Inventive Filmmaking with Dominic Wilcox: A Remarkable Sandwich Serving Shoe
Some inventive filmmaking was required in 2016 when I created a short film called Dominic’s Sandwich Serving Shoe Invention while working on a longer documentary about the early days of Little Inventors.
As part of my practice in inventive filmmaking, this small standalone piece became a joyful experiment in creative process, humour, and improvisation. Dominic Wilcox—the artist, designer, and inventor behind Little Inventors—was developing one of his more absurd creations: a robotic shoe that delivers a sandwich on command.
Filming Dominic is never straightforward. His ideas don’t follow logic, and that’s the point. They spiral, shift, evolve in the moment. I’ve learned through inventive filmmaking that the best approach is to follow with curiosity, stay light on your feet, and allow things to unfold without overthinking. The sandwich shoe was no exception.
Little Inventors began with a simple idea: ask children to draw their wildest invention ideas, and then work with makers, engineers, and artists to bring them to life. Dominic created the project as a way to champion imagination and hands-on creativity. At its core, it’s about giving permission to be inventive without worrying about practicality. He wanted children to feel like their ideas mattered—even the strangest ones. Especially the strangest ones.
In the film, Dominic explains the logic (or illogic) behind the robotic sandwich shoe. The sandwich is unusually long and tubular—“Why does it have to be square?” he asks. A robotic arm is meant to raise the sandwich to your mouth. There’s a button. A flap. A sandwich of dark cheese “only available in Sunderland and South Tyneside.” And, of course, a moment where the shoe barely fits a foot.
What made this piece special for me as a creative documentary filmmaker was how freely it moved between sincerity and absurdity. There was no pressure to explain. The camera simply followed the process: Dominic cutting lettuce with scissors, wedging the sandwich into the shoe, pressing buttons, rethinking the mechanism mid-shot. It wasn’t just a demonstration—it was a live act of invention.
I filmed it using a minimal setup at workshop with Dominic in Sunderland. There were no lights, no crew. Just ambient sound, handheld framing, and a willingness to embrace imperfection. That’s one of the things I’ve always valued about inventive filmmaking—it gives space to spontaneity. The tone isn’t polished or formal; it’s conversational, chaotic, and warm. I was less interested in making a conventional short and more interested in capturing an atmosphere of open-ended creativity.
The process reminded me of why I love working with Dominic. There’s a freedom in his thinking that invites everyone around him to take risks. His studio was full of half-finished prototypes, strange materials, and notes scrawled across paper and tape. Nothing was off-limits. You could feel the permission to make mistakes, to laugh, to fail, to try again. That environment shaped how I approached the edit: loose, exploratory, and full of rhythm, but not too neat.
Dominic’s work lives in the space between joke and invention. It’s funny, but it’s also serious about curiosity. That balance is something I try to hold in my own filmmaking practice. I want to honour the craft and creativity behind the idea, while also allowing the viewer to smile at the strangeness of it all.
Looking back, this short film feels like a snapshot of a bigger creative moment. Inventors!—the longer documentary it came from—followed Dominic as he launched Little Inventors and worked with children, schools, and communities. But this one scene, this one shoe, felt like the heart of it. A reminder that being inventive doesn’t always mean building something useful—it means imagining what’s possible, no matter how peculiar.
There’s something liberating about making a film where the outcome doesn’t matter as much as the process. The sandwich might fall apart. The shoe might jam. The idea might never be practical. But in the act of trying, something meaningful happens. That’s the spirit of invention. And for me, it’s also the spirit of filmmaking.
If you’d like to watch more of my work exploring community stories, creative resilience, and diverse subjects across arts, heritage, and the environment, you can explore all my films here: https://alanfentiman.co.uk/films-by-alan-fentiman/
You can also browse more of my artist and invention-related films here: https://alanfentiman.co.uk/vimeo-videos/artist-films/