As a documentary maker, I am experienced working as a trusted outsider, and I have to honour that trust with the story I tell.

The nuance of the process varies, but it begins with research and casting. I need to get to know you and your people, your colleagues, your customers, and your supporters. I’m looking and listening for the voices that can reveal and channel your purpose, and for a narrative and visual structure that can drive it.

My technique is kind and direct. I’m not afraid to ask difficult questions but with a clear, shared understanding of the film’s purpose.

Through a process of focussed but gentle enquiry, we’ll capture your words ‘in the moment’, unscripted and spontaneous, revealing the base motivation for everything you do - the emotional driver that will connect people with your vision and purpose.

The mechanics of WHAT you do are distilled using a bare minimum of language to leave a core visual expression of WHY you do it.

I draw on a strong background in the field of documentary filmmaking, exploring the boundaries between documentary and fiction.

In order for us to believe a story, it must feel authentic. The documentary derives its authenticity from its ability to record spontaneous testimony and events. We reveal ‘the truth’ of who we are through our spontaneous expression.

But our ability to be spontaneous depends on trust. We have to momentarily forget ourselves and feel that we are in safe and capable hands.

Our work is usually structured around interview dialogue, but a clear narrative concept insures an efficient, controlled and focussed shoot. I allow scope to use relaxed and informal interviews to explore ideas from various angles, looking for alternative ways of expressing things. It’s often after people have said what they think you’re looking for, that the real magic comes.

Ask the right question, in the right tone, with trust established, and the answer will reveal itself.

I combine this loose approach to the interview, with a tight approach to the visual storytelling. I slowly distil relatively long interviews into a tightly structured story which I then use to guide the shooting of the visual narrative, tailoring the images, sounds and music to the pre-crafted dialogue. This allows me to intensify the authenticity of the spontaneous and the personal using the creative control of the image and the edit to bring new and often unexpected meaning and emotion.

This is a process of turning chance into destiny to reveal emotional truth.

How do we connect in a landscape saturated with noise and distraction? We do the opposite. We communicate with sparse simplicity. For a story to connect, it has to allow space for the audience.

We work with the emotional alchemy of image and sound to let the audience in.

We are not put off by constraints – whether of time or money. We know that the creative constraints inherent to the short film can be turned into opportunities for new and original thinking.

It is the constraints that make us creative.