Documenting British Manufacturing
It’s no surprise that Britain, once the ‘workshop of the world‘, has a proud heritage of satisfying the needs of consumers. Whether bespoke or mass produced, there’s still something wonderful about seeing things being made in a digital world of ones and zeros.
Capturing this seemingly hidden world is too tempting a prospect for most film-makers including us and so we are delighted that sister-mag, a great new digital magazine is celebrating ‘craftsmanship’ in their latest edition (find us on p223-227). The Berlin based magazine explore what attracts us to document people making things, in our case, at Barbour South Shields, UK.
Feature on short documentary about Barbour wax jackets ‘A Jacket for Life’
If you are interested in British Manufacturing, one upcoming project well worth following is by 10 Magnum photographers for the wonderful Multistory team. The largely untold story of British manufacturing+industry through the lens of the world’s greatest photographers. I can’t wait to see the results.
Open City Docs Festival 2012
Our ‘beautifully shot’ film 55 Seconds has been awarded third prize at this year’s Open City Docs Festival in London. There were lots of talented film-makers and a diverse range of submissions. The Jury was composed of eminent documentary film-makers who I really admire – Nicolas Philibert and Marc Isaacs so it’s great to have your work recognised.
Barbour Film Editing
There’s a texture to the wearing of Barbour wax jackets – a sensory feeling our three owners talked about- so we wanted that to come out in the location, mood and texture of our film ‘A Jacket for Life’.
We also loved the factory sounds, the contrast between factory and landscape, the production versus the weather and so focused on that to add an extra dimension.
We hope it’s a ‘seamless ‘ edit that weaves together our particular story. Watch our film ‘A Jacket for Life’ on our Vimeo channel.
Barbour Location Filming
Barbour jackets have a wide appeal as they are beautiful and functional so you can never really be sure who wears them.
Our location filming included some beautiful British landscapes from the South Shields waterfront as the sun rose to a day on an allotment in Beverley and walking on Aldeburgh beach.
The texture and tone of the locations are more than we hoped for and create a lovely mood for our quintessentially British story as did our Barbour owners.
Stained Glass
We’ve recently had the pleasure of filming a day in the life of Rick Pooley, a man who loves his work designing, making and restoring stained glass.
Rick also offers customers the chance to design and help make their own glass panels too.
If you are in the region visit Rick in Newcastle at his Ashfield Glass workshop.
He’s the sort of man who will have the kettle on for you.
We have now finished editing so view the film on our Vimeo channel.
Visiting Barbour’s Simonside Factory at South Shields
There’s a great atmosphere of people who know what they are doing at Barbour’s South Shields factory. As well as making new wax jackets, about 14,000 jackets are also repaired,reproofed or altered by the Customer Services team of 11 people each year and demand seems to be growing.
It’s an intimate relationship watching one operator like Denise trying to ‘get inside the jacket without anyone knowing you’ve been inside it’ and a lifetime of experience which allows her to bring them back to life.
On the factory floor it takes over 40 pair of hands to produce one new jacket. The process starts in the cutting room, with rolls rolls of 55 metre long waxed cotton, which are cut into 4.6m lengths. Each length makes three jackets.
With over 150 people on the factory floor dedicating time to each part of the process there’s a rhythm and sound which appeals to us as film-makers. It’s also a feast for the eyes.
