Bluebeam Blog: When you first set out to make the film, what was the ultimate goal or message you wanted to send, and did that change at all after you came to know the women more?

Lorien: I think when I started, I really saw the film as a very personal, intimate, first-person narrative. It felt like portraiture to me. What happened along the way is that I came to know this incredible history behind the tradeswomen movement, and the forces at play in shaping it. So that has become an important framework for the film in a way that I didn’t anticipate.

Bluebeam Blog: Outside of casting, what was your biggest challenge in making the film?

Lorien: The biggest trouble in the edit is finding the balance between light and dark. What I want to film to portray is how these women are really giving their all to be a part of something bigger than themselves, and the heartbreak of what they often face in doing so.

Bluebeam Blog: Did the stories you uncovered give you any ideas as to how the industry can address the labor shortage?

Lorien: The labor shortage is multi-factorial. And I do want to first say that many tradeswomen feel this is actually a “white male labor shortage” everyone is worried about, because they see for themselves how many skilled and ambitious tradeswomen, especially women of color, have trouble getting into the industry and advancing. I imagine the shortage could be solved pretty quickly if serious efforts were made to recruit and train non-traditional demographics. These are very desirable jobs for those demographics, who on average make far less than the average construction worker. However, there are obviously some much broader trends at work, too. At some point our culture started peddling the white-collar dream and the college degree. Kids today are exposed to so very little hands-on technical learning. Manual labor jobs are seen as a last resort. I’ve heard of guidance counselors literally discouraging their students from pursuing a trade. There’s just all of these layers of societal prejudice that have really steered young people away from the trades. So, those are all layers that revealed themselves to me through the making of the film, and it’s changed the way I’m telling the story.