Software engineer turned documentary filmmaker.
I’m Tom Burton. I spent six years as a software engineer before moving into filmmaking. I still code. From my studio in Berlin, I make documentary films about founders and the companies building frontier technology.
Documentaries, mostly.
Mini-docs that take viewers inside the work. Vision films that articulate why a company exists. Customer stories filmed where the technology actually meets the world. Launch films and short-form cuts when they’re useful. The longer form is the hero.
Most projects run four to eight weeks from first call to final cut. I shoot, direct, and edit personally. For larger productions I bring in a small, trusted crew.
Quiet, embedded, accurate.
I spend time with the team before I bring a camera in. I want to understand the product, the people, and what they’re actually trying to build, not what the press page says they’re building. The films are better for it.
No stock footage. No scripts read off a teleprompter. The tone is quiet, the edit is restrained, the aim is for the work to feel like the thing it’s about. The software background shows up in the access: I can sit in an engineering review, read a paper, and translate technical detail into film without losing accuracy or the feeling of what it took to get there.
Frontier technology companies.
Early-stage to established teams working in robotics, AI, deep tech, and the adjacent fields. Recent work includes Physical Intelligence on the π0.7 release, with collaborations across Stanford and Halcyon.
If you’re building something real and want it documented in a way that holds up, get in touch.