The last hand-cut file factory
Thu 18:0034 min · 2.1m views
Four days in a Sheffield workshop where files are still cut by hand. The most watched thing we have made.
New film every Thursday at 6pm
Long films about how things get made
A weekly film about how things are actually made. No sponsors in the first ten minutes and no thumbnail that lies about the video.
Member funded. No mid-roll, no sponsor in the first ten minutes.
Recent films
The last few, and how they did
View counts are the real ones. The lathe film underperformed and we left it up anyway.
How a bell is cast
Last week29 min · 1.4m views
One pour, one chance, filmed with three cameras because there is no second take on a bell.
Rebuilding a 1962 lathe
2 weeks ago41 min · 890k views
Our longest film. Should probably have been two, and members told us so in the comments.
Why paper mills smell
3 weeks ago22 min · 1.1m views
A film about a smell, which sounds unpromising and turned out to be the chemistry episode people ask for most.
7
Years running
364
Films published
1.9m
Subscribers
26 min
Average length
What we make
One film a week, and everything that hangs off it
The weekly film
Every Thursday at six. Twenty-five minutes on one process, start to finish, no cutting away to a sponsor.
Members' cuts
The same films a day early with the raw interviews left in. Usually another forty minutes.
The podcast
An hour with whoever we filmed that week, about the parts that did not fit the edit.
Behind the edit
Project files, footage and the rough cut for members who want to see how it was assembled.
Live shows
Twice a year, filmed in front of people, with the questions kept in whether or not we answered them well.
Commissions
We make a handful of films a year for other people. The brief has to survive us asking why.
Why people pick us
The bits that go wrong on a build, written down before we start
The thumbnail describes the video
No face that does not appear, no number that is not in it, no question the film never answers.
Sponsors go at the end
Never in the first ten minutes and never mid-roll. Members fund the work so the sponsor does not have to.
Corrections go in the video
At the top, on screen, not pinned in a comment where nobody scrolls.
Every film is transcribed
Full transcripts and human-checked subtitles in six languages, on the day of release.
Weekly since 2018Member fundedSponsors disclosedNo mid-rollTranscripts on every filmSubtitled in six languages
Reviews
What customers said afterwards
The thumbnails describe the video. That sounds like nothing until you spend an evening on this website and realise almost nobody else does it.
They put a correction at the top of a video rather than pinning it in a comment where nobody would see it. That is why I pay them monthly.
They pushed back on our brief twice and the film is better than the one we asked for. Uncomfortable process, right outcome.
Get in touch
Commission, press or a suggestion
Suggestions for films are genuinely welcome and we read all of them. Commissions need a brief we are allowed to argue with.