A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Jonathan Spencer is a British gaffer. He began his career in 1998 at BSkyB (British Sky Broadcasting), where he learned the fundamentals of lighting in a traditional television studio environment. After six years, in 2004, he turned freelance, working as an electrician and generator operator. It was through this period that he gained practical experience with a variety of lighting equipment and production environments, learning his trade from seasoned professionals around him. In 2010, Spencer made the transition into the role of gaffer. Since then, he has built a distinguished career across both television and feature films. His early major credits include working as an electrician on films such as Hugo (2011) and gaining increasing responsibility in projects like Mr. Holmes (2014) and The Sense of an Ending (2016). Over the following years, Spencer served as chief lighting technician or gaffer on a wide range of high-profile productions. His selected credits include Spectral (2016), Pete’s Dragon (2016), American Assassin (2017), Murder on the Orient Express (second unit, 2017), Johnny English Strikes Again (2018), the TV series Hard Sun (gaffer, six episodes in 2018), and Angel Has Fallen (2019). In 2019, he also worked on Waiting for the Barbarians (2019) as chief lighting technician, His House, and as gaffer for second unit on Spider‑Man: Far From Home (2019). In 2023, he contributed to major films including Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) and Napoleon (2023). Spencer was born in Norwich, Norfolk, and educated at Broadland High School and West Herts College. He is known for his passion for family, Chelsea FC, the gym, cooking, and life in general.
Chief Lighting Technician:
2016 Pete's Dragon
2016 Spectral
2017 American Assassin
2019 Waiting for the Barbarians
2025 How to Train Your Dragon
Electrician:
2011 Hugo
2011 Will
2016 Pete's Dragon
2016 Spectral
2017 American Assassin
2019 Waiting for the Barbarians
2025 How to Train Your Dragon
Gaffer:
2009 Micro Men
2010 1001 Inventions and the Library of Secrets
2011 Hugo
2011 Will
2012 Cleanskin
2012 Tower Block
2013 Keeping Up with the Joneses
2013 The Look of Love
2014 The Face of an Angel
2015 Mr. Holmes
2015 Spooks: The Greater Good
2016 Pete's Dragon
2016 Spectral
2017 American Assassin
2017 Ghost in the Shell
2017 London Town
2017 Murder on the Orient Express
2017 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
2017 The Sense of an Ending
2018 Johnny English Strikes Again
2018 Little River Run
2019 Angel Has Fallen
2019 Spider-Man: Far From Home
2019 Waiting for the Barbarians
2020 His House
2022 The People We Hate at the Wedding
2023 Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
2023 My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
2023 Napoleon
2025 How to Train Your Dragon
2025 The Conjuring: Last Rites
2025 The Magic Faraway Tree
2026 Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Chief Lighting Technician:
2022 Halo
Electrician:
2006 Star Stories
2008 Never Better
2022 Halo
Gaffer:
2006 Star Stories
2007 After You've Gone
2008 Never Better
2009 The Cut
2011 Dark Matters: Twisted But True
2013 The Face
2017 Harlots
2018 Hard Sun
2020 Avenue 5
2022 Andor
2022 Bad Sisters
2022 Halo
2025 A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.