Everything, Everywhere
Posted on Dec 6, 2024 by Samara Husbands
Everyman Ollie Kenchington details his multifaceted career in filmmaking, grading and training – from running his own agency to teaching at CVP
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A man of many talents, Ollie Kenchington – who runs Korro Films and its educational counterpart Korro Academy – has a penchant for both the creative and technical. With an educational background in art, photography and science, which culminated in a degree in fine art: sound & image, he’s “always been intrigued and stimulated by the creative and the technical; most people are normally one or the other,” he claims.
Today, Kenchington considers himself a cinematographer, editor, colourist and training specialist, splitting his time fairly equally among these disciplines – though this wasn’t his initial plan. “As soon as I left university, the very first job I got was working for Apple. I found myself looking after training, and started delivering Apple’s pro apps training – Final Cut Pro, Color, Motion, Soundtrack Pro – and became an Apple-certified master trainer in those products,” he recalls. “Through that, delivering training to post houses and production companies, I started becoming more involved with post-production, but was still interested in image creation. After about four years of that, I set up Korro and have been running it ever since.”
Cross-genre creation
Korro Films is a production agency manned by Kenchington that also incorporates Korro Academy, “which in its own right is a Blackmagic-certified training partner,” he states. Running the company allows Kenchington to continue to do the training alongside the film production. He generally shoots branded content, including brand documentaries, as well as traditional documentaries such as a limited series about Gary Barlow. “That ended up being number one on iTunes for three weeks, and was available whenever you went to Gary Barlow’s artist profile,” Kenchington recounts. “Financially, that was a big deal. More importantly, the kind of confidence it gave me to produce and direct – while shooting about half of it as well – marked a huge turning point in my career.
“I’ve always been good at talking to people and interested in that storytelling element. I found myself wanting to blend what I had done in the documentary space with the regular branded content I was creating,” he describes. “I started doing stuff that fused the two.” Despite initially being unaware of brand documentary as a genre, Kenchington soon picked up a brand documentary award at Brand Film Festival London. This served as “affirmation that what I was doing and the approach I was taking was working, and I was doing a good job of it,” he admits. Kenchington’s continued success in the documentary sphere also led to his recent cinematography credit on the limited Netflix series Heart of Invictus, which saw him collaborating with Academy Award-winning director Orlando von Einsiedel.
Having worked with many brands – from tech companies to banks, beverage manufacturers and royalty-backed charities – Kenchington’s commercial portfolio is far from homogenous. He has filmed internal content for Apple, annually capturing iPhone launch events; the Chelsea Flower Show, on behalf of the Royal Horticultural Society; camera releases for Canon Europe; ads for food chains Kaspa’s and Byron Burger; as well as behind-the-scenes EPKs (electronic press kits) on feature films.
Alongside filming and editing, Kenchington also works as a colourist on short films, TVCs, music videos and broadcast shows. “I colour grade an awful lot of projects for an agency in London, which produces ads for brands like Bacardi, Stella Artois and Bombay Sapphire. Those are the projects I’m most excited by, as they are challenging but fun to grade. I love sweating the details, like honing in on a single bubble on a head of beer!”
No matter the brief, Kenchington aims for his work to align with his own interests, including but not limited to horticulture and food and drink. “The phrase that people bandy about a lot is ‘passion projects’. I’ve deliberately tried to work with clients who do things that I’m interested in, so every film feels like a passion project.”
Teach your children
When Kenchington isn’t filmmaking, he’s teaching. “I love education and working with people retraining or entering the industry tangentially, particularly older learners,” he says, adding: “I’ve done a lot in higher education with degree students, BA film students.” He strives to address knowledge gaps. “The highlights have been working with kids doing these courses, watching them grow throughout their careers and feeling like I had a hand in helping them get off to a good start.”
Skilled in various production tasks, Kenchington regularly delivers workshops at CVP that are free and open to anyone: Intro to Cinematography, Intro to Video Lighting, Better Brand Films and Intro to Documentary Filmmaking. “What I do for CVP, I’ve been doing under the umbrella of Korro Academy for years,” he explains, having taught for Google, Meta and the Ministry of Defence, to name a few. He’s also created instructional videos, which proved especially popular during the pandemic – when production gigs were few and far between. “I like that I can move between those different worlds,” he shares. “It’s nice that those things rise and fall and complement each other.”
CVP satiates Kenchington’s varied appetites, allowing him to flex his training chops and test cameras, lights, colour charts and other equipment. He’s bought kit from CVP since launching Korro in 2008, appreciating the company’s commitment to ‘being the best’ and employing ‘people who know a lot’. “It’s a real antidote to an industry that generally relies on people just figuring it out,” Kenchington argues. In his own training sessions, “I’m a bit unapologetic about being technical,” he states, “but what I’m good at is making that accessible. I can teach someone what the difference is between gamma and gamut in a way that they will understand and be able to build on in the future.”
Kenchington also serves as a judge on Canon and CVP’s Stories in Motion competition and is a brand ambassador for Litepanels, Calibrite and others, which demonstrates the breadth and depth of his industry expertise. His courses ‘seem to be incredibly popular’, he describes. “They’re always full, and it’s great. I love delivering them,” he gushes. “I’ve written these courses and pulled together things from my own career.
“They’re a great company to work for,” Kenchington says of CVP, “and it’s a lovely environment for people to come and learn. CVP always seems to be in the right place, doing the right things,” he concludes – “and that appeals to me massively.”
This feature was first published in the December 2024 issue of Definition.
