Short Film on Archer by Dylan Ryan Byrne

We love the art of craftsmanship here which of course comes in various different shapes and sizes. I know many of you have enjoyed the ceramics and furniture we’ve shared in the past but today I thought we’d showcase something a little different in the form of an archer/traditional bow maker. Filmmaker Dylan Ryan Byrne has taken some time away from his commercial work to produce this account of Harry who we can see below building one of his more favourable designs, the Japanese Fusetake Yumi longbow.

The former national champion of Ireland speaks upon not only his philosophy as an archer, but also the rules he tries to live by each day. Dylan takes us into Harry’s workshop where we get to see one of these beautiful longbows being put together with absolute precision. Harry explains in the film that for the bow to fire true it has to be completely balanced, otherwise it’s useless. Harry has obviously had to go through that stage of learning the difference between a working bow and one that gives him the ability to win competitions.

It’s great to see that even though there’s technology out there which renders this art dormant, Harry feels compelled to build his own bow and prefers this to a carbon fibre one for example. You have to commend him for his passion and desire to build something from a raw material, I think my personal preference will always leans towards something that has been made by hand, I just love the nostalgia of it all.

So although Harry is in a bit of a minority this just makes the film by Dylan all the more enjoyable in my opinion. Hopefully we can come across a few more projects like this on our internet travels in the near future, but the meantime if you’d like to follow the filmmaker the best place for this is currently his Vimeo profile which I’ll link to just below.

www.vimeo.com/dylanryanbyrne

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