ACTION FILMMAKING
Having built a career as a top action photographer David Spurdens changed tack andmoved sideways into filmmaking. It meant refocusing his entire approach and learning freshmotion capture skills ACTION STATIONS ACTION HERO
WORDS & PICTURES DAVID SPURDENS
T he vast majority of my professional life has been spent capturing sports and action, but over the 38 years I’ve been involved I’ve had to reinvent myself a few times. I started out working as a stills photographer on a football magazine and workedmy way up to national newspapers via a sports agency, shooting editorial images of top-flight events for publication and picking up a couple of international awards along the way. I’ve always loved the challenge that action provides. If you’ve done well then you can take pride in your achievements, but if your imagery isn’t up to scratch then you’ll know it and so will your client, and your relationship will sour quicker than a bottle of milk left in the sun. I like this state of being, the pressure of having to perform and produce when it matters, and even if clients now expect more for less it’s still an
edgy, fun and very fulfilling business to be in. It’s important in any career to knowwhen the time is right tomove on and, for me, this ultimately meant leaving editorial work behind and looking for commercial clients as well as shooting stock, while over the past ten years I’ve slowly but surely been building upmy filmmaking skills. Now the moving image accounts for around 90%of my working life, and I’ve been able to make this journey thanks to the tools that have become available and the advances in such things as bandwidth, which has made it possible to transfer gigabytes globally inminutes or even seconds. It’s meant that I can work and communicate withmy clients from anywhere in the world, and produce my footage using a small and lean team and without having to take the kitchen sink on location withme.
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WINTER 2018 PRO MOVIEMAKER
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