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from the U.S. National Archives
Humans are visual creatures. Read me a statistic and I’ll forget it before I’ve finished my coffee. Show me a graph, an illustration or a photo that conveys the same point and I’m far more likely to tuck it away in my frontal lobes.
We’re hardwired to absorb ideas through images — and that’s why film is such a perfect medium for storytelling. Thanks to available bandwidth and increasingly inexpensive, high-quality cameras, more and more people are learning to harness the emotional power of documentary-style video.
A recent favourite is the Made by Hand series produced by the Bureau of Common Goods, a Brooklyn-based film and digital content studio. Made by Hand is “a short film series celebrating the people who make things by hand — sustainably, locally, and with a love for their craft.” The two videos currently available online feature Breuckelen Distilling founder Brad Estabrooke and knife maker Joel Bukiewicz, who launched Cut Brooklyn. There’s also a profile of beekeper Megan Paska in the works.
Lovingly captured in black and white, the films explore how Brad and Joel each began, and what drives their work. The images are absorbing, no question, but I especially appreciate how the creators address struggle and challenge head-on. We never assume that their businesses sprang up overnight. Joel failed, cut himself, and misjudged the market along the way. Brad fought to get non-believers on board, namely plumbers and cranky landlords. These details contest the tired “investment-banker-turned-cupcake-baker” narrative that emerged during the 2008 recession and still plays out in numerous publications (especially women’s self-improvement mags).
I understand that many corporate refugees find greater fulfillment by pursing a long-delayed, often handmade dream, but stories of instant transformation ignore two facts:
1. Working with your hands, while potentially satisfying, is still hard work. It will inevitably require repetitive physical and mental labour. In short, baking cupcakes might be just as mind-numbing as crunching spreadsheets.
2. As Malcolm Gladwell suggested in Outliers, it takes at least 10,000 hours to achieve proficiency in your craft. If you’re aiming for mastery, prepare to log many, many, many more.
The Bureau of Common Goods team hopes we’ll be inspired by these stories of handcrafted commitment. I think they’ve achieved that goal. This series should also remind storytellers (and dejected creators) that every great tale requires conflict. Without struggle, there’s no sense of achievement. And without failure, there’s no reason to keep pushing; no reason to wake up eager and hungry for more.
