Benjie Bateman

Benjie Bateman is a documentary film maker splitting his time between London and Edinburgh. He has worked on productions for companies such as the BBC, Channel 4, and National Geographic. I met Benjie in 1993 in San Francisco, he was bombing a very steep hill on his skateboard. We have been friends ever since.

Interview by James Cope
Photography by Benjie Bateman

JC: How did you get into documentary film making?

BB: I was into skateboarding from the age of 12 and this was my whole world for a long time. I went to a fairly uninspiring College in Edinburgh when I was 20 to study audio-visual technology just really because I had no A levels so could not get into a real university and did not want to deliver pizzas anymore. I had to do practical assignments so the natural thing was to film my friends skateboarding and make little videos. I used a Hi-8 camcorder and edited using two ancient S-VHS recorders.

JC: What were some of your early documentaries?

BB: My first video was a Spike Jonze inspired effort that I called ‘Addiction’. It had a dodgy storyline about a guy who was so hooked on skateboarding that it ruined his life. It was very homemade feeling but people seemed to like it, laughed at the right bits and enjoyed the skating sections so I was encouraged enough to keep going and create more. I began making videos for a little Scottish company called Local Skateboards. I made one video a year for 4 years featuring their team and the skaters from the Glasgow and Edinburgh skate scene. Filming my friends and learning to edit in my own time was a lot of fun. I would cut the skateboard footage to music then throw in the odd abstract shot here and there of buildings, signs, close ups of boards, etc, and experimented with filters and effects to varying degrees of success.

JC: How did you progress from making skateboard films with your friends to bigger productions for the BBC and National Geographic?

BB: In 2001 my artist friend Toby Paterson recommended me to an arts festival that were looking for videos and films that related to the urban environment. They screened one of my videos in The Lighthouse Gallery, Glasgow and a video producer called Bevis Evans-Teush saw it and starting hiring me for camera and editing work. He produced videos for Arts Organizations like Scottish Opera as well as The National Health Service and Glasgow City Council so it was pretty varied. I began learning how to tell stories with images and make a point using interviews, pictures, and music. I was still making my skate videos but was getting more and more interested in people and the stories they have to tell. One bored Sunday evening in 2002 I was washing the dishes and heard an item on BBC Radio Scotland which got my attention. It was about an event called the Bothy Ballad Champion of Champion’s competition an obscure folk singing tradition exclusive to northeast Scotland. I could barely understand their thick northern accents but hearing the banter and the men’s singing made me want to find out more. I teamed up again with Bevis and we bravely and a bit naively embarked on our first ‘proper’ documentary about this little-known scene. We met many amazing people and were welcomed into a world we never could have experienced without the excuse of making the film. For the last 5 years I have worked as a freelance editor on documentaries and programmes for BBC, Channel 4, FIVE, and National Geographic Channel, and also run a company with Bevis called Rolling Pictures producing and directing our own ideas.

JC: Where do you get your ideas from and what inspires you?

BB: I’m interested in people. I especially like scenes where people are doing things purely for the love of it regardless of whether it’s cool or going to lead to fame and fortune. I think that comes from growing up as a skateboarder during the 90s when it was still very much an obscure subculture and not the fashionable and acceptable activity it is today. I don’t necessarily get big flashes of inspiration. My approach is more tortoise than hare. I kind of plod along gathering images, interviews, ideas, and music, then roll up my sleeves and work on the material until I come up with a scene, sequence or story that is more than the sum of it’s parts.JC: What projects are you working on at the moment?

BB: Bevis and myself got together again last year to set up a production company that we are calling Rolling Pictures. Our first production was Dave Kidney Superstar, a 30 min documentary for BBC 1 Scotland about a 78 year-old wrestling champion from Dundee. It was well received by the press and public and was nominated for a Bafta Scotland award which we were really flattered about. We have now just completed our second programme for BBC Scotland that will be aired in May or June this year. It’s a revisit of our original bothy singing documentary presented by comic soap actress Joyce Falconer learning the tradition and attempting to shake it up a bit. Next, I’m taking some time off to write a feature film script. I have never written a feature script before but have a story and idea I’m excited about and want to have a crack at it so stay tuned for more!