Cinematographer Chris Fergusson on Bad Education Reunion & Season 4

Bad Education S4 BTS photos by Matt Crockett

Speaking to Chris Fergusson, it doesn’t take long to discover why he does what he does. The director of photography has developed on his lifelong fascination with cinema, turning an obsession into his profession. Where does the passion come from? “Faces”, he tells me on an afternoon video call. “It’s always the faces that tell the story”, and he sees it as his job to interpret them in the most effective way for each project.

Unlike many image-makers, he actively tries not to have a style, instead choosing to approach each shoot with fresh eyes. This was true one of his latest jobs, the new season and reunion special of Bad Education, in which he entrusted Pixipixel for camera hire. Thanks to the show’s distinctive quick-fire script, there were indeed many faces in each shot, with sometimes up to ten speaking characters in a single scene. But Chris more than pulled it off, successfully modernising the look of the show, which first debuted a decade ago. We sat down with him to discuss the shoot, how he got into the industry and what tips he can offer budding cinematographers.

How did you break into the industry?

I took a fairly normal path. After university I did a year running at a production company, then moved on and started working in the camera departments as a trainee freelance. I loved it and spent the next four or five years just working my way up the camera department while shooting a lot on the side. I did small music videos and short films and things like that. And then around 2014, I did a couple of low budget feature films, which were my big starting point. After that, I took the plunge to stop assisting and shoot full time.

What is it about storytelling that has always appealed to you?

I've always been obsessed with cinema. From the age of 14, 15, I just loved films and it’s always been something I pushed towards. What I like about my job is finding the right visuals to tell the story. It's such a great challenge to try and give the words of the script a world to live in.

There's nothing more fun than filming a nice close up of somebody that tells the story well and has some drama to it. You're telling a story with a face and that's essentially what the best drama or the best comedy is, no matter how big they are. It's always the faces that tell the story.

How would you describe your style?

It’s probably about trying not to have one. I think if you're too set in a style, then you're maybe bringing preconceptions of what you like, and personally I don't think that's your job as the director of photography. The only way you can really serve the story right is if you're coming to every project with totally fresh eyes. And I think that's why, for better or worse, I've got quite a range of work.

How did you approach your work on Bad Education?

It had obviously been 10 years since the original series came out. So it was about trying to get a gauge of how far we could escape that original work. Quite quickly, we established with Freddy, the director, that we could basically restart the look. We were pleased that we could just start afresh in terms of how we approached it visually.

There were some things we wanted to keep to make it feel like the same show, particularly with the handheld style but certainly we tried to bring more colour to it and more vibrancy and just modernise it. Visually, what we're used to seeing changes so much in ten years.

What did you shoot with and what was your lighting approach?

We shot on Alexa Mini - we had two Alexa Minis on the set, with Master Prime lenses for both our A and B cameras. The premise of the show is this slightly heightened reality. But we wanted to try and bring some reality to the lighting, so we always went for a bright and sunny setting, while finding as much colour as we could. My gaffer and I always tried to have at least three colours playing in each location, no matter how big or small the room was, which we managed quite well.

How was it working with Pixipixel and did we achieve everything you were after?

I can say quite genuinely - Pixipixel was brilliant. We were in a South London location, which was a weird black spot for reception, and it seemed to play havoc with any wireless video. But Pixipixel’s team came down to set on those first couple of days when we were troubleshooting and really helped us get around those problems.

Actually one of the best things they did was give me the camera during prep for a day. We were prepping on location, so I was able to shoot a lot of tests with the gaffer and with our cast. I was able to go across all our main locations within the school and take the actors and shoot lighting tests with them. So yeah, Pixipixel went above and beyond with how much it helped us across the whole series.

Bad Education S4 Camera Tests & Final Footage | Credit: DOP Chris Fergusson

Speaking more generally, what's the best thing about your job?

I think it's that you’re never in the same kind of environment twice. And you're generally always working with friends on your camera and lighting team, while being surrounded by lots of talented people in all other departments. Seeing these organisms of film sets just appear and live together on a shoot, and then go off on separate ways again, it's a really nice, really wonderful thing. The variation that comes with every job is a very lucky way to make a living.

What advice would you give to young cinematographers looking to get started?

Just shoot, even if it's little projects on the side of camera assisting or working as a spark or gaffer. Just getting out there and shooting is the most important thing. I did a few years of very low budget, short films and music videos and just anything you can to learn what you're doing. And then pair that with as much time on other people's sets as possible. There's this kind of impatience if you want to be a cinematographer, to get there as quickly as possible. But as soon as you're doing it all the time, you're never on other people's sets again. And quite quickly, you're not able to go and watch people much more experienced than you doing their job. So the longer you can keep that going, the more people you can watch and learn. Because as soon as you're the DP, you can't go and steal people's ideas anymore!

Kristine Mladenova8 March 2023