Jamie Jones' road to reality

It was while watching Armadillo, a 2010 documentary following a platoon of Danish soldiers in Afghanistan, that Jones realised something had changed in the genre. 

“It seemed the paradigm had shifted. There were hardly any sit-down interviews, it was mainly in the third person and was really cinematic. I felt immersed and thought ‘this is like watching a movie.”

There’s a visceral connection you have with something that's happening on screen when you know it’s real.

Hitherto occasionally seen as rather grown-up, sober, 'improving' viewing, documentaries have steadily been garnering mass audiences and have moved firmly into the realm of entertainment. With streaming giants allowing for more generous budgets, this popularity could be to do with higher production values, but Jones wonders if it could also be due to a hunger for the holy grail of authenticity; “There’s a visceral connection you have with something that's happening on screen when you know it’s real.”

'Visceral' is a word he uses a lot and comes to mind when watching his stunning feature-length documentary The Road of Excess, which follows the emotional and oceanic journeys of Matt Pritchard, the endearing former star of Dirty Sanchez, a Jackass-style MTV stunt show from the noughties. 

Featuring clips of the punishing excesses the stars put themselves through, it’s a sensory overloaded rollercoaster ride through Pritchard's rise to fame, subsequent fall into addiction and despair, then a restless sobriety that sees him swap recreational drugs for endurance sports and culminates in a risky attempt to row across the Atlantic with three other souls in a ridiculously small vessel. 

With Road of Excess (William Blake's quote – 'the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom' – about extreme experiences leading to knowledge) Jones has somehow created a cohesive film comprised of a riveting, constantly surprising blend of film styles: shaky cam footage from the boat; Dirty Sanchez clips; home videos and interviews with Pritchard's mum and friends. 

I didn't want to do a wordy, gloomy film. I wanted it to be an entertaining ride as well. 

True to his own quest for realness, Jones decided the majority of the Atlantic crossing story would be told via the crew’s own Go-Pro footage, only cutting away to ‘beauty shots’ (taken in Lanzarote and Antigua) during the crew’s reflective moments, when they describe their feelings or share memories. “My plan had been to pepper the film with beauty shots to make it feel more cinematic, but once we got into the edit it felt wrong. It kind of ruined the ethics of the film because when we used them it felt like there was a support boat (which there wasn't, they were on their own). So in the end we sacrificed the cinematic quality for the raw, reality of the GoPros.”

My parents were part of that squatting subculture in the seventies and eighties.

A film about toxic masculinity, self-destruction and despair could have been dark. There is darkness in it, but there is also adventure and plenty of laughs. He was drawn to tell Pritchard’s story – he heard about his Atlantic crossing plans through a shared barber in Swansea – partially due to a narrative he recognised of a working class lad breaking through, but there were other synergies. “I guess because I was dealing with my own mental health stuff. It’s difficult to talk about, but I didn’t want to do a wordy, gloomy film. I wanted it to be an entertaining ride as well. Matt’s journey was the perfect vessel to explore these issues.”

Connections figure strongly in Jones life and work. His Welsh heritage has drawn him to make two films about Port Talbot, including the compelling, lyrical short The Cloud Factory, which reveals the impact one of the world’s largest steelworks has had on the community and fortunes of the Welsh town, a subject he returned to with Built On Steel, for Vice Media.

Both his parents are Welsh but he had what he admits is an “unusual” childhood growing up in a series of London squats. “My parents were part of that squatting subculture in the seventies and eighties. To be honest, I have fond childhood memories from that time. It was great.”

I was running around with a camera and I knew how to operate it and I knew how to edit, I was kind of like a one-man-band.

Aged nine, he returned to Wales with his mum and one of his sisters and stayed there for his education, doing an engineering degree in Cardiff, followed by a visual arts degree in Swansea. He then started freelancing. “I was always shooting documentaries off my own back and managed to get a few commissioned with the BBC.” 

This led to him “falling into” reality TV. “Because I was running around with a camera and I knew how to operate it and I knew how to edit, I was kind of like a one-man-band so I got into The X-Factor.” He also fell into commercials and started working with director Jack Driscoll.

Jones has worked on ads for clients including Virgin Media Business, Adlens and Altitude Masks (above).

When he returned to London it was with his wife Emily Jones [who’s also the producer on many of his films] and they settled in a gentrified Hackney, a very different East London experience to that of his youth. “It was interesting seeing it all from both sides.”

It's clear from his work that his skill as a documentarian has been informed by that ability to view people, places and things from all angles, to build up a picture of the truth from different perspectives.  

Mum had moved us into a house; she’d spent months doing it up and then got evicted.

A film that opened doors for him is The Nest. Starring Vicky McClure, it draws on his peripatetic early years. “Mum had moved us into a house; she’d spent months doing it up and then got evicted. We moved in with a friend of hers over the road and Mum had to watch this other family live in the home she had made for us.” To write the script, he says he “basically interviewed my mum and dad.”

His mission, he says is to probe beyond accepted truths, whether it’s probing the real effects of fame on the TV celebrities to the reality of social deprivation. “It’s about digging deeper than the headlines and trying to get into the social fabric a bit more; the causes behind things.”
 
His first feature film, Obey, released in 2018, won six awards including a BAFTA for Breakthrough Director, Wales. Capturing the discontent and simmering tensions leading up to the London riots of 2011, it follows the story of 19-year-old Leon who lives in an East London estate with his alcoholic mother and falls for Twiggy, a young woman rebelling against her affluent background by living in squats. 

So why did he choose to make a drama rather than a documentary with Obey? Can drama find the truth better than factual? He explains that there was already a documentary called The Hard Stop, about the accepted catalyst for the riots – the police shooting of Mark Duggan, but also Jones wanted to explore different aspects.

“I wanted the freedom to go beyond the literal reason for it. I wasn’t really that interested in the trigger, I was more interested in how quickly it spread, which I felt had nothing to do with Mark Duggan, it was something else.” A Tory MP’s report on the riots had concluded that they’d happened because of ‘bad moral attitudes’. “I just thought 'that is fucking insane',” he says, “to basically think that’s why people rioted is just unbelievable, no? I really wanted to call the film Bad Moral Attitudes, but in the end I was convinced out of it.”

Some of those kids had relatives who were arrested in the riots... They brought some of the most authentic moments to the film.

To find the veracity he wanted he worked with actors from The Big House charity, a drama workshop programme for disadvantaged East London youths. “Some of those kids had relatives who were arrested in the riots. So many of them were personally affected by it. Those guys brought some of the most authentic moments to the film.”

While he’s adept at conveying urban tensions, his reverence for the peace afforded by nature is evident in his work. Occasional calm seas counter the turbulence of Pritchard’s past and troubled soul; soothing waters also feature in Obey, when Twiggy introduces Leon to the serenity of canal life. 

He currently lives with his wife Emily and their two sons in Spain, right near the beach. After a stint of “vertical living” in Madrid, they craved space. “We’ve got two boys now, aged eight and 12. They’re like dogs, you know? They need running and exercise.” He also finds solace in the sea. He admits that "like many others I went into a dark hole during COVID. But now I love it, I walk to the beach, look at the sea. Paddle surfing helps, too… When I’m out there I’m not thinking about my career; I'm not beating myself up, worrying ‘am I a good father; am I a good husband?'. All the issues go… it’s therapy.”

Whenever I watch Gamander, I feel my shoulders relaxing. He teaches you how to be with nature. His voice whispers to you to listen to the little things.

His branded film for Wolfskin, the Spirit of The Forest, is a beautiful study of people living in harmony with their surroundings. Set in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains it follows a community fighting for the conservation of an ancient beech forest. The film is an immersive meditation on the life of trees, sheep and gentle humans. 

The characters draw you in, particularly wildlife photographer Gamander Lopez. “Everyone comments on him,” says Jones, “I think it’s because he’s got a gentle voice and he’s so calm. He has to be, he spends months in a bush waiting for the perfect shot. I’m different, I’m kind of hectic; a bit Welsh and a bit nuts. But whenever I watch Gamander I feel my shoulders relaxing. He teaches you how to be with nature. His voice whispers to you to listen to the little things.”

I ask him if there are tricks to help an audience zoom into a person on screen. “I don’t think there are tricks exactly, I think for something to become immersive, to connect, all of the elements need to be in play: great concept, great casting and then I spend a lot of time on the sound.” 

Sound and music is paramount to him. In Spirit of The Forest, a woman’s soaring vocals are a focal point. “When I found that singer I knew I wanted the film to end with her looking up at the trees, with just her singing and the sound of rain falling.”

In Obey, there’s a heartbreaking conversation between mother and son in a kitchen that's a crucial point in the story. Originally Jones had wanted to have the sounds of a riot, of sirens and helicopters, reminding viewers of the unrest beyond the scene. His sound designer Ben Baird (Lady Macbeth, Disobedience) had other ideas. “He said, ‘No, this is a profound scene and we need to draw the audience in, the riot’s not important in this moment. He took away all of that atmos, so all you hear is their breathing and their voices, the things they are touching, the screech of a plate. I think that was a really good lesson from Ben about the art of restraint.”

A good documentary will immerse you in something visceral and real but it will contextualise it.

I ask Jones if a director’s quest to connect; to communicate truth, via either fact or fiction, means anything now that social platforms transmit an endless stream of mini-docs from amateur filmmakers sharing 24/7 updates on their meals/make-up/pets. 

“Connection is not just about observing without any agency. So just broadcasting your breakfast, or doom-scrolling through Instagram imagery is meaningless. A good documentary will immerse you in something visceral and real but it will contextualise it. There’ll be a philosophy behind it. Watching a great documentary is a meaningful experience.”