Originally from Brighouse in the north of England, he has worked on films such as Bob Marley: One Love, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and the outstanding film documentary Moonage Daydream for which he won a fourth Golden Reel Award, AMPS Award, and an Emmy.

After graduating from the University of Huddersfield with a BMus [Hons] degree in Orchestral Composition and Arrangement, he decided to continue on to postgraduate study with a Master’s degree [MA] in Electro-Acoustic Composition. In 2022 he was awarded an honorary doctorate for services to film and music.

His Academy Award for the film Bohemian Rhapsody is seen by many as the crown jewel of film industry accomplishment, but this wasn’t his first award. His introduction to the red carpet came in 2013 when he supervised the film musical Les Misérables, which picked up Best Sound at the British BAFTA Film Awards.

John’s skills have also been heard in movie theatres around the world in the films The Woman in Black, 127 Hours, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

He has just completed work supervising the music and sound on the recently released Michael Jackson biopic Michael.