Aron Randhawa films with imagination, precision and collaboration

The belief that people are left or right-brained has been more or less debunked, but meeting Aron Randhawa, our Senior Cinema Camera & Lens Specialist, would have you questioning it anyway. His short films and music videos are incredible examples of what happens when you know how to use technical expertise to break the rules – and make new ideas real.

Aron studied Film Production and Technology at university, winning ‘Best Young Talent’ at the 2016 New Renaissance Film Festival for his student film. But heading into the industry after graduation temporarily curtailed his personal projects. “I was immediately working on high-end film and TV,” he explains. “Margot Robbie's, Mary Queen of Scots, a few episodes of Black Mirror – very much on the technical side, providing on-set colour grading and dealing with data.”

This practical leaning eventually led him to Canon UK’s door, where he joined as a repair technician, specialising in cinema cameras. “Understanding the technology was very appealing and, a year on, I was travelling around our European Service Centres, training other technicians”. It became clear that Aron had a very specific set of skills – industry understanding, a strong creative streak and excellent technical proficiency – so it wasn’t long before he was snapped up by the Canon Europe marketing team. 

“For the last six years, I’ve been working on international launches of our cinema cameras and providing on-set technical consultation for film and TV productions that Canon is involved in.” It makes for impressive reading. Our collaborations with Red Bull, Danny Boyle’s TV series, PISTOL and, of course, working with the legendary Steve McQueen’s production company, Lammas Park. “I'm the person on the ground helping them work with the cameras and lenses,” he says, modestly.

In the rare position of being alongside titans of the industry while amassing a huge amount of knowledge, Aron knew exactly what Canon’s tools are capable of – and what he needed to do next: go back to his roots. “Even though filmmaking is a huge part of my life, I hadn't actually made any since university,” he says. “I’d jumped straight into advancing my technical knowledge and supporting filmmakers. So, 2024 became a significant creative year for me.” 

However, he didn’t choose a modern cinema camera for his first project, but one from the archives – a Canon Super 8 – and enlisted the help of Jack Adair, our European Broadcast & Cinema Marketing Lead, partially set in our European Head Office. “Jack Goes to Work was made for a competition called Straight 8, which is why it was filmed on a Super 8 camera,” Aron explains. “You shoot on film, but you can't edit it – you send it directly to the competition, and don’t even get to watch it unless it gets selected.” Sounds straightforward? “It was a gamble,” he says.

“You don't know whether the colours are okay or if the sound synced with the picture because you send the sound separately,” he explains. “I did lots of technical tests, but it was never guaranteed.” The film was just three minutes long, but every second was subject to Aron’s technical scrutiny and, boy, did it pay off. It made the top 25, so the first time he ever saw Jack Goes to Work was alongside an audience of 500 at London’s British Film Institute IMAX. “It was one of the best experiences of my life. I can't even tell you how amazing that felt.”

He has since worked with a number of up-and-coming artists on their music videos. “Even though I'm a filmmaker, my first love is music. Learning to make music videos helped me through my darkest time.”  He’s used his knowledge to come up with new kinds of creative executions and, in the process, attracting support from big names in the industry, like Director of Photography, Ian Murray. “He works on amazing videos and commercials, and we met through a Canon project. He said that he’d shoot a music video for me if I had one, so I jumped on that.”

Music is always the driving force behind Aron’s creativity, and one artist sparked an experimental idea that he hadn’t seen before – simply because it hadn’t previously been possible. “I reached out to Pozzy, a grime artist, after he did a freestyle on BBC Radio 1Xtra that blew up. I wanted to shoot a music video with just pictures, using a Canon camera – not video, not cinema – just photos”. The idea alone excited Ian Murray, who was immediately on board.

The 150,000 images it took to create the video were taken so smoothly, the pause between frames so short and consistent, that the music could be manually lip-synched because, of course, using still photos means you can’t capture sound. “We’ve all seen burst images – where many photos are captured in quick succession – but cameras have now reached the point where their speed is constant. Not as fast as shooting video, but constant, and a lot of people haven't really realised this yet”. Creatively, it was a challenge that paid off. “The result is subtle. It has hyper levels of sharpness, then a lot of motion blur – it’s an interesting mix.” 

Aron’s now at the stage where he is creating his own visual language, one that may become his trademark style, but he knows that this is an industry where everyone must pull together to grow. His technical know-how means that he can bring big ideas to the table – like mixing real and virtual environments or shooting differently – and it doesn’t just help to advance his career, but those of others too – such as Tara Lilly and BombayMami. For Aron it is always a collective endeavour.  

“I love filmmaking and music equally,” he says. “I couldn't write a short film without music and have a list of a hundred artists I’d love to work with. It’s all about meeting each other at the right stage of our careers and, to be honest, it’s what drives me.”