wanted to get into editing so I applied to do work experience / temp jobs at many Post production Companies in London Soho sending out lots of emails per day and phone calls . A few companies where I did work experience Sue moles editing , White House Post Production ,Nice Biscuits & more . Sitting in with industry editors ,making tea, running packages all over Soho ,etc etc .
I also did work experience at some production companies Between the eyes , HSI , Flynn & more where I did some research & meanwhile tasks for Emil Nava ,& Mo Ali. I met various producers and directors .
The 1st Professional Shoot was a Tinchy Stryder Music Video “Take Me back” .I managed to get on the video because I was at the production company where I saw they were pitching for the video and asked the director if I could come along he asked his producer and the rest is history .
Temp Work / Unpaid Work
I started doing temp work / unpaid work for the period of a year at different production companies in Soho .I had a contract cleaning job cleaning several estate agents offices at night time to make some consistent money .
In the meantime a friend of mine had started an online music show called the cordless show .Where he’d get emerging music artists (Ed sheeran ,Katy B ,Bluey Robinson and more) .I started just helping out on the production side of things .His brother (Joshua Dadson) was doing all the editing .Till later on just by being around his brother who was the main editor said Jonny edits as well maybe he can do a few episodes to free up his work load .
So I began editing a few shows .At the beginning we were filming and working out of a place called kingswood house many of us were working for free / experience .My friend managed to partner with a production company called New Treatment & they also managed to get a sponsorship with Roland .The Production moved to New treatment production office .Where I met Enrico , Junior nunno ,Adam Linzey(Director) ,Tim Doubleday Ryan Samuda (director ) , Stefan Yap Who was the director of cordless show and is now world class DP .
Early Editing Experience
My editing time was slow so it would take me a very long time to do an episode of the show .When the show moved, Stefan said he didn’t mind me staying on. I just have to get faster .So I spent many days & weeks at new treatment editing trying to get faster and hone my skills . I learnt a lot from Dave Rigway who was editing higher budget things than me. I was editing online content ,Cordless Show , The occasional video & other various things mostly unpaid while doing my cleaning job at night .
Early On Set Experience
I had been applying to do work experience at lots of places and juggling editing work in the day , cleaning at night and The occasional days of work experience or shoot experience on a film school project or indie etc I used to apply on mandy.com.Gumtree , and any other place I could find an opportunity . I worked on a couple student films picket pocket , Libertatia , An Untitled Erim Metto Film , I also volunteered at the Canary wharf Film Festival where I met a few more people and contacts . I received an email out of the blue “Jonathan we’ve received your application and we’d love for you to come in for work experience at Panavision.I felt this was the big leagues now because always when I’d watch behind the scenes of movies they would always be shooting with Panavision cameras so it’s the closest thing to being on a real Hollywood movie set I was going to get .
Panavision was great ! To see all the behind the scenes of the camera floor, the grip department, the test rooms, people coming in to shoot a commercial or a movie . Going through all the cameras from 16mm cameras to 35mm to Digital , Panavison ,Arri ,Aatons and going to the lens department chatting with the floor staff and more .It was such an eye opening experience to understand more about the professional film industry .
I asked lots of questions including how do I get to work on a camera crew .A lot of the staff would give me their valuable and somewhat blunt advice “work in a hire house a be really good”
“Try and get in as a camera trainee and wait till somebody dies so you can move up the ranks “ they said in jest but they were dead serious .
After leaving Panavision , I was inspired to get into the shooting side of the industry as it seemed a better / different place to be . While editing and seeing others edit I always wondered the method to getting these images .I knew I wanted to make films eventually so I’ll have to do my best to learn that side of things as well .My plan was to learn from good DP’s and use that knowledge and incorporate it into my own films & projects .
Making Contacts
I started doing research on google and the knowledgeonine.com to find Dp’s in London who’s work I liked . At first my emails were very specific looking at DP's websites, writing them an Email asking if I could be a camera runner for the camera department . Early on there were a few Dp’s who took me on . A few names to mention . Martin Testar , Will Bex , Ross McLennan , Matt Fox ,George Steele , and more .
Martin Testar had A Red MX Camera and he invited me around to his house. He did lots of films , commercials and various different projects. He allowed me to go to his house to check out the camera and lenses and all his gear . He was doing a few days on an artist's film he worked with regularly and let me come along to assist . It was a nice intro because it was a small shoot with maybe less than 8 Crew members .It was the days you could still have a big hard drive on the back of a RED and Put in CF cards (what a time !) .
After doing a few jobs with Martin ,he gave me some advice and said I really should try and get in with a few other Dp’s .So I decided to try and do just that. I must have sent over 20 emails a day to different dp’s . Most wouldn’t respond & some would respond kindly saying they don’t need a runner for the camera dept . While contacting so many people I learned different things. The runner for the camera dept is called a Camera Trainee - so I started wording my emails for that position . In Commercials and music videos they generally don’t need / have the budget for a camera trainee . One DP told me that he usually lets his 1st Ac / focus puller pick the crew .That was eye opening because that was another set of crew members I could contact . I found most people through The Knowledge online ,Mandy,Promo News ,or if I heard someone's name on a set I’d search them up . I had contacted one focus puller and he said “Mate you need to get on the older blower you can’t just send an email”
New Cold Calling Strategy
Now I had a strategy I’d find and make a list of Dp’s & focus pullers I thought was doing filmic work. Commercials and music videos seemed to be the things that had the best production value at that time, lots of eye candy . I’d email 20+ a day then the next week if they didn’t respond I’d call them up and ask if they received my email .
Very daunting at first cold calling people, being an introvert. My preferred method of contact is texting but I had to get out of my shell and do it . Many days people would be annoyed. They'd just say no or shout at you. The responses were quite interesting .Some extremely nice people and other really horrible, shout at you kind of people .
I did this everyday while doing my night time cleaning job (working for my Dad) , & editing at new treatment and I think I was coming off JSA at this point as well . I was doing all my shoot trainee work for free for months on end till I trainee’d on a Subway Commercial With Will Bex as the DP . After the shoot I think he said Don’t forget to submit your invoice quickly . Then a light bulb went off. I can actually get paid for this & from that time I’ve been submitting my invoice for almost every shoot ,getting paid. It started my freelance film crew life .
Networking in Film
On every shoot I'd always try to network ( not in a sleazy way ) but just get to know people and who’s doing what, keeping my ear to the ground so to speak and show willing . One day on a commercial shoot with Martin Testar . I heard a crew member say they've been working with Tony May and he's always busy . So I wrote down the name and researched when I got home .I thought he did some really good work & wrote him an email. I mentioned that I worked with Martin , they know each other & used to be neighbours .
Tony & I spoke briefly on the phone. He's nice but very quick and to the point .He said I could meet him at centre stage while he’s shooting there at lunch time to see who I am , what I want to do .If we get on. Tony is very loud and joyous & personable you can tell he’s in charge and loves his job and loves life .So we spoke while he was having lunch with all his crew Marco Diguillio , Bobby Tanswell and more .The rest was history he tried me for one shoot I guess he didn’t mind me cause he kept calling me up .
Tony is like a lightning rod , he’s quick ,he’s sharp , he’s loud with a great sense of humour ,a ball of energy . He’d always introduce me and say “ this is Jono I’m training him up to nick all my work” he’ll say Jono “ this industry has all gone down hill since I met you , we used to shoot on real cameras in my day “ “do you mind if I call jono” I’d say I don’t mind “ he’ll say we wouldn’t mind if you did” “ where’s the tea jono” “Faster jono” “schminky”. He used to shout my name a lot on set but it’s all done with a big brother like spirit and humor . Everyone takes you under their wing in a way but working with Tony I felt he always tried to encourage me and show me why he had done something lighting wise etc etc & tell me little things to put in my kit . He even gave me some dollars when I was travelling to the USA and more .
Quitting The Night Job
After doing paid shoots for several months as trainee & 2nd AC. I was still doing cleaning at night around 6 estate agents offices every night .There came a point where my energy was being sucked from cleaning & the thing was 1 shoot days pay was more than a month pay from the cleaning job .So I decided that’s where I wanted to put my energy into getting more paid shoot work & quit the Cleaning job.
Season of Jobs , Meeting People , Learning
This was a season of meeting people and Just trying to get on different jobs .I was A trainee on the wrong Mans Pilot with James Corden Shot By Duncan telford ,Focus Puller Amy Newstead Directed by Jim Field Smith , I met Aaron Reid cause I reached out to him about his work on promo news .I did 2 music videos with him Devlin - Marching through the fog & POW 2011 Version both directed by carly cussen . I met most people initially by reaching out and then after that it was word of mouth .I worked with George Steele for a while on some ads Ed linsley was his focus puller / B Cam Op for a while & he was kind enough to let me come and test with him at panavision funnily enough. We were going through the Alexa Classic he Said “learn this camera well cause this is what you’ll be using mainly for the next 10 years” oh how right he was
People were kind to give me some old floor bags and little tools like allen keys, tape , Sausages for marks My problem was I never knew exactly what I needed to be an Camera Trainee / 2nd AC .
By jumping in with short form it was a lot less regimental than say being on a tv show / Movie . That's another thing they told me early on . You decide what you’re going to do early Long form (Movies /TV) or commercials / music Promos , etc etc I didn’t believe it but it’s generally true. People like to hire you for what you’ve been hired for before so there’s circles of contacts. All my contacts were in short form .
No Gear & No Idea
So Saying that I never really had all the kit or knew exactly what I needed when it came to trainee work / assisting “Jonny do you have this “ “err No “ then i’d go and get what ever the dp or 1st AC were asking for floor bag , soap on the rope , allen keys , scissors , adjustable spanner , torch ,utility belt clapper board kenair , jewelers kit , t-bar phillips ,white board marker , permanent marker ,tape measure chalk ,focus chart , extension cable, leatherman etc ,etc ,etc .
The list is so long but whatever they’d ask for I'd try and get,so I had it next time around . It seems there was always something I didn’t have, that was really annoying. I wish someone would have just given me a shopping list and i’d have saved up and got everything . My Mum was a annoyed she said “why do you have to buy your own gear ? and they’re not paying you for it” I just said “mum that seems to be the game”
Meanwhile My Projects
Working on shoots was great. It was cool to work on a bunch of sets with various different cameras ,crews & equipment as a trainee and an assistant seeing how things run on a professional set . I still wanted to make my own projects. I figured I’d start with directing /shooting and editing music videos as a way to practice things I've learned on set and put a showreel together .I started looking for people I could make free videos for just to build up a showreel. Any video I would have done . I managed to get a little Canon 7D camera with kit lenses, a light weight tripod and a red head lighting kit .
I put an ad out on Gumtree for a free music video .I still didn’t have enough money for a good enough editing system so I used my friends Imac he had at his dad’s house. The one (who was making cordless The music Show) So I did 3 videos through Gumtree for free and I did a couple music videos for a friend Simple Jackson, a Grime/ dubstep artist all on my own no budget .
Some people would sent me Hood videos to shoot no money. I was happy to do them at first just to be doing something creative again and exercising my editing and shooting skills
After a while I got tired of the No Budget Hood video game .Because I wanted to do something more artistic not that I wanted to get paid but I wanted something for my reel and it wasn’t really building my reel . I wanted a dramatic jump in quality .
I didn’t always want to be shooting the topics and things some of these genres call for sex,violence and drugs with no conscience . For the right song, yes . but to do it and not get paid and not like what you're shooting /editing or the atmosphere you’re around 90% of the time is a lose lose in my opinion . There’s only so much you can do with no budget and many times it’s a race to the bottom. I'd pitch ideas and artists would think i want to squeeze them for money . I began writing different scripts . short films , tv , movie , more on that later .I would also do B Cam on content shoots when DSLR’s were popular .
The Passion Project
For years I’ve been writing potential films and film projects .Always trying to see what I can make for the resources I had . In 2017 I decided to start trying to bring to life a film I was working on .I jumped in with both feet. A low budget indie film it was really an ordeal - the film is called Rigmarole & boy oh boy has it been a rigmarole ever since . More on that later . It needs about 100 blogs of its own. I'll keep you posted. I figured it deserves a mention .
Honing down with work as a freelancer
After years freelancing at this point still riding the wave of the treacherous seas & unpredictability of freelance life . I had bought a laptop Macbook pro (getting my friend to get me student discount of course to edit my projects as FCP was now my NLE system of choice + now I was doing many data wrangling jobs or just wrangling when we didn’t have a wrangler on shoots .I would be mainly 2nd ac , data wrangler /DIT on some shoots , spark on some other shoots & on occasion 1st ac / Camera operating for some shoots .
I did this for a while bouncing between roles and departments, always camera centric until a Dp I worked for said “just choose 1 role and stick to it because I never know what to call you for ” So I made the decision to generally professionally just to go the DIT path as that’s what most people would already call me for. I’ve always had my own little kit & I was thinking of getting a big kit with all the bells and whistles till I found out about DIT firms. A focus Puller I worked with told me a good one was Mission Digital .
Joining Mission Digital
Around 2021 I sent an email to Mission digital about joining them as a DIT . I received a lovely email from Ingrid who was in the production team at the time .We had a video chat .Then she set up a video chat with Tom mitchel . I spoke with Tom about what DITing is and where the industry is going and the rest is history .I joined mission but first I had to do several training modules which was just to check & widen my knowledge .
While being at mission I did a job as data manager on willow Disney + for DIT Nick Everet Dailes in Wales
I also did a job for Extraordinary Season 1 Disney + DIT assist / Data manager Dailies where I was working with DIT - Stuart Mcconville & I Met Ash Daniyan 2 lovely people .
I worked on Road To a Million Jamaica & Switzerland Unit - Amazon Prime Video
They asked within the company if anyone wanted to learn how to do Lab operating . I had never heard of such a thing so I came into Shepperton to get training .Several of us were there for several days doing lab training going through the process , Silverstack ,Davinci Resolve, Avid ,Yoyotta ID ,LTO Tapes and more .
Doing lab I did Dailies Lap Oping on Everything now - Netflix (aka The F**k it Bucket)
This was my first time doing lab on a real life job .Starting at 7pm or later and finishing most times at 7am most days .It’s quite a convoluted process . You’d be surprised ,Backing up footage on to the SAN , Data entry in silverstack , QC and taking notes, Syncing and slipping sync avid Bins , lto Tapes Communication emails . It does take longer than you’d think and I think for me I hadn’t got in the swing of things yet . An interesting experience but I learned the night shift is not where I want to be .
Jingle Bell Heist - Netflix
Is another Job I did for Mission at Shepperton in the lab pretty much from start to end except for the pickups . It was good to do a job from beginning to end & do the whole process on my own . I remember the 1st week I wasn’t up to speed , I was feeling the pressure from supervisor and edit team any moment I could get the sack .I wasn’t sleeping well after doing the night shift I was taking cabs home early in the morning most days or when finishing late I could get the train home .They said I had not been performing well and they wanted to get James (the lab king at mission) to show me things to help me go faster & better. I felt if I didn't get up to speed this would be it for me at the company . I also made the mistake of filling up the LTO tapes up too much and the supervisor was mad at me .
All to say I’ve done lab now, I know what it’s about and I don’t want to do it again in those circumstances .
Moving on
2024 I was asked to do lab operations again but I said I’d rather not . For the year I was back to my commercials & short form shoots mainly . Also I did a feature film on Alexa35 which had recently come out called Son & The Sea filming in London & mostly in Scotland Fraserburgh
2025 - I’ve been doing all short form shoots commercials ,corporates , shorts films , Music videos & online content .
Looking forward
As I write this, we're nearing the end of 2025 .Things seem like they’re slowing down . I'm ready to take on bigger projects for other people and myself and I’m looking forward to finishing personal passion projects & starting some new ones . So much I want to do . Work as a DIT on your shoots ,do more live grading , I’d like to start making youtube videos again soon , travelling and more . I know this has been an extremely long read. It’s basically my professional full biography till now .I hope it gave you some insight or made you hopeful or curious ,or just appreciate your own journey .I’m sure if you were to write out your own journey you’ll start remembering so many things . If you haven't read it, hopefully it will be good for the algorithm somewhere.
Take Care peace & Love
Jonathan Boyd , Jonny Boyd , Jono , JB ………