Jack Howard

Jack Howard's love of film begun at a nearly empty screening of The Lion King as a child and has taken him all the way to working with the UK's biggest film critics. He tells us about the films that impacted him the most growing up, becoming a filmmaker himself and his friendship with Mark Kermode.

When did your obsession with film start?

When I was very young, like three or four years old, I used to act along with what I was watching on TV, like I'd do the Fireman Sam intro along with Fireman Sam, and climb up on the sofa like it was Pride Rock in The Lion King. I went to see The Lion King at the cinema with my dad, it was very late in the film's run and I think we were the only people in the cinema! That experience had a big effect on me, and I'd probably pinpoint that as being the first formative experience I had with film. Then when I was in my teens and Casino Royale came out, I kind of had expectations of what I wanted a Bond movie to be - I wanted to see the gun barrel, then I wanted him to come out and shoot people and all of that, and it just blew me away. It was a similar thing with The Dark Knight a couple of years later, it just smashed any pre-conceived ideas of what a comic-book movie should be - it was reconfiguring this childhood superhero in a completely different setting, kind of growing him up with the audience. I went to the cinema a lot with my dad, and we saw loads of films that really had a significant effect on me.

How did you begin making your own films?

Really, it was seeing other people doing it on YouTube! You know, seeing people my age - I was like 16 - being able to do it and get their stuff out there. I did want to be an actor when I was younger, and I realised I was able to make and act in my own stuff. Social media too has made it so convenient to connect with other filmmakers and help each other out - I'll see a call on Instagram looking for a director or an editor, like recently I saw one, looked up the guy and was really interested in working with him. Quite often I've seen work by other filmmakers and really liked their style, so I've said hi and ended up working with them - like Bertie Gilbert, who's a brilliant filmmaker, I edited his latest short film.

Some people will know you through your podcast with Mark Kermode - how did you two meet?

I'd been a huge fan of him for a long while, I'd been listening to his reviews and his show with Simon Mayo for years, and it turned out that his son was a fan of mine! I worked at BBC Radio 1 a few years ago and I'd see him around the building, and we kept running into each other at screenings and we'd sometimes go for drinks afterwards. One day he said to me "We should do a show together" and I just sort of laughed, I didn't think he was serious, but he went "No, I'm not being facetious, we really should", and it went from there!

What have been some of your favourite films so far this year?

It's funny, with cinemas being closed and films released onto streaming I haven't really felt the need to watch too many new releases unless they were something I'd properly been looking forward to. I've seen and loved Nomadland, Minari and Judas And The Black Messiah. I think they might be cheating though, as technically a couple of those were last year, but only released in the UK this year? Either way, I really loved them. The release calendar's been so strange recently! Nomadland is absolutely deserving of the Best Picture Oscar win - the way it mixes fiction and reality, with casting real people who live that lifestyle, that really appeals to me as a filmmaker, I thought that was fantastic.

What are your most anticipated films for the rest of the year?

I'm gonna have to say Spider-Man: No Way Home, because of the sheer madness of the production at the moment - nobody knows if Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire are actually in it or not, and I just get the feeling it's going to be huge fun to watch the finished product! I think it's great how we're now at a point where superhero movies have to do something a bit different, they have to stand out, and they can afford to be silly and have fun.

Words: Scott Bates