Molly Dineen has made 17 films to date and her inquisitive mind, strong relationship with her characters and the trust and access she gains allows her films to reveal the crevices of life today.

Access driven films about people, places and issues from 48 hours in the life of the Angel Station to Gerri Halliwell ‘on the run’ after leaving the Spice Girls. All of the films are about more than the subjects first imply.

I first heard Dineen talk about her approach at Sheffield Doc Fest. It’s the most watchable characters that emerge in the edit which allow her story to develop and key issues to emerge.

From a standing start she will spend about 2 weeks with people, feeling that the intensity of filming means they have usually had enough after that and relationships can wane. To accommodate this, she’ll try fit around moods and leave a breathing space between filming to allow for the best quality.

The trust between Dineen and particpants extends to sharing rough cuts, although this goes against the grain with some editors. She remains true to subjects and has a deep sense of loyalty to them.

TV’s prerequisite for pitching what is known in advance makes her approach tricky. She embarks on a journey of discovery through research and spending a lot of time with her story. The results are intimate and forceful.

You can hear Dineen talk more about her impressive career in this Q&A session or buy the new BFI Dineen DVD collection just released.

Our film is called ’150′ and celebrates the craftsmanship of Stanegate Restorations who restored the carriages in time for the town’s 150th anniversary. It was a labour of love for everyone involved who filmed, hammered and sandpapered their way through the snowy winter of 2010.

Watch the SideTV programme or view in HD where there’s also the option to embed via our Vimeo Channel.

The beauty of seeing archive film is seeing distant history come alive. People just like us except in different clothes and contexts.

I recently spent an afternoon in the Northern Region Film & Television Archive and watched a 30′s home movie of a day trip to the beach. The young bride turns to wave to her husband before stepping into the sea. There’s such a poignancy about people waving to us from the past, reaching out. We also share the intimacy between the gaze of the subject and her cameraman husband.

There’s a wealth of heritage TV programmes at the moment attempting to bring the past to life. The most successful do that through people and tapping into memory. It’s what makes us human that unites us across time.

On that note enjoy a 70′s package tour doc When we Get to Callela it’s going to be great! which presents the experiences of families from Liverpool and two girls from Burnley on an early ‘package’ holiday to Spain. The programme documents the whole process from travel agents to sunburn. What is revealed is that a holiday is much more than merely time spent away from home; the packing, travelling and memories are just as valuable as sitting on the beach.

It’s always appreciated when you get positive feedback on your work and we’ve been storing up like hamsters lots of the kind words we’ve received.

It’s now time to share a few and send out our thanks to everyone who has supported us from talented associates to commissioners, funders, participants and distributors. Thank you!

Enchanting! I wanted to watch it again straight away
Agnes Wilkie, Creative Industries Director, Northern Film & Media

It’s wonderful! What a fantastically elegant piece!
Sarah Gee, Indigo Cultural Consulting

Beautifully shot. Really enjoyed it!
Adam Perry, Community Channel

Hat’s off to the Producer and a medal as big as a dustbin lid for the editor
Neville, Driver Saltburn Cliff Lift

It is utterly charming and just the right length. The night-time shots with the pier illuminated below are magical.Anthony Wills, National Piers Society

Saltburn Film Festival Blogger
Meticulous editing makes this film glide along as effortlessly as the lift itself, and you’re sorry when it’s over.

SideTV
The 55 seconds of the title refers to the length of the journey, at Saltburn-on-Sea, on the UK’s oldest water balanced funicular lift, which takes you down to the only remaining pleasure pier in the North East. Enough to celebrate in that, but Jan Cawood’s beautiful short film revels in both the mechanical ballet of the lift and the lives that come together in its short journeys.

It led onto coffee cup rings on second hand books, the everyday jottings in Samuel Pepy’s diary and touching grooves in ancient monuments where thousands of other hands have gone before. It all adds up to an emotional attachment to people, places and objects which is part of our DNA – the ‘Humans Utd’ factor.

For me, clever design like Jonathan Ive’s Apple products, builds in the touch factor but how do you do that with films you can’t touch?

The Godfather of film editing Walter Murch suggests an ideal cut is one that is instinctively true to the emotion of the moment. All the other ‘functional’ factors, such as eye-trace and continuity are only significant if they serve the emotion of the story. If you have to sacrifice, always serve emotion first.

I’ve often watched films where there’s an emotional flatness about them which makes the audience less involved. We don’t care about the subject or the people. Not an easy thing to balance but for us, our mission is to ‘find the heart and tell the story’ in a way that is authentic and truthful to each subject. Our sign in the edit now reads ‘Humans Utd’.

Penny Woolcock is someone whose career is tricky to define. Peter Dale introduced her at a Sheffield Doc Festival talk as ‘slightly mad’ which she laughed about.

She began filming at 38 after various low income jobs. She had no craft training and her first short was an improvised drama with a group of girls at an Oxford Youth Club. She kept telling everyone it was going to be on C4 – which somehow it was.

Later preparing TV news items in Newcastle meant she had to learn how to put a story together in the edit which gave her a better insight into shooting. She took a particular interest in Consett and wondered ‘what people do with space’ when jobs are cut? She wanted to make a ‘lament for a place’ which became a dramatized documentary When the Dog Bites – full of ‘performative’ characters reimagining themselves and their lives. The subsequent Tyneside Cinema screening offended some of the audience but her risk taking was noticed and Paul Watson commissioned her for the BBC.

Shakespeare on the Estate was another performative piece, people making sense of how to be themselves and use space – now fully occupied by theft and drugs – but with a sense of entrepeneurism. There’s a theme of wasted talent – people making sense of things in their own way, which is dramatically moving.

Penny talked about her process, once she’s got an idea it becomes her passion and obsession. She then has the confidence to persuade others. She’s usually working on several things. The scary bit is if someone says yes! She then feels unsure how to do it. She’s quite shy so has to be brave and persevere with access and gaining the trust of her participants. She hangs out with difficult people in difficult situations. It can takes days or weeks. People know she’s being herself and in it for the long-haul.

Casting is key to her films – finding people’s emotional range – how they can play themselves on film. She will recreate scenes told from anecdotes. To this extent she does real stories. She will script and cast and create scenes like a drama. People don’t remember lines so it’s all improvised, shot on the fly with different takes and pov cut in the edit. Handheld doc crew are key and they just improvise too.

Before filming she’s anxious. She’s full of anxiety – can she do it?? Then it’s exciting and sometimes magical things happen.

I’m interested in films that blur the lines between fiction and documentary, Clio Bernard’s award winning The Arbor being a case in point, so it was great to hear from a female director’s career journey – past and present – who had negotiated that landscape.

I’ve been tidying out the loft and found my treasure trove of Blondie fanzines from way back when.

I was amazed to see how we used to communicate – blobby manual typewriter ink and eagerly awaited signed personal letters from Debbie in New York.

I especially loved the pen pal page – early social media at it’s best! All back in the days when you had to go to the local phone box to ‘dial a disc’ to find out what was No.1 in the charts.

There’s something about this early wave of marketing – before big budgets and ‘professionals’ got involved, that holds a certain charm for me. It feels closer to the cultural DIY attitude of the time – more ‘authentic’ and connected?

That’s why I love documentaries that get to the heart of things – revealing a sensibility about the subject in a transparent way. Not easy – but wonderful when it works. On that note, it’s time for a bit of film on this blog so sit back and enjoy a wonderful example of being authentic.

Our story teller for the cliff lift restoration documentary ’150′ is Ian Yates of Stanegate Restorations. We’ve mused in the edit over Ian’s phrasing – ‘you aim for perfection but you never get there’ and ‘when you see your work out there it’s come alive again’ and felt the same about the film process. Ian was pleased we hadn’t used music and liked the observational framing which was a real compliment from an ex-cameraman.

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We then dashed over to the beautiful Arts&Crafts Community Centre for the 5th Saltburn Short Film Festival and watched ’55 Seconds’ alongside other international and UK shorts. Our film came second in the popular audience vote and was given a special commendation by the judges. It was great to see such diverse work on the big screen with over 100 people turning out to support film-makers.

Read one Film Festival blogger’s review of the evening.

The lovely people at Amber Films have included ’55 Seconds’ in this month’s SideTV broadcast. Sit back and enjoy some great films from the archive as well as new films about the North-East.

’55 Seconds’ will be screened at Saltburn Community Theatre from 7pm on Thursday 12 May as part of this year’s Saltburn Film Festival. The programme which includes some films shot around the town, are being screened as part of its 150th anniversary celebrations. All welcome to attend – and it’s free!