The Barter Barber — Matakana Pre-production
The Barter Barber · Matakana · 16 September 2018
In 2017, Sam Dowdall set off on a two-year journey around New Zealand as The Barter Barber — exchanging haircuts for koha and conversation around men’s mental health.
This is pre-production footage we filmed with Sam in Matakana, north of Auckland, as part of telling that story.
A story worth telling
The idea behind The Barter Barber is simple and powerful. A barber’s chair is one of the few places where many men sit still, face to face with someone, for half an hour. Sam used that time to open up conversations about mental health that might never happen anywhere else.
Stories like this deserve to be told carefully. The aim isn’t a slick advertisement but something honest — giving the person at the centre room to speak and letting the audience feel the weight of what they’re saying.
What pre-production is for
Pre-production is the work that happens before the main shoot: getting to know the subject, testing locations, working out how they come across on camera and finding the shape of the story. Footage from this stage is often never seen, but it shapes every decision that comes after.
For documentary and personal-story projects, it’s also how trust is built. People speak more openly to a camera when they already know the people behind it.
Good pre-production also saves money. Problems that are spotted early — a location that’s too noisy, light that disappears by mid-afternoon, a story that needs a different angle — are cheap to fix before the main shoot and expensive to fix after it.
Telling your story
If you’re a charity, social enterprise or business with a story to tell, FlyingDolly can help you plan it, film it and get it in front of the right people. We’re based in Mount Maunganui and work across Tauranga, the Bay of Plenty and New Zealand.
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