This film is a great example of a Giggle project that we’ve taken right from conception to pitch to production.
NHS Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospital wanted to make a touching and powerful, yet not sentimental film to highlight the importance of personalised and individual patient care. It was also important to recognise the valuable work and daily challenges undertaken by the staff at Wexham hospital, often under extremely difficult circumstances.
Heatherwood and Wexham wanted their staff to come away from the film feeling valued, whilst reassuring patients and their relatives that the hospital staff are professionals and will always provide the best care possible.
Our fundamental approach to this project was to individualise patients by creating back stories for those featured in the film. We began by building a picture of the environment itself, a typical busy hospital – a crossroads where people from different backgrounds and cultures meet under difficult circumstance.
We shot a series of vignettes capturing hospital life; the staff, doctors, nurses, receptionists, porters, etc – and of course the patients and their relatives. Amongst the patients we focus on some individual cases, knowing only the basic information about their condition, which we displayed graphically on screen. We show each patient being attended to by staff members and gradually reveal more about each individual; their name, their background circumstances and an insight into their lives.
Cut away shots were used throughout the film to continually build a bigger picture of the hospital and the constant flow of patients passing through it’s doors. Once our stories resolved we ended on a sequence of portraits of real staff members, reinforcing the authenticity of the message.
To create a film that is both engaging and powerful, with a sense of intimacy and drama while avoiding sentimentality, we went for a highly stylised photographic look using prime stills lenses. Through careful composition we captured the everyday reality of a working hospital, whilst achieving high production values and authenticity. Filming on location at Wexham Park hospital allowed us to candidly capture real people to establish our environment. We employed professional actors to tell the story narrative.
For the most part we used available light to keep the look as natural as possible, and to cause as little disruption as possible for the hospital itself.
We used the following shooting techniques:
– Close ups: for intimacy and emotion, a very striking and engaging technique. – Shallow depth of field: to focus the viewer’s attention on the subject and mask background. (This was especially useful when filming in uncontrolled environments.) – Portraits: these personalised the staff and endorsed the sincerity of our message. – Slow motion: to add grace and elegance to movement and enhance emotion. – Time lapse: used selectively to illustrate the passing of time and add visual interest.
We provided the client with the film in full HD, and in a selection of formats so that it could be successfully incorporated into keynotes and presentations, as well as optimising it for upload to Vimeo, Youtube and the hospital’s intranet.
