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ABOUT THE FILM

The Tradesmen: Making an Art of Work is an eighty eight minute exploratory social documentary. It will engage the viewer as they watch the vocational lives of several tradesmen and will discuss the issues encompassing the trades in contemporary America. The documentary is a real and unflinching look at the lives and work of the modern tradesman and is an exposition into the socioeconomic topics related to the modern blue-collar craftsman.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

I was raised in a place called “Charm City” – most know it as Baltimore. Growing up, I vividly remember the blue-collar nature or the individuals and the city itself. At this point in my life I no longer have a daily connection to the blue-collar worker, and I have lost touch with the very essence of my upbringing and the people who occupy my childhood and adolescent memories. After graduating from college, moving away from my hometown, and entering the workforce, I began to notice a pervasive bias against work that required any form of manual labor and described as blue collar. In principle, this sentiment without any firsthand experience was unfair and disparaging towards tradesmen and their work. But why are such attitudes ubiquitous within our current cultural landscape? Where does the current cultural bias come from? Is it influenced by technological advances and novel opportunities in other occupations? Or opinions of limited financial prosperity in trade-work, and the potential for higher wages in other fields? Or is it inherent in the current educational curriculum and paradigm? I wanted to produce a documentary which sets out to explore the questions.