Years ago I saw two short documentaries about how high end traditional sumi-e ink and sumi-e brushes are made and I haven't been able to get them out of my head. If memory serves, it looked like they were made in the 80's and they were unreal the labor that was put into making a stick of ink. First there's a little house with hundreds and hundreds of tiny clay oil lamps lining the walls. The lids of each lamp have to be rotated 90 degrees every 15 minutes. After an hour, a tiny bit of soot is brushed out of each lid into a cup. Then, after dozens other labor incredibly intensive steps of mixing, kneeding, drying, etc, you have a stick of black ink. The brush video was even crazier.

Anyway, if anyone knows where I could find these documentaries or something like it, I'd really like to watch them again.

Thanks

Here's a "The Making" episode on brushes. It's an awful lot of work...
https://youtu.be/l1symJpCY3Y?list=PLOEDI...7BYJugGn1j

I didn't check for the ink sticks, but they might have an episode on that too (they have over 300 now). Interesting stuff.

Thank you! That's not the same documentary, but very similar. I distinctly remember them combing and raking over the hairs with a knife blade to remove and backwards hairs for what seemed like forever. But the rest of the show seems like what I remember. It looks like a great series! Thanks for searching!