What Does It Actually Mean to Be a Documentary Filmmaker?
What Does It Actually Mean to Be a Documentary Filmmaker?
People ask me this more than you'd think. Usually at events, usually after I've explained what I do for the third time in a row. "So you make documentaries? Like the ones on Netflix?"
Sort of. Not exactly. Let me explain.
It Starts With Listening
The honest answer is that documentary filmmaking — real documentary filmmaking — starts long before a camera comes out. It starts with listening. Finding people with something worth saying. Sitting with them long enough that they forget the camera's there and say the thing they actually mean.
I grew up in Doncaster. My dad was a miner. I know what it's like to have a story that doesn't get told unless someone bothers to show up and ask. That's probably why this craft suits me.
I Came to It Sideways
I wasn't always a filmmaker. I trained as a contemporary dancer at Bretton Hall, performed for about a decade, and then one day picked up a camera and started teaching myself. A lot of my early work I did for free — not because I didn't value my time, but because I needed to learn, and learning costs something. That's fine to admit.
My first instinct was to film the dance world because that's what I knew. But over time I pushed into other territory. Doncaster's drag community. The Miners' Strike. A triple World Duathlon Champion from South Yorkshire trying to qualify for a world championship in Ibiza. Stories I'd have never found sitting in an edit suite waiting for someone to brief me.
The Brief Isn't Always a Brief
When I made Fluidity — a documentary about Doncaster's only drag group — there was no funding. No brief. Just a group of people I found through Doncaster Pride who were living loudly and honestly in a back room of a pub in a city that didn't really know they existed. I knew that needed to be on film.
Building Bridges came from the Miners' Strike 40th anniversary. That was a commission — Doncaster Council, a proper brief — but the reason it worked is because it's my city. Those are communities I understand from the inside. You can't fake that.
When You Tri is different again. A feature-length documentary following Lindsy James, a working mum from South Yorkshire, training for the T100 World Triathlon Championship in Ibiza while terrified of open water. That one took two years. You don't plan for two years. You commit to a person and follow the truth wherever it goes.
The Technical Bit
Yes, I know how cameras work. Yes, I edit. Yes, I direct and shoot and produce, often all at once because that's the nature of independent filmmaking. I shoot stills on a Leica Q2 and I'm particular about light, sound, and not rushing an interview.
But the technical stuff is honestly the last thing. It's scaffolding. What holds a documentary up isn't the kit — it's whether the audience cares about the person on screen. And they only care if you did.
Why South Yorkshire
Because it's here and it's mine. Because this region has more story per square mile than anywhere I've worked, and most of it doesn't get near a camera. Because I've been offered projects elsewhere and I keep coming back, not out of stubbornness but because there's still so much to make here.
If you've got a story worth telling — in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, or anywhere — I'm interested. Get in touch.
Wayne Sables is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and BAFTA Connect member based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. His films include When You Tri, Building Bridges, and Fluidity. Find his work at waynesablesproject.co.uk.
