Making Time Visible: Inside the Workshop of a Modern Horologist
“Watches were the space technology of their era.”
This quote, delivered with quiet confidence by Seth Kennedy, sits at the heart of The Watchmaker, a short documentary I filmed with Seth in his North London workshop about 5 years ago now, where he works as a rare specialist in antique pocket watch case restoration and rose engine turning.
Craftsmanship at the Edge of Obsolescence
Seth is a mechanician in the truest sense: a hands-on expert in tools, metals, and techniques that most have long forgotten. What makes his practice extraordinary is not just his skill, it’s the fact that he works in a niche so specific, so technically demanding, that only a handful of professionals in the UK are still doing it. In particular, his work with the rose engine, a 19th-century decorative lathe, adds a hypnotic visual rhythm to the opening of the film and reveals a level of mechanical beauty that often goes unseen.
A Quietly Observational Film
Filmed over the course of 2 days, The Watchmaker doesn’t try to overstate the drama of the work. Instead, I let Seth’s process guide the pace, framing the film as a meditation on time, repetition, and legacy. From torching and forming metal to the delicate chase of engine turning, the edit mirrors the stillness and precision of the workshop itself.
Why Tell This Story?
The Watchmaker wasn’t commissioned, every so often, I carve out some time to tell stories I believe deserve telling, the kinds of craftspeople, makers, and obsessives whose work risks going unseen, but whose practices carry deep cultural and material value.
Seth’s story sits at the intersection of craft preservation and mechanical poetry. The work he does isn’t just skilled, it’s cultural. It connects us to the industrial past in ways that feel tactile and human. In an era of digital watches and mass production, Seth’s painstaking restoration of 19th-century timepieces is a quiet rebellion, and one I felt was worth capturing on film.
If you're a brand, institution or individual working in heritage, design, or the handmade, and want to document your story with authenticity and visual restraint, I'd love to hear from you.
