Life in Black and White: Grand Pianos

"When we take appart a 120-year old Steinway, and we get to a place inside it that nobody's seen since the factory... those are pretty special moments."

Life in Black and White is a series of four beautifully shot documentaries featuring people who work in "black and white." John Callahan restores Steinway grand pianos. Other films in the series feature crossword puzzles, dominos, and penguins; you can watch them here.

San Francisco-based filmmaker Regina Rivard talks about the making of the series in an interview with The Atlantic:

I think something that made these four people unique was that fact that their jobs weren't 'jobs' to them. One thing you could pull from this series is that none of them could even seem to imagine doing anything else. Andrea, the crossword constructor, said, "If I could only do one thing my whole life … it would be to make crosswords.” In a way that sums up what everyone had in common. It's like they were born to do what they do and I think that's really beautiful. I think that a lot of people struggle with finding that and these four people don't even have to think about it.

Read the rest here.

Life in Black and White: Part IV is produced, directed and edited by Regina Rivard, and shot by Josh Hittleman, Rob Fitzgerald, and Patrick Wong. Audio is by Ben Morse and music is by Andy Greenwood.