Second Chance Campaign
GenesisCare
Second Chance Campaign
GenesisCare
The client
GenesisCare UK
GenesisCare is the UK's leading independent specialist cancer care provider. They’re dedicated to giving patients access to world-class, highly effective, personalised treatments. They have treatment centres located all over the UK and we regularly work with the team to create patient stories, animations and awareness campaign videos to reach and educate their audience.
The brief
Campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness Month
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and GenesisCare wanted to create a campaign to raise awareness of where in the body secondary cancer is most likely to strike and the symptoms to look out for. This involved partnering with TV personality, singer and entrepreneur Brenda Edwards and capturing interviews with Natalie and Anna who were happy to share their story. The symptoms of secondary breast cancer are not widely known with 72% of breast cancer survivors not knowing where in the body secondary breast cancer is likely to appear, so it’s important that someone with a voice, such as Brenda, can talk about it and potentially save lives.
Filming
Capturing interviews and behind the scenes
The filming for the project took place at a film studio in Wimbledon because of its white infinity space. Alongside our film crew, a photographer was there to capture photographs of Brenda Edwards and Natalie and Anna who are primary breast cancer survivors. The aim of the pictures was to demonstrate the areas of your body where secondary breast cancer symptoms can appear. The shoot was modest and low-key, and the white infinity space allowed the focus to stay on Brenda and specific areas of the body. We filmed behind-the-scenes of the photoshoot as well as an interview with Brenda about her cancer experience followed by a conversation between Brenda and two other women that had been diagnosed with secondary breast cancer.
The importance of trust
Creating a safe environment
It was essential that our production team created a safe space for all the women involved in the GenesisCare campaign so they could be their authentic selves. We were asking them to be vulnerable and share personal stories, therefore they needed to trust our team and feel relaxed. It’s important for us on any shoot to make our subjects feel at ease as this will be portrayed through the content and the final film that could help so many women.
Editing
A hard-hitting subject
We’re aware that everyone has been affected in some way by cancer so we always begin a GenesisCare edit with a discussion about who in the team is comfortable editing a project such as this. Additionally to telling the right story (and we always begin by piecing together the narrative), we were very mindful to present this with a slower and delicate pace. We were including the photography of Brenda, Natalie, and Anna, and so we cut our b-roll in slow-motion and stayed on some clips longer than ordinarily. By eliminating some senses, it encourages the audience to focus more on particular visuals, and this was achieved by mostly making our b-roll black and white.
The result
A national campaign
We delivered a collection of videos that all supported the same messaging but each told a slightly different story. From a longer hero film to social media shorts, we focused on Brenda’s story and conversations with Brenda, Natalie and Anna. We also interviewed Abigail, the photographer, who is a breast cancer survivor herself. The campaign has been featured across social media platforms, the GenesisCare website and picked up by various news outlets and publications.
