Raising kids and crops

Serving as director, cinematographer, writer, and editor on his new short, Labor & Love, Mark Bone has delivered  a meditative, beautifully shot portrait of four children growing up on a family farm.

Bone was one of a few directors in the world selected by Nikon to test and shoot using the new Nikon ZR. With only a single camera assist, Bone maximised the ZR’s capabilities to craft a film of great intimacy and cinematic scope.

The short follows a single day in the life of four children on the Snare Family Farm, Wisconsin. Over images of work, play, and discovery, viewers hear the words of Dr. Daniel Amen, whose parenting philosophy has inspired Bone: “If you do too much for your kids, you build your self-esteem by stealing theirs… You want kids to make mistakes, so they learn agency. Because character is built from struggle.”

The director commented: “I recently got married, and it’s had me thinking a lot about how I’d want to raise a child one day. On a recent trip to visit some friends on their farm, I saw firsthand how they raised four incredible kids by instilling confidence through hard work. Inspired by that, I shot this film using the Nikon ZR and a strict set of cinematography rules.”