As an in demand Director of Photography Dan’s job involves shooting across a range of projects such as documentaries, corporate and commercials. His clients include Ferragamo, Marie Curie and creative agency Raw.
He’s currently working on a couple of documentaries, one about a performer campaigning for gender equality, he’s been working shooting on for the last year.
The other is much more recent and is in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic, and follows a number of people over an extended period of time to show how Britain’s lockdown changed their their ‘normal’.
Over the last few years Dan has been consistent in creating personal work that’s allowed him to experiment and push his creativity.
WHY IS PERSONAL WORK IMPORTANT TO YOU?
Personal work has always been important to me to keep developing current skills, as well as learning new approaches to my work.
For me, the primary focus is personal development, whether it’s technical, organisational or just knowing who I love to work with!
Being able to present that piece of work with pride afterwards is definitely a bonus.
WHAT IS YOUR PERSONAL PROJECT?
My project is called The Drop and it’s a short film that sits in the cross over between a drama and a fashion piece.
I saw it as an opportunity to create something that followed a short narrative with lower key aesthetics than the higher key commercial look, commonly sought for commissioned projects. As there were so many moving parts it was a particularly challenging, but equally fun project to shoot.
WHAT DID YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE WITH IT?
Personally I had a creative itch to scratch, which in most cases is a big part of my motivation. That came secondary to the desire to stretch my skills further, this included how to prep for a shoot of that nature and when/how best to communicate with the crew.
WHO’S YOUR PROFESSIONAL SOURCE OF INSPIRATION?
For me inspiration has always come from visuals, but perhaps strangely, always from a dark place. The choice to light a space or subject, or to choose to let something fall to darkness was always fascinating.
Great examples of what inspires my style is Fincher’s Seven and Villeneuve’s Sicario. Conversely, Haneke’s Amour is a stunning film with a vastly different narrative and likewise to its visuals, which when put into comparison with the formers it’s a great example of visuals complimenting the narrative.
