It’s never too late to get behind the camera, if today’s new director is anything to go by. Mark Jewitt started off as a graphic designer and then spent eight years working his way up in the production industry before taking up residence in the directors’ chair. He’s already shot a gaggle of creative spots through The Gate, including an eery anti-drugs ad and an adventurous bikeride across three dramatic Scottish cities.

After being involved in the industry for a few years, why did you make the decision to go for it and be a director?
I’ve always wanted to call the shots…

In a sense, everything I have done in the industry so far has been geared towards learning as much as possible about the creative decision making process that sits at the heart of directing. I have tended to take on roles or projects that have allowed me to learn new skills or get involved in different facets of filmmaking, always withan eye to building a solid base of practical understanding. Making the final leap to shooting my own stuff was really just serendipity. I was lucky enough to be offered an opportunity at a point where I felt that I had the tools to do the job justice.

What do you think you learned spending eight years getting to know the industry? And how do you think it affects your directing style?
Inevitably you pick up habits (good and bad) from the guys you work for, and particularly those you admire. Time spent across the departments, and on other director’s sets has gives you enough of a insight into the capabilities and limitations of both people and tech that it really improves the problem-solving part of directing. It also gives you a stronger appreciation of the fact that, while a film crew are a team all working towards one goal, there are acceptable and
unacceptable levels to which you can push resources. Knowing those from the inside helps you (i hope) to work with your crew as part of the team rather than as an outside agent.

In terms of it’s effects on my directing style, I think that any creative work is always going to be a convocation of influences and experiences, and i can certainly see elements ( some deliberately pinched, some subliminally ) of the style of directors that I have worked with, and those I admire, in everything that I’ve done. That said, in commercials, I think that style needs to be a fluid thing anyway, the camerawork, edit or performance that’s suitable for one
product would seem ridiculous in another context. As directors we should always be re-learning and refining the skills central to our jobs, whilst being open to anything new or interesting, or any fresh way of looking at things that already exist.

And how did you get into commercial production in the first place?
I did some graphic design for an art-assistant friend of mine. He got me on set as a runner. I loved it. The two things – sitting in a back-room mouse surfing and standing on set, in love with the film-making process – have pretty much developed in tandem from there.

When you were a kid, did you see yourself becoming a filmmaker or was it somethingwildly different?
I think the signs were always there. There’s a bunch of hi-8 piss-takes of hollywood movies slowly degrading in a landfill site somewhere in Lancashire that bear testament to me being a pretty bossy 11 year old. That said, I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that someone would pay me to do it….

What inspires you?
Art, nature, music, 90’s video games, listening to conversations on the train, buildings, cities, silence, physics. Everything really, I try to keep my eyes and ears open to as much as possible, it all feeds in to creativity.

I think i’ve been pretty heavily influenced by the work Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry did with their pop promos in the ’90’s, and i’m always inspired by any contemporary director who carries on their legacy of innovation.

What piece of your work are you most proud of?
I’m still in love with the series of commercials that we shot for the Sunday mail. Despite time, budget, a vast list of locations and the schizophrenic Scottish weather, we managed to capture so much beautiful footage that we ended up with a genuine campaign, rather than the single 30 second spot that we were hired to shoot.

Making films is always going to be a process of collaboration and negotiation, but in these ads, everything clicked in such a perfect way that I ended up replicating the images in my head exactly. There was a genuine spine tingling moment for me the first time I watched the rushes, knowing that, against all odds we’d captured the “perfect moments” that we were aiming for and that feeling of perfect correlation is something i’m always aiming for in everything I do.

How would you describe your directing style?
When I direct, I try to plan everything as much as possible in a way that allows me to communicate what I want effectively in pre-production. Then when the real world crashes in on shoot day, we’re able to take any setbacks or unforseens in our stride and work around or over them with the minimum of fuss.

In terms of a visual style, I try to shoot in a style that is suitable to the project, so i’m not sure that there are that many visual tics that define me. I think I do favour the scratchy and the analogue over the polished and the digital, but it’s not a preference i’d force into a situation where it was innapprorpriate.

The underwater shoot at Pinewood to achieve the eery effects in the anti-drugs spot is effective. How did you come up with that idea and why do you think it works better than the more obvious CG route?
The creative team and I were keen step outside conventions where we could in order to make the spot feel like as uncomfortable an experience as possible in the cinema. We wanted the dealer character to feel weird and otherworldy without doing anything with make-up or effects that might be obvious to the viewer. Shooting underwater gives
skin a kind of translucency, and turns people’s eyes into dead black pits in a way that we would have found difficult to replicate in any other way. I shamelessly ripped the technique off from Chris Cunnigham’s Promo for Portishead but hopefully, by using it more as a make up effect within a wider context I don’t come across as too much of a shady idea thief.

Tell me about the S1 spot featuring stunt rider Danny McAskill – what were the main challenges there?
We were re-tooling an awesome video that had been doing the rounds on the internet for a while, in order to let Danny McAskill’s spectacular riding skills tell a little story for the brand.

We had all the usual challenges of shooting in public areas ( the public, particularly Aberdonian daytime drinkers ), three completely different types of weather over our two days ( bright sunshine, hail, torrential rain ) and a shoot that spread over three different cities.

The main challenge was trying to achieve in a two day shoot something close to level of grace and glory on show in the original web video, which had taken eight or nine months to shoot.

With wages to pay, and location contracts to honour, we couldn’t afford to take the time needed to perfect some of the more technical tricks in Danny’s repertoire, nor could we risk breaking either him or his bikes on some of the more extravagant drops that he undertakes when making his own videos.

Instead, to tell the story as well as possible, to make best use of our time and to push Danny as far as we all felt was safe without jeapordising later shots, we decided to choreograph an ebullient ride through the city, rather than cataloguing a series of grandstand tricks.

We were always very aware that we were asking a man to repeatedly perform technical and dangerous feats, and to refine and improve them with every take. Danny did astonishingly well to maintain the level of skill, enthusiasm, professionalism and energy that he did over a long two days.

That said there is one shot that I would desperately have loved to get in the can. We had set camera before dawn in order to get low golden light and long shadows. As the sky turned from indigo to orange, wispy pink clouds twined across the sky and a flock of birds lifted from a nearby rooftop. The morning sun was breaching the top of the granite buildings in the background sending a beautiful flare down the camera lens and tiny lights studded the underside of the bridge that we were shooting. Danny was going to ride the rail of the bridge, crossing the lens flare, before dropping 12-14 onto the roof of a van, then onto the cobbled street and away.

It was perfect!

Unfortunately it was also just too far for Danny to risk at that time in the morning. He warmed up for an hour or so, but even then he wasn’t feeling it. It’s certainly not something I would even think about attempting myself so when he told me that it wasn’t going to happen, we just packed up the camera gear and moved on to the next location.

It’s definitely “the one that got away” for me. It’s a shot that I would absolutely love to have on my reel, but not something I want so much that i’d push someone to break their neck for.

And when you’re not directing, what other things are you into?
I’m working on a couple of short film scripts, but outside of filmmaking – I like sliding down mountains on bits of wood, riding bikes, playing scrabble and drinking Guinness. I also still love editing for other directors.