CRAFTY DOCUMENTARIES
Well so long as I'm doing recommendations, I thought I'd share some
docos. I'm always watching my way through some obscure doco
collection or other that's found its way to YouTube or the Internet
Archive, or sometimes on one of the old VHS tapes that I'm always
picking up.
Some of my favourites, especially among the comparatively rare
Australian ones, are from the "Artisans of Australia" series
produced by Film Australia (RIP). They are absolutely nothing to do
with computers, or modern technology, or anything that frankly most
Gopher readers are likely to care less about, but they do have a
wonderfully calm and genuine way of presenting various traditional
crafts. They were filmed in the mid 80s and are distinct in that
the entire narration is by the craftsman/woman who features in that
episode, speaking in their own words. If you watch enough old
Australian documentary films as I do then this is recognisable as
something of a reaction that appears to have begun in the 70s
against the highly formal style of documentary making that
persisted in Australia from the 40s into the 60s. I find it quite
captivating, though it's something that you're probably either into
or you're not.
They are very nicely filmed as well, miles better than your average
modern YouTube video, and aren't at all afraid to include the sorts
of intricate details that modern "inside the x factory" type TV
shows always leave out (often to the point that I get fed up with
them entirely).
The National Film and Sound Archive has been intermittently
uploading them over a very long time, so whether there are more to
come or not isn't at all clear, but six are available in this
playlist. They cover Timbercraft, Stonecraft, Glasscraft, Iron
Craft, Solid Plastering, and Decorative Paint Work:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE25345CC43816E9E
The reason I mention them now is that a little while ago, via the
HackADay Retrotechtacular column, I discovered the Irish series
Hands, produced between 1978 and 1989 to document traditional
crafts in Irelend. So far I've only watched the "Clay Pipe Works"
episode that HackADay featured, as well as "A Dublin Bookbinder",
and "Powers of the Metal". Particularly notable in that last one,
documenting the operation of a small foundry (something that
Artisans of Australia also features in "Iron Craft"), is how in the
late 80s their scrap iron was still being delivered by two men on a
horse and cart!
It has a more conventional, but still highly detailed, narration.
So far I've also found the Hands series to be extremely
interesting. It's also on YouTube (though the quality isn't so
great), and all the episodes are indexed on its Wikipedia page:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZBo82eXTfUJ2hvLcmlG0oRxGYKKq5qNE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands_(TV_series)
Beyond traditional crafts fading, or perhaps now faded, into
history, I thought it might be worth including a video about a
modern craft which is nevertheless just as mysterious in its
details. The 'craft' of manufacturing Integrated Circuits may seem
completely separate, but it is probably surrounded by a level of
secrecy and awe not dissimilar to that maintained by the most
respected producers of traditional crafts in the pre-industrial
era. ICs and the computer designs that they've enabled are praised
as the building blocks of modern civilisation, akin to how stone
and iron were once admired in a similar light. But the actual
techniques of the craft that turns them from raw elements into
miracle components of the modern age are largely hidden from the
outside world.
It's some way out of date, but this talk from 2012, titled
"Indistinguishable From Magic: Manufacturing Modern Computer
Chips", lifts the veil on some aspects of this modern-day craft:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4
- The Free Thinker
