Most people only ever see the finished installation. The polished photographs. The dramatic lighting. The final reveal. What they don’t see are the months of problem solving, fabrication and collaboration that made that moment possible.
That’s why, when we can, we document the journey as well as the destination. We capture the design, the manufacture, the installation and the operation, revealing everything that happens behind the scenes.
But not every project is suitable. In reality, only a handful meet the criteria. That’s why documentaries of our work are incredibly rare.
There are five tests a project must pass to invest in producing a documentary quality film. Should the project fail any of these tests, we know we won’t get the output we need.
Our five tests are:
1. Do we have permission?
Will our client, and where necessary, their client, allow us to capture and publish a ‘making of’ film? Much of our work is under NDA, and understandably, if we can never talk of our involvement, it has fallen at the first hurdle.
2. Is there a story worth telling?
Is there actually a story worth telling? Every great project has a set of challenges, decisions, people and moments that changed the outcome. Without those, even the most impressive build can become a forgettable film.
3. Can we find the right film crew?
We’re not film makers, we rely on specialist crews who are comfortable with long days, changing conditions and unholy temperatures. They need to work around the realities of a project; to understand constraints, not fight them. Those people are rarer than you might think.
4. Will filming get in the way?
The project comes first. Whether in the workshops or on site, time is at a premium, there is no room for unnecessary interruptions. This is no place for ‘can you do that again but with more gusto’.
5. Can we capture the moments that matter?
This is always harder than it sounds. Sometimes we’re ahead of schedule, other times behind, making shoot schedules very hard to plan. The golden moments don’t always arrive when and where they were expected to be found. The challenge is to capture enough to tell the story without keeping the camera rolling forever.
Does it always work?
Not always. There is no guarantee that what we capture is what we wished for. But when we do, the result is far more than a record of what we built. It captures how it was achieved, the people behind it, and the thinking that made it possible.
And that’s always worth the effort.
Here’s a selection of the films of which we’re most proud.
2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Cauldrons
