Saying that a person’s craft and their work are the same thing is a view point I would disagree with. Then there is the idea that work is a thing many folks have to do to make money while using one’s craft is a thing some people feel lucky to get paid to do. Perhaps it is all about your perception and why you choose to follow through on any endeavor.

For me there is a distinction between the two and as a creative sort of person you have to be able to do and maintain in both categories, either separately or at the same time. Often switching back and forth between the two mindsets.

I work a ‘normal’ job at a factory and I don’t think I have ever considered what I do there as anything but work. It’s an easy enough job and occasionally challenging, but its never required any sense of craftsmanship from me (engineering skills from time to time, but not craft). Craft as I see it is creation, both conceptual creation and physical. In my day job I’m certainly creating a product, but there is no conceptual aspect to it, thus it’s work.

In film making and writing there is a conceptual and physical creation. As well as a great deal of raw taxing work. If the  final product (film, manuscript or say a well made grandfather clock) were an iceberg the ‘craft’ is the part you see above the water and the ‘work’ is the giant mass under the surface. In my experience as a writer there is a good deal of front loaded craft with equal parts work and craft as you move along the process. Meaning the idea phase of writing then outlining and plotting and character development is craft, or whole cloth creation. Then when actually sitting at the keyboard you have to treat that part like work; clock in clock out, 1000 words 2000 words. Craft though has to be right there waiting in the wings to swing into action and create nice moments and memorable dialog and to guide the work when it comes time to make the third act turn. There is a very controlled balancing act. Think of it too much like work and you’re a robot kicking out a series of words, too much like craftsmanship and you can work on the same piece forever.

In my, limited, experience as a filmmaker it is similar, but to me seems even more front loaded. From my view point a lot of my craft came before we rolled cameras. During filming it felt like I had to be much more in the work mindset. There indeed were countless moments of craft on set, but those instances tended to be lending my  creative opinion to one of the other craftsmen and women. As a writer/director a great deal of my creative work was done before we got on set. Other folks like the actors were at bat, as it were, when it came to craft. The long hours and waiting around in the makeup trailer and memorizing lines is the work part of it for them with the moments between ‘action’ and ‘cut’ their time for craft.

For camera and lighting it seems like a finer line between the two. Stringing cables and distro boxes is definitely work and hanging lights might also seem as such, but the placement of a light is craft. Every tiny tweak of a barn door is craft. A basic pan of the camera during a take is craft. A focus puller doing their job correctly is more craft than work.

Applying a prosthetic to someones face is craft, but so is applying the same basic cover makeup that you do everyday to an actor’s normal face. It verges on work, but there is still creation involved.

It boils down to having to treat some things like work and some you should treat like craft. To me the logistics I was dealing with on set during our filming days were work and in doing those things (the planning, the yes/no calls, deciding when we had gotten what we needed out of a scene) I was assisting and facilitating others in their craft. Situations arose in which I had to hard stop and change mindsets. A line of dialog isn’t coming out right in the moment and we have to change it on the fly, craft comes out, works its magic and then retreats in the favor of a work mindset because the work mindset understands we’re on the clock better than craft does. Understanding the relationship between work and craft is a learned thing and through the experience of the film I feel I expanded my knowledge of them a great deal.