top of page
Arthouse Films

Arthouse Films was born from pure enthusiasm for the arts.  This is a very small independent production company run by one person, me – Dominic.  It’s not supposed to be big!  Of course, for bigger projects the team can expand to make literally anything.

 

I’ve done ‘big’ and now I choose to do small.

 

Here is a short showreel to some of the broadcast films I have directed or shot.

As a very small production company, films are designed to fit micro budgets, the kind of budgets that really anyone can afford and, if they can’t afford it and they really need it, I try to make something work.  Just because a film is made on a low budget does not compromise the quality in any way, it simply becomes a different thing.  It is essential to understand what that thing is, in order to make it brilliantly.

 

For me, working outside the parameters of broadcast production is fantastically liberating.  It means I make the films I want to make!

 

Documentary film is inspiring.  The first film I made while at film school was a documentary about an 84 year old Lancastrian crofter called Hamer Barker.  He was the last surviving traditional crofter in Lancashire and one of the few remaining in England, if not Britain.  Living a subsistence existence, cutting his fields with a scythe and milking his four cows by hand, he had never been away from his croft in his life.  He even got married at the end of the lane at the chapel that bordered his land not 100 yards from his home.

 

He talked an old Lancastrian dialect none of which I could understand.  Shot on black and white film, it took me countless hours to transcribe those audiotapes, writing every word down in order to interpret what he was saying through context, to enable the edit.

 

His only son, Clifford, died of sepsis caught from a small cut in his hand while milking the cows.  He refused to leave the croft to visit a doctor.  "I've never seen a doctor in my life!  Why do I want to see one now'?

​

Hamer took to his bed and died two days later.

 

The film went on to be awarded at the Margaret Mead Film Festival in New York.

 

Ever since I have found documentary filmmaking the greatest developmental and inspiring experience one can have.  This fires my enthusiasm to the point where all I want to do is make more films about the things I feel passionate about.

 

It is not money that makes films, it's filmmakers that make films.

​

Dominic Clemence - 2024

Read testimonials from film, television and artists

Stepen Fry

​

This is just a quick note to commend my friend and sometime colleague, the above mentioned Dominic Clemence, television and film cameraman.

I worked with Dominic very closely indeed over a number of years as we made three series of the ITV drama KINGDOM. Dominic was the Director of Photography and, in the great tradition, also camera operator for all the shows we filmed. It was a fruitful and extremely rewarding experience. Dominic is not only the kind of lighting cameraman who can create remarkable scenes of beauty, depth, atmosphere and dramatic intensity, but is also equipped with the technical imagination and improvisational skills so especially necessary for location work in the old houses, country towns and wide landscapes that our drama necessitated. All this allied to a temperament and professionalism that satisfied the sometimes outrageous demands for daily footage that producers will make on film crews these days. With very large numbers of pages to be shot each day, Dominic never wavered in his ability to make each set-up seem like an exciting new challenge rather than a burden to be overcome. I want to commend especially his sensitivity to the needs of script and actors. Unlike some in his profession, he really did read and understand the script every day and his collaboration with me, the rest of the cast, the directors and writers constituted the creative core of the series, of which he was a crucial part.

I should add that you would have to go a long way to find a kinder, more positive, equable and amiable a presence on a film set. His personal warmth and good nature set the seal on Dominic’s value as a gifted, creative and inspiring DoP. I couldn’t recommend him more highly.

​

Sincerely yours,

​

​

Stepen Fry

bottom of page