Meet the Filmmaker: Des Henderson

How would you describe True North: Keepin ‘Er Country in a sentence?

That’s actually a tough question, because you’re condensing almost a year’s work into one sentence!

In essence, Keepin ‘Er Country is the story of one summer on the Country music scene in Northern Ireland… but I think people will be surprised by what they discover throughout the documentary.

Tell us a bit about where the idea for Keepin ‘Er Country came from.

I listened to a lot of country music as a teenager and loved it – but back then it was seen as something for the older generation and a bit ‘un-cool’.

Then in 2013, I was filming with a group of young people for BBC NI and I was really struck by how passionate they were about the local country music scene in Northern Ireland. They knew all about the artists and would arrange car-sharing to travel up and down the country to the latest gigs.

A short time later, I went along to a gig myself to see what all the fuss was about. It really blew me away – to me it was like stepping fifty years back in time and the crowd featured a real mix of all ages but especially young people.

After that night, I started to become more aware of people posting on social media about upcoming country gigs and after attending a few more myself I realized that many of the young people were actually attending jive lessons once or twice a week in preparation for the next weekend. This really interested me; in the country music scene, being a good dancer is a major asset for anyone who’s hoping to meet their future partner.

How did you go about making the programme?

It took almost a year to make the programme, from idea to final edit. I knew right from the beginning that the idea would fit well within BBC Northern Ireland’s True North strand – for me True North is all about providing unique perspectives on life in Northern Ireland and that’s exactly what I wanted to achieve with Keepin ‘Er Country.

The first challenge was pitching the idea to a commissioner. We decided that the best way to do this would be to go out with a camera and make a short ‘taster tape’ to show what we were trying to do. Once we had the backing from BBC NI to make the programme, the next challenge was casting the right characters to drive the narrative.

Most documentaries tend to focus on one or two main characters but we knew that in order to capture the wide variety of people that make up the Country music scene we would need to follow close to five or six. This poses its own difficulties but ultimately makes the documentary what it is.

What advice would you give to anyone with an interest in filmmaking?

I believe that if you want to be a good director, you need to be a good storyteller. There’s lots of technology out there that can help you to make documentaries, but at the start I would say don’t get too hung up on the idea of needing expensive equipment – in all honesty I think if you were pitching a taster tape to a commissioner they’d rather see a great story shot on a smartphone than a poor story filmed using the latest really expensive camera.

If you’ve got great documentary ideas and want to learn about how to structure them into a story for film, one of the best things you can do is learn about editing. It’s a great skill because as you edit you learn about the different shots you need to bring a story to life. As a director, you’ll be the one going out to get the shots!