DEFINITION September 2018

SHOOT STORY | YARD I E

YARD LIFE We talked to Yardie DOP John Conroy about knowledge, networking and never looking back, proving the best work comes out of both who you know and what you know

D OP John Conroy has been in the business for the best part of three decades; in his words he’s “a bit of a dinosaur”. The son of My Left Foot cinematographer Jack Conroy, you could be forgiven for thinking that Conroy’s road to the hot seat was paved for him. While he admits that his father’s career sparked an interest in film from a young age, his filmography shows that he’s put in the

WORDS ZENA OLI AN I / PICTURES STUDIOCANAL S . A . S

FOCUS ON OPERATING It wasn’t until Conroy was working as lead focus puller on The Da Vinci Code in 2006 that he entertained the idea of being an operator, thinking “actually I could do this job”. Fast forward three years and John’s working on Sweeney Todd , the film that would be his last credit as a focus puller. “I burnt my equipment so that I would never go back,” he says. “Then I spent three years in the wilderness wishing I hadn’t burnt it.” Giles at the BBC saw, and she offered me a block on Silent Witness … 20 episodes later and I’d done my film school in lighting.” An award- winning show like Silent Witness opened up other doors and led to Conroy shooting episodes on the likes of Mr Selfridge , Fortitude and Broadchurch, but it was meeting Idris Elba through a stint on Luther that would lead to his recent role as DOP of Elba’s directorial debut Yardie . Elba approached Conroy about the Fortunately, it wasn’t long before a film that he shot in Ireland gave him his lucky break. “It was a small film that Philippa

miles: “I was [my father’s] assistant by the time I was 12, I was loading magazines and doing the clapper board, following him around, carrying boxes – all

DID YOU KNOW? Much of John Conroy’s training was as a focus puller

that stuff… I was a clapper boy and a focus puller on about 70 jobs [before] I started lighting about ten years ago.”

Despite his father’s influence, being a cinematographer wasn’t an ambition of Conroy’s, he says, “I never considered being a cinematographer, I just wanted to be a clapper boy. But then when I was a clapper boy I thought, gee maybe I could be a focus puller and then an operator. I never really had a great plan, I just wanted to be the best clapper holder that I could be and then the best focus puller and so on and it kind of crept up on me.”

project when they were working together on Luther back in 2013 as he already had the rights to the book at this stage. That said, the story itself was less of a hook for Conroy than the collaborator. “He’s such a brilliant actor, a great guy – it’s very rare that you I never considered being a cinematographer, I just wanted to be a clapper boy

RIGHT Aml Ameen in the role of Dennis Campbell, the main character in Yardie.

62 DEF I N I T ION | SEPTEMBER 20 1 8

Powered by