How I work

Artists and culture films require a particular kind of attention. The work being documented is often already complete in itself — a performance, an exhibition, a creative process — and the film needs to find a way to exist alongside it rather than simply record it. That means staying quiet, moving carefully and resisting the temptation to over-explain what the camera can show.

The challenge with artists and culture films is often one of timing. Creative processes are not linear, and the most interesting moments rarely announce themselves. I try to be present enough to catch those moments without becoming a distraction from them. That might mean spending a morning in a studio before any filming begins, or returning to an exhibition space at different times of day to understand how the light and the atmosphere change. It might mean sitting with an edit for longer than feels comfortable, waiting for the right rhythm to emerge rather than forcing a structure onto material that has its own logic.

I work observationally, spending time with artists and cultural organisations before and during the filming process, building an understanding of what the work is actually about rather than what it might be reduced to in a caption. The edit is where that understanding becomes a film — where rhythm, pace and selection determine whether the work on screen still feels like itself.

Artists and culture films need to be useful — for funding reports, public engagement, documentation and archive — but they should also feel like something worth watching in their own right. I have made films with artists, composers, poets, printmakers, bookbinders, theatre companies, galleries and cultural organisations across the North East and beyond. Partners have included Northern Print, Navigator North, Sound and Music, Northumbria University and The Auckland Project.