Eponymous lighting brand Hector Finch has created a short film to highlight its ongoing commitment to preserving traditional making techniques and materials.
Entitled Making Products With Soul, the debut film tells the story of the brand’s close collaboration with specialist craftspeople across Europe to produce the Hector Finch Collection.
The film takes viewers on an exclusive, behind-the-scenes journey through the manufacturing process from a very first sketch of a lighting fixture to preparing for shipment in the Herefordshire warehouse and HQ in rural England. Touring around several specialist fabricators, viewers see Italian master glassmakers and ceramicists in Murano and Poppi, sheet metal workers in Lisbon, Portugal and witness the delicate and intricate art of hand engraving by experts in Stourbridge in the West Midlands, UK.
Highlights include ceramicist Roberto, the man who has single handedly thrown each of the 10,000+ individual shades made to date from the brand’s much-loved ‘Lucia’ collection. Up close intimate and cinematically filmed footage of each of these old family factories reveal the theatre, noise, colour and ‘ballet’ of the factories and manufacturing bustle. Tirelessly sourced over the past twenty years by Hector and Emma Finch, the company has never had cameras set foot within their walls and the film unwraps their unique techniques honed by individuals over decades having been passed down through generations of artisans.
“I try to make timeless objects that won’t go on to look dated. Something that is a fantastic object now can be a fantastic object in 100 years’ time,” says Roberto in the film. “It’s not just about what the eye sees it’s about the feeling, the mood that lingers. The way light can change the very energy of a place, every choice is a conversation, a balancing act between function and emotion, precision and poetry. Design is a reflection of the human experience; always seeking to illuminate, to guide, to inspire without ever overwhelming the subtle beauty of the space itself. It’s that knowledge of style combined with understanding both old and new manufacturing techniques that make our fixtures refined, understated and unique.”
Hector Finch intends to release future chapters of the film to educate and inform their clients and community about the dedication to collaborate with the highest standard of makers and materials wherever that may be ‘at home’ and around the world. They remain committed to protecting traditional techniques and materials and work collaboratively to create beautiful modern objects that people want in their homes.
Watch the short film below:
