As with many creative ideas, the original inspiration for Hands was personal. For many years I had been quietly obsessed with hands and what they reveal about a person. From an early age I had always been disappointed by my own hands – which don’t appear to be the size and shape for what is traditionally considered to be artistic. Instead of long hands with slim fingers, I have short square hands with short thick fingers – not the hands of an artist at all!

The opportunity to make Hands came through funding from the Southern Arts Board, who said they were attracted by the simplicity of the idea, and intrigued to see if it could be made for the £750 I had applied for.

Visually, the film had been playing in my head for some time. I knew that it should be in black and white, only the hands should be visible, and there should be no music. The style of the film should be as simple as the title; hands, voices, and a soundtrack composed from finger snaps. This would enable the audience to assess whether the hands of the participants ‘fitted’ their testimonies, and supported the character they were revealing.

In my opinion, documentaries are at their most engaging when they are character revealing, as opposed to the investigative and sensationalist format, which is the current vogue. I would argue it is human nature to be interested in someone revealing something personal about themselves. I feel a candid and revealing moment from a documentary character, has far more emotional impact than a carefully plotted, and scripted scene in a fiction film. I would suggest that the current vogue of "soapumentaries" will end up doing more harm than good to the documentary genre, as they seem to have more in common with tabloid journalism, drama, and cabaret acts, being sensationalist, contrived and even staged as opposed to honest, revealing documents recorded on film/video etc.

With Hands, I tried to give the audience an insight into the individual, using hands as the focus. During the first character sequence ‘Laurie’ – a masseur, begins his testimony by revealing his occupation and obvious connection with the film’s title. In the second half of his testimony, he reveals how one day he decided to "Break down the barriers…" and "…formalise the touch…" by shaking his Dad’s hand. He reveals that he dared not hug his father as he would "…fall about…and say nasty things about me". In my opinion, this sequence is the essence of true character based documentary. Without actually saying outright, Laurie reveals the tension within their relationship which we suspect is a result of Laurie’s sexuality.

Hands also challenged the standard conventions of documentary interviews. Instead of the talking head, the audience are offered an alternative view. I wanted to explore an audience’s reaction to being denied a character’s facial identity. I wanted to test whether an audience would feel alienated from the characters if they were unable to clearly identify them. By removing the standard conventions, I wanted to see if the audience were somehow liberated, enabling them to empathise more with the characters.

Pre-Production
After several interviews with potential characters, a shortlist was made. We then recorded the remaining characters on DAT, and I worked closely with Charlie Watts (editor) on cutting down each of them to around six minutes each. This made the interviews more manageable, and gave me a clearer idea of the film’s content and direction. We decided to approach Hands almost as if it were a radio programme. That way we would be sure that the monologues were a good mix to be both entertaining and revealing, and we would be able to be more economical during the filming process.

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Richard Hookings