ASC Welcomes Ben Joiner as a New Member
The British cinematographer’s credits include the popular BBC automotive series Top Gear and Amazon original series The Grand Tour.
The British cinematographer’s credits include the popular BBC automotive series Top Gear and Amazon original series The Grand Tour.
Born and raised in Britain, Ben Joiner, ASC first studied film at Coventry University’s School of Art and Design. He continued his studies in film production at Vancouver Film School in Canada, where he graduated with a post-graduate diploma in cinematography.
Early in his career, Joiner worked in London’s music promo industry, shooting primarily on Super 16mm film. In 2002, he brought what he calls a “no rules approach” that he cultivated on these early shoots to his latest project: the BBC series Top Gear. Joiner served as a principle director of photography on the wildly popular series for 13 years and over 130 episodes. For his work on the series, the cinematographer was nominated for a BAFTA Craft Award in 2013.
In 2016, when Top Gear hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May moved to Amazon Studios for their new series, The Grand Tour, Joiner followed. He has photographed all four seasons of the Amazon original.
The experience of photographing Top Gear and The Grand Tour helped to cement Joiner as an expert in automotive photography, which earned him a position as a camera operator for the race sequences in the motor sports feature Rush, photographed by Anthony Dod Mantle, ASC, BSC, DFF.
Joiner has also photographed numerous automotive commercials for clients including Ferrari, Aston Martin, Land Rover, Mercedes, Lexus, Cadillac, Nissan, Polaris and more.
Much of the cinematographer’s work, he says, involves leading large-scale, multi-camera crews in tough environments and remote locations. He has traveled across six continents shooting documentary projects for such networks as Discovery, Nat Geo, Amazon Studios and the BBC, including 14 long-format specials of Top Gear and The Grand Tour, which brought him to locations including the magnetic north pole and Madagascar.
Joiner’s documentary work includes episodes of the BBC series Horizon, the television feature PQ17: An Arctic Convoy Disaster and co-cinematography work on the feature First: The Official Film of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The cinematographer’s fiction credits include Thunder Road, Safe House and Behind Closed Doors.
