Jono Smith

Jono Smith took an unusual path to becoming a cameraman; he began his career as a teenage actor, starring in the first Kiwi feature to be invited to the Cannes Film Festival.

At age 14, Smith had been picked by director Sam Pillsbury to act in The Scarecrow, based on the novel by Ronald Hugh Morrieson. Smith played Ned, the adventurous small towner who suspects the new arrival in town (played by American acting legend John Carradine) might be dangerous. The Scarecrow cast would later win an ensemble award for their acting at an Italian mystery film festival, Mystfest.

Smith was originally meant to narrate The Scarecrow as well. But when he entered the recording studio roughly five months after the shoot, his voice had "dropped three octaves". Martyn Sanderson took over the job, playing Ned as an older man, recalling events from his past.

Smith’s keenness to work in film was fuelled by his Scarecrow experience, and his high school film society. While still a teen, Smith used film stock — some borrowed from Sam Pillsbury — to dabble in short films. One helped win Smith a job as an assistant trainee at TVNZ in Avalon in 1985, in the days before Kiwi film schools.

His first task at Avalon was to bulk erase episodes of Coronation Street after they'd been broadcast. Smith trained for five years at Avalon as a film cameraman. He learnt from a cadre of "fine cameramen", including Wayne Vinten and Rocky Hudson.

Smith was an assistant cameraman on everything from documentaries (Country Calendar, Kaleidoscope) to drama (Pioneer Women, Marching Girls). The dramas were being shot on reversal film. He also witnessed the last days of news footage being shot on film in the mid 1980s — and hurried efforts to synchronise picture and sound, in time for each night’s broadcast.

In his down time, Smith was also working on other projects. At age 21 he shot his first 'official' short film: the Gillian Roberts-directed Scarlet Fever, a dark drama about a suspicious wife and a scarlet dress.

He also began shooting Hotel Hawkestone, a 13 minute time-lapse epic which chronicled the building of a hotel across the road from his Wellington flat. Made with good friend Sebastian Doyle, it was shot on a Bolex camera over three years. Although unseen on Kiwi television, Hawkestone won regular screenings on Channel Four in England. Smith later helped Doyle out on another epic shoot — Doyle's ambitious stop-motion short The Grocer’s Apprentice.

Seeking more chances to command the camera, Smith spent 1990 with TVNZ news, covering parliament and that year’s election. The following year he crossed over to TV3‘s more anarchic Nightline, where among other things he chronicled Belinda Todd’s adventures acting in classic zombie movie Braindead.

Before arriving at TV3, Smith had directed and produced 90 minute music documentary Rock the Quota. Smith helped set up a music festival, as part of a campaign to win a 15 percent quota for Kiwi music on local radio and TV. Put together by crews from both TV networks, it was cut overnight at TVNZ, and later screened on TV3, "a true bipartisan production by both broadcasters — even though management never knew it".

In 1992 Smith set off on his OE. His arrival in London was well-timed. Although the English screen industry was in recession, the newly-launched local arm of Carlton/London Weekend Television needed staff. Smith became a cameraman on daily show London News, then went freelance, shooting many stories for MTV.

In 1995 — now flatting in Brixton — Smith shot short film Paris, Brixton, the first of many collaborations with British director Jeremy Wooding. Later the two would work on the first season of BAFTA-winning cringe comedy Peep Show. Smith was a key player in establishing the show's distinctive look: it used first person perspective and unusual angles to reveal the thoughts of its central characters, two dysfunctional flatmates. While filming the pilot, Smith demonstrated to the show's creators that he could use small cameras to capture unusual angles, for example from inside a toaster. "It really changed how we made the show — so much so that once we had the style, we shot a second pilot and evolved things ready for the series." 

In the same period, Smith and Wooding collaborated on a movie, Romeo and Juliet-inspired romance Bollywood Queen. Starring James McAvoy (Atonement, X-Men) in his first lead role, it was invited to the Sundance Film Festival. Smith had already shot his first film (on Super 16mm) the previous year, little seen sci-fi tale Mad Dogs.

Smith’s CV of British television crosses the gamut, including Johnny Rotten in Africa, three seasons of Derren Brown - Trick of the Mind (another BAFTA winner), female ex-con drama Hope Springs, plus short film Donde Esta Dios (which won an award at British festival Rushes). Smith has also worked on music videos for Robbie Williams, and artworks for artist/director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave).

Smith has kept up his Kiwi contacts. He has often been called on when New Zealanders need to shoot in Europe, whether it be for a TV series about Kiwi expats in the UK, or the Cannes launch of Lord of the Rings. Smith co-directed (with fellow Kiwi Maree Quinn) Muttonbirds video ‘She’s Been Talking’, shot short film Night of the Hell Hampsters for Kiwi director Paul Campion, and helped out on docudrama The Forgotten General.

After time as a partner in successful Brixton-based camera company Shooters, Smith returned to freelancing in 2008. Since then, he has been in demand for both television and big screen projects. In 2010 Smith co-produced Sus, a "riveting" (Daily Mirror) interrogation drama, captured by Smith on a RED digital camera. The film is based on the Thatcher-era law — later abolished, after the Brixton race riots — which allowed police to search anyone they deemed suspicious. In 2014 he shot genre-bending horror Western Blood Moon. Then, heading to Pakistan, he shot 2016 feature Rahm, an Urdu adaptation of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.

After years of working with other directors, Smith brought his own feature film to the screen in 2017. Pylon follows two chalk and cheese ex-cons who set about taking on the state, by sabotaging England's national power grid. Over the course of four years, Smith took on multiple roles: he wrote, directed, produced and shot the film. The ambitious road movie took Smith from Brighton to Northern Scotland, as well as the banks of the Ganges in India. 

Smith has continued to work on features. In 2019, he shot supernatural-tinged road thriller Burning Men, the story of two musicians pursued across England by otherworldly forces. Later he worked on Picture Stories, a feature-length history of iconic 1940s photojournalism magazine Picture Post, and Netflix cycling documentary Mark Cavendish: Never Enough.

Smith has also remained active in television, shooting episodes across two seasons of supernatural drama Bedlam, which revolves around a haunted apartment building which was once an asylum. For reality show SAS: Who Dares Wins he captured military recruits undergoing training in the jungles of Ecuador. Other TV credits include US science series Outrageous Acts of Science, breaking down the science behind viral internet videos, and investigative show Mysteries of the Missing, which explores cold case disappearances.

Since 2019 Smith has supplemented his camera gigs with work in the lighting and electrical departments on features, including on Jim Broadbent goes walking movie The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (2023). In 2019 he joined longtime colleague Jason Clare to launch eco-friendly lighting company Reflectric, which specialises in using reflective panels to shoot films by bouncing light into the desired position. 

Profile updated on 7 June 2025

Sources include
Jono Smith
Jono Smith website. Accessed 7 June 2025
Pylon the Movie Facebook page. Accessed 7 June 2025
Reflectric website. Accessed 7 June 2025
Susthemovie website (broken link) Accessed 12 September 2011
‘Jono Smith’ - The Internet Movie Database website. Accessed 22 May 2025