Documentary · short film · commercial
ANYONE CAN FILM IT.
THE JOB IS KNOWING WHAT IT'S ABOUT.
Documentary series, brand films, founder stories and campaign work.
Written, directed, shot, cut and graded by CutLeaf Productions · London & UK-wide · Working internationally
What gets made
Five shapes this
work usually takes
Documentary series
Multi-episode work following real people over months. Released as a run, built to hold an audience from one episode to the next rather than sitting on a website as a single asset.
4–10 min
per episode
Brand and founder films
Why the company exists, told by the person who'd know. Interview-led, shot on location in the work itself rather than against a grey wall in a studio.
2–5 min
Campaign and commercial
Scripted or lightly-scripted films made to run as advertising. Concept, treatment, shoot and post, cut into every length and ratio the media plan needs.
15 sec – 2 min
plus cutdowns
Impact and charity films
Work for organisations who need to move people rather than sell to them. Handled with care around consent, contributor wellbeing and how people are represented.
3–8 min
DP and director for hire
Coming in on someone else's production as director of photography or director. Agencies, production companies and in-house teams who need a pair of hands and an eye.
Day rate
How it runs
Five stages,
one person throughout
No handover from the person who pitched it to the person who shoots it to a freelance editor who wasn't there. The same head carries the film from the first conversation to delivery, which is why it still resembles what was agreed.
01
Conversation
An hour, no charge, no deck. What's happened, who's involved, why now. Most of the useful material surfaces here.
02
Treatment
The film written down spine, contributors, look, structure, deliverables. You approve it before anything is booked.
03
Shoot
Small footprint, minimal direction. Contributors are looked after, not performed at. Shot for the edit, not for coverage.
04
Cut
A first assembly to react to, then a fine cut. Two rounds of notes included, taken properly rather than defended.
05
Deliver
Graded, mixed, subtitled, and exported in every ratio and length your channels need. Masters handed over with it.
RECENT WORK
Have a look
What we shoot
The material
a film is built from
A finished film is a handful of these, combined in the proportions the story needs. Which ones, and how much of each, is decided in the treatment rather than assumed at the start.
SIT-DOWN
Interviews
Lit properly, two cameras where the answer matters. Run as a conversation rather than a list of questions, which is why people say things they didn't plan to.
MOVEMENT
Sequences
Gimbal and handheld moves built to cut together, shot for the edit rather than for coverage. Arrivals, walk-throughs, the geography of a place.
Vérité
Observational
Real moments as they happen. Long lenses, a small rig and no direction, so people stop performing and get on with what they were doing.
EXISTING
Archive and stills
Old photographs, home video, press cuttings, drawings. Scanned, treated and cut in so the past sits properly alongside what's being filmed now.
CLOSE
Detail and craft
Hands, tools, materials, texture. Macro and high frame rate on the small things that carry more weight in an edit than any wide shot.
DIRECT
Piece to camera
Presenter or founder speaking straight down the lens. Used sparingly — it's the most direct tool available and it stops working if it's everywhere.
ABOVE
Aerial
Drone for geography and scale — where this is, how big it is, what surrounds it. FPV when a single unbroken move says something a cut can't.
UNSEEN
Location sound
Atmos, room tone, wild tracks and the specific noises of a place. Roughly half of what an audience feels, and the thing most films neglect.
Which is why
nothing here has a price
A two-minute founder film shot in one room can take longer than a ten-minute documentary shot across four locations. Shoot days, contributors, travel, archive clearance and the length of the cut all move independently, and packaging them into tiers would only mean pricing for the worst case and calling it a deal.
So every project is quoted on its own. You get a fixed figure alongside the treatment — before any commitment, with everything itemised, and with travel, accommodation and music licensing shown at cost rather than marked up. If it's more than you had in mind, the treatment gets rescoped rather than the film getting quietly worse.
Charity and not-for-profit work is priced separately and sympathetically. If the budget is small and the story is good, ask anyway.
Working together
What it's like
NOTHING IS STAGED
Contributors aren't repositioned, prompted or asked to do it again more naturally. What that costs in control it repays in footage that doesn't look like an advert pretending to be a documentary.
Small crews
Usually one person, occasionally two. A room with four crew in it behaves differently from a room with one, and it shows in every frame.
The story is allowed to change
If something happens mid-production that's more interesting than the plan, the plan moves. That flexibility is written into the treatment rather than negotiated as a variation.
People before shots
Interviewees are often nervous, sometimes talking about difficult things. They get a conversation, not an interrogation, and nothing they'd regret ends up in the cut.
Notes are taken seriously
Two rounds included, and no defensiveness about them. If a scene isn't working for you it's usually not working, and it's better to hear that at the assembly than after delivery.
You own the outcome
Full masters, full licence, cleared music, signed contributor releases. Nothing you can't use in five years because a licence lapsed.
Before you ask
Reasonable questions
ENQURIES
Tell me what
happened
Not the brief — the thing that made you think there might be a film in it. That's the more useful place to start. The first conversation is an hour and costs nothing.