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Ben Millar

@ben.milla

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Gaffer ⚡️ 💡 UK🇬🇧, France 🇫🇷/🇪🇺

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“Small Prophets” (2026), Dir: Mackenzie Crook, DOP: Nick Brown

My first proper TV series, albeit on an almost similar scale to an indie film. Shot in Manchester in the summer of 2025, it was an easy decision to take, as the scripts were so well written and the subject matter — The Magical Life of Shed Boys — was too fun not to be part of.

A true TV schedule came as a shock, even to someone used to working fast (I thought!). Days of 7, 9, or 11 pages to shoot were deemed “normal,” and trying to keep some level of quality control was always going to be the challenge. DP Nick Brown understood this, and our set-ups, unless really necessary, were small, fast, and simple. Judging by the end result, Nick did a great job, and I think we survived!

One challenge was shooting the shed interiors before the garden exteriors, with no idea what the light might be like on the exterior days. We opted for a fairly general soft look with little variation and avoided big, hard sun. This was a slight casualty, but hanging on to “realism” and continuity is a double-edged sword. Images don’t want to jar, but they don’t need to be totally believable either.

The ever-mercurial Manchester weather kept us on our toes — and me on the edge of sanity. Hours of sun-watching: rogue clouds, imminent thunderstorms, summer sunlight, downpours — all in a short amount of time — meant that simpler exteriors were never that.

Graced with another excellent team — Mike Bonnar, Bruce Melhuish, Chris Barber, and of course Mark Leeming — spirits remained high until the bitter end. Experienced Manchester dailies crew would occasionally join us and show us how it was done. And if the tiny van was rammed to the roof, there was always room in… Mike’s van.

P.S. included are BTS of the shed studio set-up, I can't help wondering if instead of all the big lamps 1 Kino and a 4x4 frame would have done the trick... I don't think so but who knows.
And daily image of me lying on the floor in the gutter next to smelly bins, a pig in muck.

Lighting supplied by the ever wonderful @panaluxworld by @ben.milla

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8 months ago

“For Fox’s Sake” (2023), Dir: Minha Kim, DoP: Sverre Sørdal FNF @sfsordal

My favourite project of 2023: a short film shot on 35mm, largely at night. Original, funny, unsettling, and both cute and demented. Sverre’s references were a welcome surprise — 1970s Aussie horror Wake in Fright sat at the top of his list, full of aggressive hard lighting, strong nose shadows, and a rough edge that felt improvised and unpolished. Years of soft lighting and flattery had to be forgotten, and a plunge taken into 1970s 35mm colour.

The end result feels like a complex and pessimistic picture of two sides of the same coin: honest and caring characters who, through obsession and radical views on a single point, become sworn enemies. Director Minha also managed to capture some of that mysterious undercurrent of English homoerotic energy that, from time to time, bubbles up into everyday existence on The Island. Very 1970s…

Despite the splits, pulling cable while watching the sun come up, everything went smoothly — even the larger night exteriors and the barn scene, achieved with a small team and a lot of big lamps (thanks, Bruce and Vojta!). Most of the interiors were lit with a few practicals, 650s (no diffusion!), and show card. The larger exteriors and barn were lit with tungsten 10Ks, 5Ks, PAR cans, and Source Fours, generously (as ever) supplied by Panalux. @panaluxworld

Filming in the Sussex countryside in summer, pub locations, late starts, puppet foxes, 35mm, tungsten, and a lovely team… what’s not to enjoy ;) by @ben.milla

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8 months ago

"All Of You" (2025), Dir. William Bridges, DP Benoît Soler @benoitsoler

More of a romance than a comedy, with a well-written script and developed characters, the film offers a slightly dark take on modern life and love. DP Benoît was discerning with regard to lighting, and for five weeks I tried—sometimes successfully—to keep up with him. The film was a good exercise in using soft light, no backlight, and embracing subtlety—a choice that kept the images realistic, centred on the characters, and free from overdone visuals. Overall, the narrative concepts in the movie worked well, though perhaps the set-piece scenes pushed the focus away from the imagery. The ever-present dilemma between "Say it" or "Show it."

Shot over a rapid five weeks—25 days with 27 different locations—and with no pre-light or de-rig crew, the schedule meant long, extended days and vans being fully emptied and reloaded within 12 hours. As usual, with the edit and pick-ups, many brutal days got cut from the final film—but hey, that’s how it goes! My romantic promenade in Worthing with oyster-fuelled and emotional Best Boy Bruce hit the cutting-room floor, despite a fellow nod of thespian approval from Imogen Poots. @imogen.poots.official

I almost enjoyed the chaotic club scene, which again was rigged and de-rigged in just one day. Seasoned BoardOp Alan took one look at the existing disco lights during the recce and said, “Get rid of all of that and let me handle it.” I could only agree. Being on the road every day was fun but tiring, and finally getting one or two days in the cottage by the Seven Sisters felt like a holiday. The team gave it their full effort and energy on what was one of the first jobs after the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike, so big thanks to Bruce, Joey, and Oli for sticking with it—and thanks to Antti, Holly, Peter, Vojta, and Kevin!

Moral of the Story: be careful of who you fall in love with. by @ben.milla

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a year ago

'Witches' 2024, Dir. Elizabeth Sankey @sankles , DP. Chloë Thomson BSC, Prod. Manon Ardisson @manonardisson and Chiara Ventura @coldasicecream

Witches is a film essay which discusses and explores postpartum mental health by drawing parallels to the idea of witches, and the social perceptions and ideals of motherhood. It is a great watch, won the BIFA for best documentary, and was a pleasure to be part of. We filmed a lot of interesting interviews, some sadly did not make the cut (maybe in the future they will release a 3.5H version?). It's on Mubi so go watch it!

I've included a screengrab from Mubi, it is in good company next to La Jetée and Paris, Texas.

The majority of what we shot was on a studio set: a room that was redressed three times from a teenage witches room to a witches cottage and to an abandoned hospital room. DP Chloë went for a classic tungsten approach which required a lot of power and cabling. Soon the frozen warehouse became a sauna, much to everyones delight. Using two 10K molebeams to highlight areas of the set and three T12s as a big bounce for the window key proved the enduring setup, with some smaller lamps and bounces on the floor. A fun set-up to install and one that certainly did the trick.

The VR wall was interesting to work on and a lot cleaner than the usual green screen nonsense, with some interesting adaptability which suited our specific look of somewhere between reality and fiction.

Thanks to the team of Atika @atikah___zzz , Sanaa, Laura and Pete for running several km of 63a cable.

And thanks to Panalux for supplying the equipment! @panaluxworld by @ben.milla

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2 years ago

'Sky Peals' 2023, Dir. Moin Hussain @moinwjh DP. Nick Cooke @nickcookecine

My first, but hopefully not last, feature on 35mm. The second collaboration with DP Nick on an original and mysterious script. Shot around Leeds and Wakefield over five weeks in February 2022 the locations and look of the film needed to be 'other-worldly'. Nick's first visual cue was something 'made behind the Iron Curtain fifty years ago'. His references were stills: harshly lit, deep shadows, nothing clean. The 35mm film and lenses smoothed out the lighting, and what looked harsh to the eye often in the rushes was forgiving. Hopefully these stills show the grain and colour which digital rarely, if ever, seems to fake.

Shooting splits/nights in February was tough going, especially the Service Station exterior week which proved to be a monster. Its screen time is probably 1% of the film, but 70% of the lighting budget and prep time and my grey hairs. Never question the Film Gods.

In one scene our hero enters a large car park as headlights flicker wildly, finally synchronising. Add a 360 degrees steadycam shot, no local power, a tight schedule, and rain. Also, don't forget all at 500ISO F2.8, which if you have spent years shooting 1280/1600 F1.4 is quite a jump.
So 50x 12v headlight looms were painstakingly wired up, connected to a few kilometers of socaplex to be programmed. A bank of 6x 10ks backlit the Service Station (one night was perfect with the humidity/mist, the other night almost nothing happened in the clear air), street lamps were added to, architectural lights installed, ect.. During the take I paced about waiting for a bulb to blow, a generator to burst into flames, a desk op to collapse, disaster to strike, but oddly nothing happened.

Big thanks to the team who by the end of it, like me, were hobbling along half-asleep having given it their all: @oliver__craig @giftofthegaffer @joshua.willalexander and brucemelhuish & the dailies who came, pulled cables, wired lights, put up with me – Mark, James, Tom, Mike, Bobby, Dianne, Joel.
And lights from @panaluxworld

Overall it looks great! Nick took big risks which paid off and the team's effot is there on the screen. by @ben.milla

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2 years ago

'Hamlet' (2024) Dir. Sean Mathias, DOP. Neil Oseman. Once-in-a-lifetime project: Ian McKellen reviving Hamlet. DP Neil went for a 1970s look, retaining the theatricality of the play but keeping the images fast and cinematic, and so the two-hour film feels like a tight psychological thriller rather than an unending GCSE exam. Our challenge was doing the veteran actors justice with set-up times, lighting tweaks and set etiquette.

Sadly, I'm allergic to Theatre and Theatre Lighting. I watched the play after the shoot and felt bemused. But the film was easy to enjoy. Shakespeare can be intimidating on the page but on the screen the ramblings of Polonius were understandable and jumped to life. Maybe I'm uncultured but I still prefer Withnail's Hamlet to Shakespeare’s.

Black Box syndrome kicked in. Thirty days in the dark. Levels of madness peaked. The team were infected by the giggles.

On an unrelated note, Prince Philip died 50 meters away in Windsor Castle during the shoot. The next morning before dragging the lights onto the Theatre roof that overlooked the Castle I had a word with police snipers not to shoot any Sparks, we only had two and no budget for more. Prince Philip was also Prince of Denmark (like Hamlet) and his death was regarded as 'Auspicious' by actor Steven Berkoff. A word I had read before but never heard anyone say... He was not wrong.

Steven Berkoff was a reliable source of daily entertainment as long as you weren't in his War Path. He made a habit of creating pandemonium on set. Once he tried to argue with DP Neil that a scene should not be shot conventionally but should start with an extreme close-up of his face. He also refused to take any of the long staircases so instead was transported on a wooden throne via the goods lift. At 4 pm he would loudly proclaim in the middle of a take – ''Is it a wrap yet?''. Meanwhile, Ian McKellen napped in a quiet corner of the set, ate his cheese and chutney sandwiches for lunch, got confused by delivery drivers, made cheeky jokes, and gave heartfelt compliments.

Thanks to Connor and Bruce for sticking it through and doing the 7 flights of stairs when I forgot something.

It was fun. by @ben.milla

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2 years ago

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4 years ago

'This Far Up' (2016) was a Short Film directed by Ewan Jones-Morris and shot by Nick Booth @nicabooth. It won the Welsh Bafta for Best Short Film. We only shot for 2 days in a very remote house on a reservoir with a tiny crew.

The location, weather, set and costumes did a lot of the work. I'm sure that was all part of Nick's plan, and I remember we worked quickly mostly with natural light. The lighting team was just me and one or two lights. A polyboard was briefly used as an umbrella for cast when the Welsh skies opened.

As opposed to the previous job I posted 'American Presidency' where everything had to be designed and created from scratch (at quite a cost!), here everything was in front of us and the trick was not doing any damage to it. I'd always rather the budget was put into a great set and location rather than the lighting budget. Alright, maybe both if you are offering ;) Sailing with the wind is much easier than sailing against it!

Because the shoot was so brief I'd almost forgotten all about it, but now looking at the images I think it looks great. by @ben.milla

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4 years ago

The American Presidency With Bill Clinton (2022) was a one-of-a-kind project. With over 30 different scenes, all set in different eras,in different locations. There were Presidential Addresses, Nuclear Tests, Fishing Trips, Riots, Military Briefings, Chess Games, Boxing Matches. The style of the project was both narrative, abstract and silent. Although the scenes were for a documentary they were not to feel like re-enactments but imagined tableaus from American history. Still following? I was struggling too...

The first long-form project with DP Joe Cook @joecookdop proved more a challenge of imagination than anything else. We were given a black box space (Theatre Royal Norwich), a great Production Designer Paul Burns and told to get on with it. The starting point for everything was one or two props and a character. Paul Burns did a rough but very expressive sketch or painting depicting each imagined scene and we worked from that. It was great to have no rules but also one hell of a challenge. You might simply get the sentence 'Kennedy and Khruschev play chess' and a drawing and then everything else was up to us. No windows, no set walls, barely any practical lights. Fortunately Joe knows the most striking images are often the most simple, and one or two lights, some color and good framing works wonders.

That said, just to be adaptable we built a large 30'x20' softbox filled with SkyPanels (with individually adjustable skirting) above the stage that allowed us constant control. We'd bring in a few practicals for highlights and motivation, and didn't shy away from using a few unmotivated beams of a Source4 to add some shape. At the end of the job the challenge was not to repeat ourselves, and not being on a unique location certainly made our thinking harder. Solving problems is one thing, creating something from nothing another.

In the end I think it looked great, especially the days I wasn't there and Connor Adam @tallguyconnor and Bruce Melhuish @brucemelhuish took over. Given that, and its historical subject, it might even be worth a watch. The series stopped with Kennedy however... Rather telling ;) by @ben.milla

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4 years ago

'Pops' (2021) was a Short Film directed by Lewis Rose @pickledlewis and shot by Sverre Sørdal @sfsordal . It is difficult to summarise the great script and do it justice, but I loved working on the project, the rare thing: a genuinely good Short Film. Day one had that exciting energy of working on something with potential, and the performances confirmed this. It was a nice reminder (sometimes we need them!) of why you like your job...

At the screening the film felt more like a family drama with a sense of humour, rather than a comedy with some drama thrown in. All the better for it. The contrasting images of traditional suburban Hendon and hallucinations of astronauts and outer-space was a surreal touch, that sounds absurd but worked well. At twenty minutes the credits rolled but I could have watched another hour or two.

A small team and a simple list of kit was enough. Other than a few Day-for-Night tricks with Ultrabounces everything was kept simple... apart from the hallucination scene, which had me flailing my grubby paws in front of several lights right next to the actors face. Sverre was great to collaborate with, open to new ideas but also knowing clearly what he wanted to achieve. I think he also subscribes to the mantra 'less is more'. After the screening, he mentioned the few bits that we could have done better, which is a nice touch of constructive Scandi realism while everyone else is patting each other's backs.

The final shot of the movie (in which I was no way involved) was taken with a Go-Pro actually sent into Earth's atmosphere as box of ashes bursts. Mad.

My favorite memory was dropping off James @jehawk_ the Spark at Hendon's Jewish cemetery at about 5:30 in morning alone in the darkness and cold. It was necessary and odd. I imagined him walking around the grounds during the early hours, in the pitch black, perhaps bumping into another lost member of the team, or an unknown grieving relative, or insomniac doggers from Barnet. Who knows. He certainly didn't admit to any of it. But then again neither would I. by @ben.milla

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4 years ago

Boxing Day 2021 - Directed by Aml Ameen and shot by Dave Pimm @davepimm was Christmas Rom-Com set in North West London about a Black British family and the dramatic return of the prodigal son.

Rom-Coms may seem straight forward but they never are! I have to admit when it comes to lighting I always struggle with the mood, too much light looks like television, and not enough looks like a gritty thriller. The perfect middle ground is hard to find. DP Dave Pimm and I had worked on Simon Amstell's Benjamin together and Dave managed to get that balance just right there so we were in good hands. Originally the film had been prepped by an old school DP and I got sucked into trying to make everything bigger and more complex than it needed to be. He demanded 'Lights Everywhere! But all on 1%!' Anyway, it was a learning lesson for sure!

The first two weeks were a series of long disasters for myself and the department, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Sometimes a job goes by without a blip, this was the opposite. Miscommunications meant trucks full of lights went missing on day 1, I said we could shoot a scene Day for Night when we couldn't, I was goaded into taping lights onto the hotel's expensive wallpaper (BTW it doesn't work), we suffered a technical meltdown which caused our Desk Op to have a nervous breakdown, a cherry picker we ordered barely fit and managed to destroy one van and some paving. That was just Week 1. With all this going on, focusing on the lighting was the real challenge. But we survived. The team was excellent and their hard work kept the boat afloat. Thanks to core/hardcore team Connor Adam, Bruce Melhuish, Peter Kehoe and one and only Oliver Craig! Also shout out to all the beautiful dailies who came and gave their sweat and tears.

Most of the stills here are from the scene at Brent Cross Shopping Centre/Flyover with Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Stephen Dillain which is probably the most romantic scene ever shot on the A406. Otherwise it was the interior close-ups, often at night, that I think really came out best. by @ben.milla

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5 years ago

London Grammar (2021) Dir: @davebullivant DP: @joecookdop

There's no substitute for real fire. Set, Props, Flame Bars, Petrol, Eyebrows, Your Mum's Scented Candles, whatever, all of it looks pretty good when it's alight.

The burn time of the cabin was guessed to be around 20mins, and since we were in a field in the middle of nowhere, it was our only light source. I had ordered a fair number of lights as a back-up that we (including myself) had hauled across the mud if we needed to shoot more fire, or close-ups, but fortunately the real deal did the trick. I could have saved the team and production the hassle and come with an LED panel and a box of matches but you don't want to get caught out ;)

Anyway, it was mainly available light, flame bars, and negative. And of course good timing and angle choices from the big boys. It's a pleasure to work with DP Joe as he's got a great instinct for making images look good. If the image requires everything off the truck then so be it, if it means not touching anything and letting it be then fine, but the end goal is always the same.

Mud Muckers - @brucemelhuish @peterfkehoe @jehawk_

Fitting to end 2021 - a bonfire by @ben.milla

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5 years ago