Rob Hardy is in demand. Having first
attracted widespread attention for his
superb cinematography on Channel 4’s
acclaimed drama Boy A (2007), he has gone
on to establish himself as one of the UK’s
most accomplished cinematographers with
feature films including Shadow Dancer,
Broken and The Invisible Woman (all 2012).
He has recently finished work on Alex
Garland’s sci-fi feature Ex Machina and
BBC Films’ Testament of Youth, two polar
opposite projects that will further cement his
director of photography credentials.
Hardy trained at Sheffield Film School before
learning his trade on video installations,
music videos and commercials. The
breakthrough for him was Boy A, a gripping
drama in which Andrew Garfield portrays a
prisoner who is released back into society
under a new identity having been convicted
of murdering a girl when he was a young
boy. Initially, says Hardy, he turned down
the opportunity to work on the project: “I
had this silly notion at the time that I wasn’t
going to work on TV because I’d set my
heart on film. But then I met the director
John Crowley and read the script. I was
blown away by it because it was much more
cinematic than I expected.”
Willingness to experiment
Hardy’s work on Boy A earned him a
BAFTA, something he attributes in part to
the freedom he and Crowley were given to
experiment by producer Lynn Horsford. He
then worked on Red Riding 1974, another
TV drama that gave him the opportunity to
further develop his distinctive style. “Red
Riding’s director Julian Jarrold wanted to do
something completely different to the way
he’d done things before, so I encouraged
him to think outside the box visually. I think
what we did on that project was a game-
changer for TV drama. Both productions
[Boy A and Red Riding] taught me it is good
to get out of your comfort zone. Sometimes
there is a temptation to play it safe rather
than follow through on the ideas you had in
the early stages of preparation. But if you
have the commitment and conviction to
pursue your ideas then it often creates the
right result.”
This willingness to experiment has helped
define Hardy’s intense emotional style.
However he stresses that experimentation
needs to be accompanied by a willingness
to “test, test, test”. He also argues that
visual innovations are only of value if they
address the intentions of the script or scene.
“I have my own personal set of rules about
how I begin a project. But my foundation is
always what’s happening in the script. When
I finish reading a script that I love, I always
start by trying to work out how I can capture
the feelings I had when reading it. How
that manifests itself in terms of camera and
lighting choices will vary but it will always be
rooted in the script.”
His body of work to date has been wide-
ranging,. In Shadow Dancer he was praised
by The Hollywood Reporter for giving
the film “a sombre look, using low light,
unsettling angles and washed-out colour”.
In The Invisible Woman directed by and
starring Ralph Fiennes, Variety said he
had gone to “great lengths to let the movie
breathe visually, often shooting with a
lucidly handheld camera and lighting that
impeccably captures the oil-lamp interiors of
the period.”
So, given the diversity of the work, does
he see a distinctive Rob Hardy look to his
films? “Each story is different and needs to
be treated as such,” he says, “but if there
is a theme that comes up it’s that I try to
bring a sense of proximity to my work. I put
the audience in the room with the actors as
much as possible.”
This creates an emotional richness that is
evident in everything Hardy does. One of his
personal favourites was The Forgiveness of
Blood, a 2012 film that was shot in Albania
There are lots of new and exciting tools to help you
realise things but it’s still fundamentally
about the script
By aNDY fRY
Rob Hardy B.S.C.:
“It’s good to get out of
your comfort zone”
to what you want to do and it will get you
noticed. I see a lot of projects that are very
safe, even among young people trying to get
into the industry. But I went to see Jonathan
Glazer’s Under The Skin recently and came
out feeling refreshed and liberated. I was so
happy that film existed.”
In a sense, the kind of creative bravery
that Hardy advocates is still an issue for
him as he commences on the next leg of
his career. Having been promoted to the
cinematographer’s Premier League, he
admits things become more challenging: “As
you move up, there are issues of politics that
you don’t get so much as you’re coming up.
Everyone has an opinion and the voices are
much more powerful. The challenge then is
to keep the production on track, so that you
stay true to the story that everyone fell in
love with when they first read the script.”
and focused on the issue of feuding families.
“That was really interesting for me,” he
recalls, “because it was filmed in Albanian.
So one of the core elements that I would
usually rely on, the actors’ language, was
taken away from me. Fortunately, I used
to shoot a lot of dance films when I was
younger so I was able to take a different kind
of visual approach to that production.”
The same pursuit of emotional engagement
will be evident in the upcoming sci-fi feature
Ex Machina. “It’s an artificial intelligence
story on the face of it,” says Hardy, “but
beyond that it is a love story. It’s not a
big green screen production – it’s all in a
purpose-built set in Pinewood or on location
in Norway (which doubles as Alaska). So we
were able to get beyond the sci-fi element
quite quickly and use an approach which
gave us the emotional proximity we wanted.”
In terms of technical approach, Ex Machina
was the second time Hardy has shot
digitally, the rest of his projects being film.
Generally, he still favours the richness of
film “but digital can lend a distinctive visual
feel to a story. The truth is that the decision
about whether to use film, digital cameras or
mobile phones should always be a project-
based decision.”
Right tools for the job
As for staying on top of technical
developments, he admits it can be a full
time job: “There are
new cameras being
launched virtually
every week. The
thing I always try
to keep in mind is
that these are tools.
There are lots of
new and exciting
tools to help you
realise things in
a different way
and at different
budgets but it’s still
fundamentally about the script.”
Although Hardy has firmly established
himself in the front-rank of film
cinematographers, he still enjoys shooting
commercials: “I did seven years of
commercials before I got into film. I learned
a lot about people politics and played with a
lot of toys. So I still enjoy finishing a film then
doing some commercials. In fact, I’m off to
shoot one in Prague in a couple of weeks
time.”
Stay truthful
In terms of advice to budding
cinematographers, he makes two key points.
Firstly, “Start shooting as quickly as you can
and do as much as you can because that’s
how you learn. Secondly, don’t just do stuff
to get noticed, shoot things that are truthful
On the set of Testament of Youth
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Cameras and Camera equipment
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