Creative Craftsmen Need For A New TV Show.

[skipdiver]

All a bit too 'craft beer' for my liking. Is working with your hands the new thing among the Intellingentsia? My other half was watching one of these type programmes, where impeccably dressed 30 somethings were making 'simple stuff' with their own hands. Very much Blue Peter for the older generation. Cynical, me?

I never watch these type of shows, so i don't want to appear in one. Besides, i'm a joiner, not a carpenter, so that rules me out. Neither am i amazing, talented or creative.

 

[bugbear]

Is working with your hands the new thing among the Intellingentsia?

Yes. And you have to tell everyone about it.

BugBear

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Just looked at their (style over substance) website Naz, they can't be much good as there is no one called Tristiam in the team.

I doubt many teams have someone called Tristiam.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

My Goodness you lot are a cynical bunch of miserable curmudgeons aren't you! This sounds like a genuine opportunity for someone in the shadows to catapult their work to a medium that gets it aired country wide. Apart from anything else, I bet the experience would be interesting to say the least. I really hope someone (like Custard in fact) does get in touch and we get to see a genuine forum stalwart get some much deserved recognition and beyond the norm success.

 

[skipdiver]

Yeah, i'm a cynical, miserable curmudgeon. Guilty!

 

[Aggrajag]

I was on TV (dramas, not documentaries) a few times between the ages of about 6-12 in the 70s and early 80s and I loved the process, seeing behind the scenes & watching the whole process. I also do like reality shows that show a talent, not just fame hungry weirdos shagging on live TV; I like the enthusiasm people have for their chosen hobby whether it be cooking, sewing or pottery. Personally I'd love to do or see a woodworking show but I just don't have the skill for it.

 

[custard]

Before I took up furniture making full time I spent twenty years working in the Film and TV industry. Unfortunately these type of shows almost always either trivialise the content, or build dramatic tension by completely overstating the small problems that occur in the course of most furniture builds. I understand why they do this, it's to engage with a 21st century audience and their brief attention spans.

The plain truth is that cabinet making, if done competently, is in tele-visual terms crushingly dull. It's not dull for the maker, but any audience would quickly lose the will to live!

 

[MattRoberts]

Before I took up furniture making full time I spent twenty years working in the Film and TV industry. Unfortunately these type of shows almost always either trivialise the content, or build dramatic tension by completely overstating the small problems that occur in the course of most furniture builds. I understand why they do this, it's to engage with a 21st century audience and their brief attention spans.

The plain truth is that cabinet making, if done competently, is in tele-visual terms crushingly dull. It's not dull for the maker, but any audience would quickly lose the will to live!

Interesting view. Norm seemed to achieve it will enough?

 

[Benchwayze]

Before I took up furniture making full time I spent twenty years working in the Film and TV industry. Unfortunately these type of shows almost always either trivialise the content, or build dramatic tension by completely overstating the small problems that occur in the course of most furniture builds. I understand why they do this, it's to engage with a 21st century audience and their brief attention spans.

The plain truth is that cabinet making, if done competently, is in tele-visual terms crushingly dull. It's not dull for the maker, but any audience would quickly lose the will to live!

Interesting view. Norm seemed to achieve it will enough?

The name 'Norm' rings a bell, but I can't quite recall why. Anyhow, Custard said, 'If done competently'. Most of the presenters I saw on Practical shows, (Barry Bucknell & Co.) were no more seasoned pros than I was; or am!
This show, if anything comes out of it, will probably be a similar format to that series Monty Don gave us a few seasons back.

 

[bugbear]

This show, if anything comes out of it, will probably be a similar format to that series Monty Don gave us a few seasons back.

At best.

(TBH I didn't like that show much, but it's the best we can hope for)

BugBear

 

[Benchwayze]

Well I think Monty lives in the past a little, but that's no crime, and I quite like his style of presenting. The show was okay, but not particularly memorable. But then neither is The GB Bake-off!

 

[lurker]

I can't stand monty don, middle class twerp.
Poor old Percy must be spinning in his grave

 

[sunnybob]

all things done well are crushingly boring to the viewer.
Orange county choppers is the epitome of this, they went from a custom bike shop that WAS producing good work until the TV found them, and turned them into a bunch of "reality" TV weirdos and raging loonies.

Custard, well out of it.

 

[skipdiver]

Yeah, but Handy Andy was the dogs. There's nothing he couldn't do with a few power tools and a sheet of MDF. That Scouse geezer was well clever too.

As Custard says, you either show the process properly, which is as dull as dishwater to the layman, or you jazz it up with z list celebrities and "modern" working methods. All MDF, glue, screws and quick drying paint.

It's difficult to hit that sweet spot between informative and entertaining.

 

[bugbear]

Hmm. Would somebody making a wicker basket, start to finish, be good "slow tv"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_television

BugBear

 

[Fitzroy]

If you search youtube for BBC Handmade Wood, you can find a great representation of what 'making' is like. It follows a chap "Jim Steele" making a windsor chair, not a word spoken in 30mins of the programme, bliss in my book!

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Isn't the bit which gets presented to the viewer and whether or not it's dull in the art of the edit? I mean, naturally if one is exposed to several minutes of planing then you'll be banging nails into your eyes by the end but with sharp editing coupled with a bit of personality (The Salvager springs to mind) then I think those shows can work. I suspect they'll always be to a niche audience ie a special interest group so you can forget the great British bake off equivalent in furniture making but still, just to get one's name promoted, it's an opportunity?

Norm is actually a classic example of how that works. He's virtually a household name in all matters of a woodworking nature both there and here plus I daresay the rest of the old commonwealth countries. So it can work. But it's to a niche, not mainstream.

 

[AndyT]

Interesting thread this. Hardly surprising to see the collective distrust of current television production values.

I don't think anyone would look to mainstream TV to learn how to make something. That needs lots of detail, but we have YouTube now, where anyone can watch real time dovetail cutting without expecting the rest of the family to stay interested.

But not so many years ago, it was perfectly possible for broadcast TV to make programmes which showed skilled makers at work in crafts, not step by step instructions, not challenge-based peril either.

I'm thinking of series that have been discussed on here, such as the Irish "Hands" series or the Swiss series on forgotten crafts that included the Ragenbass father and son toolmakers.

What went wrong? Could we have TV like that again, please?

(Actually, there was some, recently, on BBC 4, about makers with royal warrants, and a few more about crafts on the Silk Road. Is this what is being planned here?)

 

[JohnPW]

The OP should have said what type of programme it's going to be; mass audience crap (ie reality competition TV) or serious stuff that gets shown on BBC4 only.

 

[Benchwayze]

I can't stand monty don, middle class twerp.
Poor old Percy must be spinning in his grave

Hi Lurker...

I just about remember Percy. My old Dad was a good gardener. He didn't like Percy either. But I think it was envy; of the space Percy had. :lol:

Monty? Now he can't help being 'upper-class' can he?