Humphrey Jennings

[instrumental music]

Almost 100 years ago, British filmmaker Humphrey Jennings' Mass Observation Project documented the real lives of real Britons without professional editors or polished presenters narrating them.

In the 1930s, as the social consequences of the Depression began to be felt, particularly in the traditional heartlands of industry, a generation of journalists, writers, photographers, and filmmakers set out to document what they believed to be the facts about life in industrial Britain.

I'm a lorry driver, just under 30, married, with half, two children.

But the origins of fly-on-the-wall filming are a bit different.

Almost 100 years ago, British filmmaker Humphrey Jennings' Mass-Observation project documented the real lives of real Britons without professional editors or polished presenters narrating them.

[static hissing] In the 1930s, as the social consequences of the Depression began to be felt, particularly in the traditional heartlands of industry, a generation of journalists, writers, photographers, and filmmakers set out to document what they believed to be the facts about life in industrial Britain.

I'm a lorry driver, just under 30, married, we have two children.