Crafts documentary film

This week I have been working with Tim Clements a documentary film maker who is starting work on a project to make a documentary on heritage craftspeople. It was a very interesting process I think for both of us. Tim had interesting ideas about what he wanted but was feeling his way and using me as a guinea pig to establish a format for the film. In many ways film making is a craft in itself so I think we were both very interested in each others work and ideas.

What made it a pleasure to work with him was that he is making this film off his own back out of passion. He started out making documentaries but has drifted into other work, particularly doing camera work on other projects. The documentary format seems to be out of favour certainly with TV at the moment but Tim wants to do it anyway because he likes the format and thinks it is a good way to treat an interesting subject. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with as the project develops. One of the things he wanted to do was to show the finished craft objects in use so on the last evening he set all his lights up and filmed as we had dinner. I hadn't thought to stage what we were eating in order to get lots of wood on the table so it was only the usual wooden plates, no bowls on that day.