Some stories are created.
OTHERS HAVE BEEN WAITING YEARS TO BE TOLD.
SegnaStudio has begun production on The Untold Story, a new feature-length documentary following the life of Andrew Connor, founder of Alpha Boxing Gym in Leadgate, County Durham.
What began as a conversation has quickly developed into one of the most ambitious storytelling projects we have undertaken.
Set against the backdrop of Leadgate, Consett and the wider North East of England, the documentary will explore Andrew's life from his earliest childhood memories through the experiences, relationships, hardships and turning points that ultimately shaped the man he is today.
But this is not simply a film about boxing.
It is a film about what happens before the gloves ever go on.
Behind the Man. Behind the Gym. Behind the Story.
For many people locally, Andrew is known through Alpha Boxing.
The gym represents the person people see today.
The Untold Story asks a different question: how did he get there?
Over the course of a planned 60–90 minute documentary, we will gradually travel backwards through Andrew's life before working our way towards the present day.
Some parts of that story exist through memory.
Others survive through photographs, medical records, documents and the recollections of people who were there.
And some have rarely been spoken about at all.
Our aim is not to sensationalise those experiences.
It is to document them.
Honestly.
Chapter One: Where It Began
Production is now moving into the first major section of the documentary.
Chapter One takes us back to Andrew's earliest years.
Through a combination of an intimate present-day interview, genuine records, archive material and carefully constructed cinematic dramatisation, we will begin exploring the world Andrew remembers as a young child.
Rather than attempting to literally recreate every event, the dramatised sequences will focus on fragments of memory.
A staircase.
A television flickering in a dark living room.
Children playing outside.
The sound of adults returning home.
A quiet Sunday evening.
A school roof.
A bin bag transformed by a child's imagination into a parachute.
Small moments which, individually, may appear insignificant.
Together, they begin to explain a life.
Documentary Filmmaking in County Durham
There is something particularly important to us about producing this film here in the North East.
County Durham is full of stories that rarely make it beyond the communities in which they happened.
Former mining villages, working-class families, boxing gyms, social clubs, businesses and ordinary people carry decades of history between them.
They may never have considered themselves documentary subjects.
Often, those are exactly the stories worth preserving.
For SegnaStudio, The Untold Story represents a move deeper into long-form documentary production and cinematic storytelling in County Durham and across the North East of England.
Our approach combines documentary interviews with cinematic photography, location sound, archive research, observational filming and carefully produced dramatic sequences.
The intention is not to make reality look artificial.
It is to use filmmaking to help an audience feel the reality behind the words.
Building the Documentary in Public
The finished film will take time.
We believe that is part of what makes this project interesting.
Rather than disappearing for months and returning with a completed documentary, we will be allowing audiences to follow parts of the filmmaking process as it develops.
Alongside the main documentary, we will be producing supporting podcasts, production diaries, behind-the-scenes films and shorter pieces exploring the people and conversations surrounding the project.
The audience that eventually watches the finished film will therefore have the opportunity to experience part of the journey that created it.
The response to our first official trailer has already given the entire collaborative team enormous confidence in what this project could become.
Now the real production begins.
More Than a Boxing Documentary
Boxing will inevitably form part of Andrew Connor's story.
But defining this simply as a boxing documentary would miss the point.
At its heart, this is a human story.
It is about childhood.
Family.
Fear.
Violence.
Belonging.
Identity.
Choices.
Consequences.
Community.
And ultimately, what one person does with everything that happened before.
There will be moments of darkness.
There will also be humour, friendship, warmth and the kind of memories that only make sense when someone sits down years later and begins joining the pieces together.
That contrast is where we believe the real film exists.
The Untold Story Begins
Over the coming months, cameras will move between Alpha Boxing, locations across Leadgate and County Durham, interview spaces and carefully selected environments used to reconstruct fragments of Andrew's past.
Every interview, photograph, document and piece of footage will add another part to the picture.
We don't yet know precisely what the final 60–90 minutes will contain.
That is the nature of documentary filmmaking.
You begin with the story you think you know.
Then you start asking questions.
And sometimes something much bigger appears.
The trailer was the introduction.
Now we begin telling the story.
THE UNTOLD STORY
An original SegnaStudio documentary currently in production in County Durham, North East England.
If you have a personal, community or organisational story that deserves more than a conventional promotional video, SegnaStudio produces cinematic documentary and story-led video content across County Durham, Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, Northumberland and the wider North East.
Have a story worth telling? Get in touch with SegnaStudio.
