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That evening, on the news and in the local paper, the outrage over a Primark supplier , TNS was headline news. A hidden camera had recorded the underpaid workers in a Manchester knitwear factory. The footage was reminiscent of Jo’s film purely becuas eit was shot in a factory, but of course totally different in style and purpose. In Jo’s film, the workers themselves had total knowledge and control about their involvement. The purpose was transparent and the final HD film is of high quality, as opposed to the fuzzy hidden camera on the TV and I wondered if managers at the factory Jo had visited would ever trust someone with a camera again. I remembered Jo saying that everyone in the factory was very friendly and enjoyed their work, laughing and joking together about the head cams and pleased to be involved. It’s a reminder of just how strong visual images are – how the style of filming can affect the meaning. Jo aimed to honour the work of those participants, focusing on the rhythm of the working routine, she never set out to criticise working practices. Any physical or environmental problems with the jobs the workers do would be there to be seen. In the news footage, the financial realities behind the scenes in another factory is what was revealed by the journalist.
being a film that took at its starting point the economic regeneration the city, via the learning Skills and Employment voluntary networks – it seems that Jo used the factory to stand for something much wider in terms of movement, space, time and patterns of work in which we are all implicated. In fact, we cant look at the suffering of low paid factory work, without looking at the lifestyle choices we all make daily.
