Johann Perry has spent most of his twenty-year career making documentaries, but he successfully ventured into feature territory with Against The Law, which was nominated for a British Film Academy Award (BAFTA) last year. He's an AMIRA enthusiast, having bought one soon after they first came out. I just want a good camera with a great sensor, a well-made matte box and a beautiful lens, he says, and ARRI always delivers that simplicity, which I find very reassuring.
DP Johann Perry with his AMIRA: It's a great tool - I love it (Photo by Johann Perry)
I would feel lost as a DP if I wasn't touching the camera. I like to strip everything down to bare essentials - I like my camera set-up to be sparse and clean. I don't like gubbins', he adds, using a very British colloquialism meaning paraphernalia.
For my whole career I've been shooting in the real world, with real light, in small spaces - documentary filming makes you make the best of things. The AMIRA allowed me to do that, and when I moved into features it allowed me to carry on doing what I do normally - but in a more controlled environment.
Mother s Day tells the story of the IRA's bomb attack on Warrington in 1993, in which two boys were killed. It was a pivotal moment in The Troubles that claimed the lives of more than three thousand people in Britain and Ireland over a thirty-year period. The deaths of the two boys - Johnathan Ball and Tim Parry - caused a wave of revulsion that lead to a new dialogue, culminating five years later in the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland.
Johann went to great lengths to capture the authentic feel of the north of England and Ireland a quarter of a century ago for Mother s Day. I asked myself what do the 1990s look like?' , he says. The fifties, the sixties, the seventies have a look' - but the nineties? I spent a long time looking at archive film from the nineties, from Belfast and Dublin and Warrington. I wanted to project the time and I didn't want to apply any gloss to it, in fact I wanted to strip out any glossiness and get down to the real. I designed my own LUTs to match that - to create a dirty, dingy look.
I asked myself, what do the 1990's look like?' (Photo by Johann Perry)
I chose 25 pantone colors, taken from archive of clothes, cars, interiors there were tans and yellows and blues and burgundies. I made an A3 Mood Board' and fed it into set design, costume, make-up. That enabled us to stay within the color palette of the time.
The film opens with the lead-up to the bombing, and the explosions that caused panic and death on that day in Warrington. It is beautifully handled, combining the brutality of the event with a profound respect for the victims. It also manages to convey the abrupt sudden savagery of explosions and the way in which time can seem to expand in the short, fragmented moments that follow a blast, when lives are snuffed-out, or forever changed.
Johann's work is rooted in the gritty realism of the British documentary tradition. (Photo by Johann Perry)
This, and the fine performances of the cast, are well served by the AMIRA's Super 35mm depth of field, which captures every detail, and every grimace and tear. But, above all it is the versatility of the AMIRA that appeals to Johann.
The ARRI system allows you to make each project distinctive, different. My work is rooted in the British documentary tradition, a sensibility based on realism, he says, with heavy emphasis on the last word. I love to recreate that, the naturalism I'm used to - I think that's a very British thing. But a huge range of aesthetics is possible using ARRI cameras - you can go from Bollywood to Belfast, with everything in between. The AMIRA's a great tool. I love it.
Most recent headlines
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today! By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
...
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
23/12/2025
New technique lights up where drugs go in the body, cell by cell Scripps Research scientists developed a technique that maps drug binding in individual cells th...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
20/12/2025
CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...
20/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
Johann Perry has spent most of his twenty-year career making documentaries, but he successfully ventured into feature territory with Against The Law, which was nominated for a British Film Academy Award (BAFTA) last year. He's an AMIRA enthusiast, having bought one soon after they first came out. I just want a good camera with a great sensor, a well-made matte box and a beautiful lens, he says, and ARRI always delivers that simplicity, which I find very reassuring. 
