Benjamin Brook
Up and coming filmmaker, Benjamin Brook, takes a rough around the edges approach towards his work. Ben bases himself in Bristol where he works as a video producer for music and culture magazine, Crack. He mainly works with musicians for music videos or live performances which complements his cinematic aesthetic. Through a documentary style of filming in order to create a narrative, Ben enjoys editing his own footage so he can decide on the most appropriate storyline for the particular film. Conjoining film and photography, Ben also captures 35mm film images on shoots that work perfectly with different textures to create collages as shown on his Instagram @benbro.ok.
How would you best describe the aesthetic and style of your filmography?
Currently, moody, textural, mixed-media, choppy, collaged, filmic, rough round the edges, bubbling, never finished, often transient but occasionally emotive, and hopefully cinematic… in places.
How did you get to where you are today as a film director?
I studied, what was Filmmaking & Creative Media at UWE Bristol, I think it’s just filmmaking now. They had some great resources, but it wasn’t until I was unemployed after that degree that I decided to buy some of my own kit and start self shooting as a videographer. Then I started working with Crack Magazine, who are also Bristol based, refining my work, alongside working on larger projects with increasing scale and responsibility. I’m always grateful that they saw something in my work that translates to their vision and continue to push me towards bigger opportunities whilst allowing space for my own work too. Although I still don’t fully see myself as a director, as a lot of the time I’m working more as a videographer and doing everything in a small team or alone, but hopefully there’s more scope to step into actual directing in the near future – when I look back, I’m definitely always learning and improving, and directing more is a natural progression.
Primarily you are a filmmaker, however your Instagram ‘@benbro.ok’ is a portfolio of both film and photography - can you tell us a bit more about your photography work?
I think the photography stuff goes hand in hand. A lot of my video stuff is mixed media and I think 35mm stills, and the various ways you can capture them are fun and well suited to collaging with other textures. I wouldn’t call myself a photographer by any means, more often I’m just shooting on different point & shoot formats because I enjoy it, but there’s something interesting about the limitations of that too. Whether thats multi-lens or fixed aperture or focal length etc… how does that inform the subject? I often set myself limitations or themes too. I was shooting a lot of neglected cars throughout lockdown, just on my phone, for a personal project that will likely never surface. I’m keen to try my hand with medium format photography at some point in the future, and just picked up a couple 127 film cameras from a car boot that I hope to get working.
It’s more just a hobby that stems from using different formats to tell and capture stories in videos. Often people or places — which is what stories are made up of.
You have worked with the likes of Charli XCX and Slowthai, but also with smaller, up and coming artists such as Fenne Lily. How do you approach these jobs differently yet manage to keep the same raw film aesthetic throughout all of you work?
I don’t think I do approach things that differently, I generally employ the same or similar techniques across my work but I’m also conscious that these techniques need to change or develop in order for me to progress.
I’m actually quite keen for a switch up, setting limitations is a good way to force a project to establish it’s own style, using one medium to tell this section… using one camera set-up to tell that section… that’s something I’m interested in going forward, and I think will be equally as refined as just smashing a bunch of clutter together like I normally do.
What is your process for creating films, from concept to finalised outcome?
In the music documentary area, we’ll always approach the shoots with an idea of what story we’re telling, but a lot of projects have been fleshed out in post-production, pulling a narrative together from interviews we’ve captured. There’s often not a lot of time to overly plan before we’re shooting. This does mean I have an unhealthy habit with over-shooting, making the edit a slog. However if i’m doing a lot of it myself then I like to have the options, and what I enjoy about this is, stories are big and small, so finding the one I care most about telling is a bit of a process. The more defined projects I’ll put together a treatment outlining the idea and creative style and approach, it’ll be reworked, signed off and then the shoot will be put together with the producer, sorting crew, kit, access, locations etc. I’d shot list, we’d shoot and then in post production there is a clearer end goal, but it always still takes some fleshing out. It’s often difficult to tell larger stories in short form video content for the internet, so doing so in a consolidated way, that still paints the picture accurately and in enough detail is always interesting.
From a technical perspective what equipment do you use?
If I’m self shooting then I use a Sony a7sii, but always have a range of point & shoot 35mm cameras and DV camcorder with me too.
Any new upcoming projects we should look out for?
Theres a bit more Mura Masa documentary footage to get through, so one other episode from that series. And maybe another music video this year too, who knows?
courtesy BENJAMIN BROOK
interview GABY MAWSON
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