War-zones, Rainforests and Restaurants: the Career of a Cumbrian Cameraman
This article was written by one of our Young Reporters, a scheme that gives 14 to 18-year-old school students a chance to write for a real newspaper. Find out more at the Young Reporter website.
This week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Cumbrian resident Jonathan Chappell, a professional freelance-cameraman and lecturer at the University of Cumbria, who has worked in the Television industry for 39 years.
As he approaches his 40th year in the industry, Chappell has become an expert in his field, talking me through the story of his career.
Chappell started his Career in Manchester, upon the completion of his A-levels, from which he progressed onto a 3 year technical apprenticeship scheme with the BBC as a camera operator:
“I was looking for jobs and I wrote to the BBC […] asking for a look around the studios in Manchester.”
Ambitious against the odds, Chappell said he was advised that his chances of getting a job as a camera operator were little to none : “it was a closed shop” he had been told.
He was undeterred.
“I got an invitation [to look around] and had a great day there.”
He was later handed an application form for the apprenticeship scheme, and after two interviews, the then 18 year old had secured his place as an apprentice camera operator.
This would form the foundations of a memorable career.
After an enjoyable, yet “slow start” of mostly studio based work, in which he worked on the sets of shows such as ‘Red Dwarf’, and ‘Stars in Their Eyes’, Chappell’s career would soon pick up the pace: from the comfort of studios to perilous war-zones.
“What I really wanted to do was location camerawork.”
After his decision to become freelance, this dream would soon become reality.
“I seemed to develop a bit of a niche for going to hostile environments.”
This would see him undergo a series of intense training exercises:
“Helicopter dunker training, army off-road driving, battlefield first-aid, hostile environments training.”
His “niche” would soon take him across the globe, experiencing war first hand in locations such as Chechnya and, in what he states to be his most memorable trip, Afghanistan.
Working for ITV and Channel 5, Chappell’s Afghanistan experience was little short of extraordinary.
He spent 3 months filming in and around Kandahar Air Base, and the formerly British base ‘Camp Bastian’.
“Just walking was a challenge” Chappell states, describing the dangers posed by the risk of minefields in combination with the extreme dust levels of the Afghan war-zone.
In later years, he would continue to face extreme environments, filming in remote jungle locations in Borneo, the Solomon Islands, Madagascar and perhaps most memorably for Chappell, filming ‘Extreme Fishing with Robson Green’ in the Amazon Rainforest.
“It was very hot, forty degrees Celsius, very humid.”
A tribe took us [up river] in canoes”, he recollected. These canoes would carry what Chappell estimated to be two-hundred kilos of filming gear.
In a different aspect of his career, Chappell has also worked on the cosier side of television, filming travel programmes such as ‘Cruising with Jane McDonald’ and ‘Holidaying with Jane McDonald’.
“I’ve been to something like twenty countries with Jane”, he estimates,
“Each place for a week, like Cape Verde, Mexico, the Seychelles, Japan, America. All around the globe.”
Chappell certainly enjoyed his experience “It was a real pleasure to be there, Jane’s lovely […] we went to a different restaurant every night.”
After a flourishing 39 years, Chappell’s success continues , adapting to the ever-changing industry, balancing his camera work with his new job as university lecturer, running his own holiday lets, and spending time with his family at home.
