Doncaster-born Wayne Sables admits that his route towards a career as a film maker and digital expert is perhaps an unconventional one.
Wayne originally trained as a dancer at Bretton Hall and performed for about a decade before deciding it was time to step behind the camera twenty years ago. Since 2006, the Wayne Sables Project has spanned choreography, documentaries, photography, projection mapping and digital installations.
“When I first started I wasn't thinking about anniversaries, I was thinking about the work,” Wayne says. “It was all about the next brief, the next idea, the next problem worth solving and 20 years later, that hunger hasn't changed.
“But something else has changed - the magnitude of what the Wayne Sables Project has become, and just how many extraordinary people have had a hand in shaping it. And two decades later, I’m not sure whether to laugh, cry or just sit very quietly with a good cup of tea and let it all sink in.”
Wayne has collaborated with many organisations including Doncaster and Barnsley Councils, Rotherham Investment and Development Office, Cast in Doncaster, Historic England, Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, bringing projects to cinemas and festivals both locally and internationally.
As a documentary film maker, his work has covered everything from a study of the impact of the Miners’ Strike to life in Doncaster’s drag scene and, most recently, a celebration of 250 years of the St Leger. His film Familiar Struggle, choreographed and performed by Barnsley dancer Keira Martin, was named Best Experimental Film at the Montreal Independent Film Festival 2021 and his Glasshouse installation toured to great acclaim regionally and nationally. This year also saw him launch his first book, Beyond the Lens, a collection of images taken during a year-long daily photographic challenge.
Wayne points out that in the 20 years he has been developing his business, trends have come and gone, technologies have rewritten the rules and entire platforms have risen and collapsed. “I have learned to get comfortable with uncertainty because the creative industry doesn't deal in guarantees,” he reflects. “Some years were brilliant and some were genuinely hard and the skill isn't avoiding difficulty — it's moving through it without losing your vision.
“I have learned that the best ideas come from collaboration and that the myth of the lone creative genius is just that - a myth. Almost every piece of work I'm proudest of carries the fingerprints of more than one mind.
"Over 20 years, I have worked with an incredible constellation of collaborators — designers, writers, photographers, directors, strategists, producers, illustrators, developers, and creative thinkers of every description...The freelance community has been the beating heart of WSP from the very beginning.”