The Residency through Gareth’s lens
“Living in London, you often have to sacrifice your creative ideas to think about what can pay your bills. It kills creativity for a lot of people, unless you have the money to support yourself. Schemes like the Graduate Residency Program cut against that.”
Web designer Gareth Johnson had never held a camera before enrolling on LCC’s Documentary Film Master’s, but he’s now a successful documentary filmmaker with a wide range of projects for clients such as CSM and the British Library under his belt.
Offering practical skills in the field through a “very intensive immersion”, the course allowed Gareth to find an interest in the ethics of filmmaking, an interest he was given free rein to explore in his Graduate Residency.
Applying one week before the ultimate deadline (applicants have five years post-graduation to take part in the scheme), Gareth saw the programme as an opportunity to ditch the commercial pressure involved in being a freelancer in a big city, and allow his independent creative spark to flourish again.
“I like working with clients who are involved in very different areas, it keeps it fresh and exciting for me.“
“What appealed to me was the chance to try something different, experiment, because I don’t always get that opportunity anymore. And obviously, living in London is very expensive so I find that I have to focus pretty much on work that’s going to pay the bills. It was funded as well so I was able to take a bit of time out of the commercial work that I normally do and try something different.”
Using ethics as a starting point for his Residency project, Gareth worked alongside Dr Pratap Rughani, a researcher at LCC, to develop an “interactive online resource built around ethical decisions people encounter in making,” based on a case study produced by Dr Rughani.
Students from other UAL colleges took part as well, expanding Gareth’s network which has now led to a multitude of collaborative projects with those same students.
““I’m working on with an illustrator. We’ve got three websites that we’re working on, I wouldn’t have met her if it hadn’t been for that project. It widens your network.”
The project, ‘Ethics for Making’, is available for free online at https://ethics.arts.ac.uk/klynt/, and while it’s mostly aimed at LCC students, any professional involved in “any kind of making” is welcome to use it. .”
The Graduate Residency didn’t just offer Gareth creative freedom and a welcome break from commercial work. It gave him the opportunity to develop new skills, something appreciated by the clients he was soon meeting all over London.
“I like working with clients who are involved in very different areas, it keeps it fresh and exciting for me. My specialism is filming and editing, but it’s good to have a wider range of general skills as well.
“It’s the ‘T shape’: you’ve got your specialist area, you’ve done your 10,000 hours, and then you’ve got a range of skills that you’re a generalist in, that get you by.
“The skills I used on the ‘Ethics for Making’ project were my general skills, but I had to develop others like coding. Having those as well allows me to collaborate with people who are specialists in those areas and understand what their work process is. You’ve got to be adaptable.”
The hand-bound photography books that Gareth publishes himself provide another creative outlet away from his commercial work. After completing a Photography BA at Westminster, old-school analogue photography became his way of keeping in touch with the “physical” side of his craft.
“Printing in dark rooms… I really love the physical side of it. It’s not something I get in my day-to-day work, where it’s all about staring at screens”.
If there’s one thing we might hope to learn from living through any difficult situation, it’s to prioritise your wellbeing and following your passions. And who knows, from that short film you’ve always wanted to make to the photo story you never had chance to shoot, the Graduate Residency may very well be your silver lining.
For more information about Gareth’s work, visit: garethmjohnson.com
All images courtesy of Gareth Johnson.