After graduating with a degree in graphic design from the London College of Printing in 1989, Jonathan started his professional directing career working for an event production company in London.
In 1994 he moved into television broadcast at Star TV in Hong Kong and as director of Network Production Services he wrote and directed some of Star’s biggest promotional campaigns throughout the region over a period of seven years in which he won fifteen awards at Promax International.
Based in Singapore, Jonathan has extensive experience shooting all over the Asian region and now works as a freelance commercials director in South East Asia, focusing on promotional campaigns with agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett, Dentsu, Ogilvy, Grey, Lowe, Bates, BBDO and J Walter Thompson.
Recognised as an outstanding documentary filmmaker, Jonathan directed and produced the highly successful and award winning ‘Marco Polo – The China Mystery Revealed’ series for National Geographic – rated as the 13th most popular documentary since National Geographic began.
Jonathan’s production of ‘Treasure Fleet’ filmed in 13 countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, chronicled the life voyages of the Ming dynasty admiral, Zheng He, and was aired on National Geographic Channel worldwide, winning best documentary at the New York film Festival.
Says Jonathan about the challenge of making TV commercials: “There’s the discipline of telling a story in 30 seconds and in delivering a really good film that both does justice to the concept and answers the brief. And if you’ve done your job as the director, you’ve added insight and execution that brings the spot to life beyond what the client expected”.
McDonalds: Because Of You
Nat Geographic: I See Hong Kong
Unilever: Chain Stores
World Cup 1999: Dreams
Bango: Father and Son
Bango: Running Vendor
Biore: Market
HSBC: Name
