We’re hiring
Filmmaker
We’re looking for a filmmaker / cinematography / film camera wizard to create magic for our clients, leading as a director and cinematographer pushing the limits of what we’re capable of.
We make branded content & campaigns for advertising and corporate clients around the world, from the heart of the Cotswolds. With our own studio and kit, work that ranges from a single interview set-up to multi-day location shoots with 30+ crew. This is a permanent, salaried, hands-on craft role.
Salary
£40,000 to £48,000
Based at
Bishops Cleeve, Cheltenham
Reports to
Managing Director
Contract
Permanent, full time
The job
You take ownership of the productions assigned to you, as Director, Director of Photography, or both. You are responsible for the visual voice of that work: what it looks like, what it says, and whether it lands with the client and their audience.
The judgement we’re hiring for is creative and cinematographic. How to tell the story. How to light it. Where to put the camera. And how to hold that vision together across a shoot day when the schedule is slipping and the client is watching over your shoulder.
Direction
Turning a brief into a film that works. Structure, pacing, and getting something real out of people who aren’t performers: CEOs, engineers, customers, staff.
Treatments and pitches
A real part of the job, not an afterthought. Working with our creative leads and producers on the documents clients actually buy from.
Cinematography
The image is yours. Lighting design in the studio and in rooms nobody would choose. Lens, framing, movement. Exposure and colour that hold across every setup, every day.
Bringing the team up
Teaching lighting and camera on set to our junior crew and freelancers. It’s how the standard scales past the shoots you personally cover.
Most people we know this would be perfect for are freelance. What’s on offer here instead is a way to do the craft you love without the external stresses, a fixed salary, with your own studio and a kit list you can plan around rather than budget around, work you own from pitch through to handover, and none of the admin that comes with running yourself as a business.
Who we’re after
Essential
Four or more years leading branded, commercial or corporate films as Director, DoP or both.
A body of work you personally led, with a visual point of view.
Strong lighting instinct. You can walk into a bad room and make it look good, quickly.
Fluent with cinema and mirrorless systems, log workflows, LUTs and exposure discipline. Colour holds across a multi-day shoot.
Open to learning the Canon cinema ecosystem and adopting it for most of your projects.
Able to direct non-actors and get something real out of them.
Can write and pitch a treatment. Visual thinking on paper, not just on set.
Credible in front of clients, including when something has gone wrong.
Sound on set safety and risk assessments, and willing to hold the line on it.
Desirable
Experience mentoring or training junior crew.
Grading experience, or enough edit familiarity to hand over cleanly to post.
Studio set lighting, and lighting-heavy work like tabletop and product.
The person
Has taste, and can explain it. Opinions about why a shot works, not just that it does.
Takes ownership rather than waiting for direction.
Raises problems early. A problem flagged on Friday is nothing. The same problem found on set on Monday is a client problem.
Teaches rather than takes over.
The non-negotiables. This is a studio job, in Cheltenham, five days a week. Not a remote one. You’ll need a full UK driving licence, the right to work in the UK, and a passport you don’t mind using, because some of our work takes us abroad. Plus two people who have worked with you and will pick up the phone.
What you’re signing up for
Worth knowing before you spend an evening on an application.
The bar is high, and that’s the whole point. We’re not hiring someone to keep the output ticking over at its current level. We want work we couldn’t have made before you arrived. That means being pushed, being asked why a shot works, and being expected to have an answer.
It takes the business stress off, not the pressure. If you’re worn down by freelancing, this removes the parts that grind you: chasing invoices, quoting at eleven at night, three quiet weeks in August. It does not make the craft easier. Shoot days are long, briefs are tight, and the client is usually standing behind the monitor.
You’ll still prep some shoots. We’re a small team. Prep and returns usually sit with the studio team, but expect to prep plenty of your own small and medium shoots. Everyone here does some of everything.
The work is commercial. Brand films, campaigns, corporate, product. Good work with real budgets and real clients, but it is client work, and the brief wins.
It isn’t London. We’re in Bishops Cleeve, just outside Cheltenham. Bristol, Bath, Gloucester and Worcester are all a straightforward commute. If you’re looking to get out of the city, that’s a conversation we’re happy to have.
It isn’t a line management job. You lead creatively and technically. You don’t do appraisals.
How this goes
1. A short call
Fifteen minutes, phone. What you’ve shot, what you want next, and whether the money and the location work for both of us.
2. A proper conversation
An hour or so, here at the studio. Look round the space and the kit, meet a couple of the team, talk through your work in detail.
3. Shoot day test
We’ll cover a dayrate for you to join us on set and work on a project. You recce it, you light it, you lead it. It’s the most useful day for both sides and we won’t ask you to do it for free.
4. References, then an offer
Two producers who’ve actually booked you. Then a decision, quickl
Apply
No cover letter. Send four things:
Your reel.
One complete film you led, start to finish, not a cut-down.
A CV, or a LinkedIn link. Either is fine.
