How can an artist’s tools shape their creative trajectory? What does it mean to share this equipment with other practitioners? We’re excited to release the first film in the MPB: The Next Shot series. The project, made in collaboration with MPB – the UK’s leading camera reseller – as part of Aesthetica Film Festival, invited filmmakers to tell the story of their beloved cameras. In this installment, we hear from cinematographer Andi Hampton. His short thriller Good Game, part of the 2025 Aesthetica Film Festival Official Selection, was shot on an Arri Alexa Mini he once sold – only for it to find its way back into his hands through a collaborator on the same production. It was a moment of reconnection and inspiration. Andi reflects on the emotional ties between filmmakers and their tools – and how passing gear on can be both liberating and inspiring, knowing it will help tell someone else’s story.
A: If your camera or lens were a person, what kind of character would it be?
AH: A world explorer with a big smile and a beautiful family. An extension of me, lensing nearly ever day of your life allows you to capture an unprecedented amount of stories without needing to say a word.
A: Tell us about a short film or video project you’ve created with camera gear that you’ve since sold or replaced. Why was that equipment meaningful to you?
AH: Good Game is a short thriller film that has been selected for Aesthetica this year. It was filmed on the Arri Alexa Mini that I sold to my focus puller, so to have that back in my hands and know the history of what it has captured felt very special, as did the film we were producing.
A: How does it feel to pass your equipment on to someone else?
AH: It’s liberating and emotional if you pass a camera or lens onto someone you feel has the passion for filmmaking. If you can see the spark in them or sense they have a real excitement for the early stages of learning it really reminds me of my younger self. My father passed me down his 35mm stills cameras and SVHS and Video8 cameras that I still have, and use to this day. Every time I touch them I am overcome with emotions from my memories of him holding and filming me and my sister as kids, creating home movies. Now I get to use them in the professional field and feel I have made him proud.
A: As your career progresses, how do you see your tools reflecting your own creative growth?
AH: I think this varies, it’s not always about upgrading, but feeling what is right for the job and where you are in your career at any one time. Sometimes a smaller camera body might be what’s right for you, you feel you want to go and shoot some documentary and self produce a film so you choose small form factor, but other times you want to focus more on commercials or music videos so you end up renting larger camera bodies that are right for the job more than purchasing. Lenses are the main character here, and I think owning several sets distinguishing you as a cinematographer and help to identify you, your look and who you are as a person. The more you learn about how imperfections create creative perfection over time, the less you strive for what is the hot property of now and look into the past to those tools that our forefathers used to create such beautiful imagery.
A: What do you emotionally connect with in your kit?
AH: I think the excitement of looking back on frames you have captured is the best part of it all. If you know the history of a camera and it holds personal memories to you, it’s always going to feel special when you shoot on it. We all look after our kit as best we can but sometimes when we are in the field we will get a little ding on the camera cage and that’s what will hold a memory of a tough shoot.
Aesthetica Film Festival runs 5 – 9 November 2025: asff.co.uk
Find Out More About MPB: mpb.com
