How a minimalist 90-second documentary won a competition

When filmmaker Daniel Simpkins was loaned some camera equipment for a few days, he had no idea he would use it to make an award-winning film. Yet a few months later, he walked away with the Grand Prize in Canon's new UK short film competition, Stories in Motion.

"I was amazed to win it, because a lot of talented filmmakers had entered," says 26-year-old Daniel. "I thought it was a nice little film, but I never expected it to win anything."

Daniel's film Farm Life is a beautifully-made documentary – just 90 seconds long – about a young farmer named Jeff. Thoughtful, understated and shot in a letterbox format, it consists of still and carefully-composed shots, with only Jeff's voiceover and ambient sounds from the farm on the soundtrack. The inspiration to make it came from Daniel's own family background.

Born and raised in southwest England, he is very familiar with rural life and Jeff is actually Daniel's cousin. "If you grow up in the country, it never leaves you," he says. Interested in film and media since his teens, Daniel went on to study filmmaking at Falmouth University where his passion for documentaries was born. "I became fascinated by making them, and realised the real world is as interesting as fiction," he adds.

After graduating, Daniel worked briefly as a film production runner before starting his current job as a technician for a camera rental company. His employer encourages him to borrow cameras and develop equipment expertise by doing his own filmmaking, which is how Farm Life came into being.

"I was at a down point creatively and had lost confidence, because a lot of the films I had made were never completed or I wasn't happy with them," says Daniel. "I'm a bit of a perfectionist and if I'm not satisfied with something, I don't show it to anyone because I always want it to be better."

When his boss said there was some equipment that needed testing, Daniel had the idea of asking his cousin whether he could film with him, just as an experiment. "I thought it would make an interesting subject, and I'd also get to hang out in the country again," he continues. "It was a very comfortable situation with a location and a person I knew well, so I took that opportunity and ran with it."

Daniel had seen Canon's Stories in Motion competition advertised and decided to enter after being encouraged by his friends. They were right; the judges loved Farm Life and chose it as both the winner of the documentary category and the overall winner from a huge number of entries.

He was presented with his award at a special event at London's Everyman Theatre. "Winning the competition gave me a lot of confidence that I could make films of high quality and the reassurance that I was heading in the right direction," says Daniel. "It has definitely pushed me to make more of my own films."

Daniel's prize was a Canon EOS C70 and a Canon RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS USM lens, which he has been using to make a new documentary based in Cornwall, UK. The county was home to a thriving tin mining industry until the 1990s and Daniel's film follows the members of the Carbis Bay Crew, a group of hobbyist cavers and divers, as they explore the lost mines of Cornwall.

"Each member of the crew is a real character," says Daniel. "It can be quite a dangerous hobby to have, but they've each got their reason to go down the mines. Sometimes it's for the historical element, or the adrenaline rush, or just to have a community of like-minded people to meet up with every weekend. So I've been going underground and filming them at work."

Although Daniel would ultimately like to shoot fiction, he is planning to continue with documentaries for the foreseeable future. "With documentaries, you're meeting people you'd never meet and hearing different opinions and different ways of thinking and it really opens your mind up a bit more," he says. "When you're with your friends and family you tend to see the world in a certain way. With documentaries you push yourself to go and meet other people and interact with them, and I really enjoy hearing their opinions and learning about different ways of life."

When asked what tips he can offer other young filmmakers who want to pursue their own projects, Daniel says: "A lot of young filmmakers fall into the trap of becoming too ambitious about what they want to do, or their projects grow too big to complete. But I think if you look at what you already have around you, there's probably a film waiting to be made.

"The one thing I've taken away from the whole experience is not to be afraid of making a film by yourself. You don't have to wait for other people to start the ball rolling. In my case I got a lot of satisfaction from directing, shooting and producing the film myself. It has really motivated me, because I've proved to myself that I can do it."