Practice
Not an agency. A cutter who has sat in Köln, a cameraman who has stood in the campo, a fixer who can work in English, German and Spanish. These are the models that fit. The rest is someone else’s shop.
Best fit
Observational portraits of people in the places they actually live. Antonio between two ravines. Alarcón on the gorge. A guitar on a bench. Sometimes a pilot for a series (The Earth Punk Chronicles). Commissioned by the subject, a trust, or started because the picture was there. Slow, small, stubborn. This is the house.
Hire the suite years
ActHQ-trained. English, German, Spanish. Avid and Final Cut. Assistant editor to editor on ARD documentaries, including Mord auf Malta. A production that needs a bilingual cutter who already understands observational form — not a junior who learned YouTube last year — should write. Day rate in the room, or a picture sent to Durham.
Already in the archive
Durham Energy Institute. Food strategy for County Durham. Incredible Edible. Charlie Clutterbuck on sustainable food. Universities, NGOs, rural networks. The brief is treated as a documentary, not a brochure with a voiceover. People talking in rooms, then the landscape that makes the talking true.
The unusual triangle
One person who can work in all three, in the languages people actually speak. Locations, crew, permissions, translation, subtitles on the road, the car, the table. UK, Germany, southern Spain. Not a production-service office with a rate card — a filmmaker who already lives in the geography.
Camera stays out of the way
Flamenco, guitar, bagpipes, Tres Divos, Con cuadros in four languages, the Sherlock musical, Lilli Marlene at the Kleines Theater. Performance films for people who need the night recorded properly, not a phone on a stick. Multi-language rooms are normal.
Intimate, not a mill
Weddings and small events on the Costa Tropical and inland. Documentary eye, small crew, Spanish light. There is a dedicated line for this work. It is not a destination-wedding factory and will not become one.
The bag
Cranes, drones, underwater, aerial, steadicam, slomo, sliders, handheld. Voiceover and narration. Script. Subtitling EN–DE–ES. The kit is real; the point of it is to disappear.
There is no team of twelve, no account manager, no fake boardroom. You are hiring Steve Wilson. Sometimes a second camera or sound. That is the whole firm.
No always-on social, no weekly verticals, no ‘storyteller’ branding. The pictures take as long as they take.
Andalucía, yes. A package factory that shoots three Saturdays at once, no. If the day needs looking at, write. If it needs a template, look elsewhere.
01
The 2008 reel still describes the method: Z1-style small-form handheld work. V1, Z1, EX1. No shoulder mounts. Shoot-and-run interviews. The kit has changed; the habit has not. A camera that can sit on a wall, walk into a kitchen, and not announce itself.
02
Antonio’s farm was recorded with a single Sennheiser radio. The picture is not improved by a van full of radio links if the person talking is standing in a wind between two ravines. Get the voice. Get the place. Leave.
03
The campo portrait was ingested to a MacBook, cut in Final Cut, and subtitled on site within a couple of hours — a proof for a series, not a teaser for a committee. When the light is going, you finish the film before the light does. That habit comes from the post-house years as much as from the road.
04
English, German, Spanish. Theatre in Almuñécar in four languages. Subtitles as a working tool. A wedding in Andalucía needs the toasts in the language they were given. An ARD documentary needs a cutter who can hear the German.
Handheld observational as the default. Also crane, drone, underwater, aerial, steadicam, slomo, sliders. The 2008 reel still names the habit: V1, Z1, EX1, no shoulder mounts, shoot-and-run.
Avid from the ActHQ years. Final Cut on a MacBook in the shade. Ingest, cut, and subtitle on site when the light is going.
English, German, Spanish. Script, voiceover, narration, and subtitles as working tools — not an afterthought at delivery.
One to three people. You can still have dinner with the subject. Not a circus, not a van full of radio links unless the day actually needs them.
Film stills on this site are from the pictures. Place images are studies of Durham, Hamburg and Andalucía, made for the house — not production frames.