ABOUT

The project was assigned to me through my manager - my role was to listen to our clients' stories and create a resource that they could then use to campaign their issue and raise awareness for it. This particular project sought to raise awareness for eating disorders, primarily anorexia.
My boss also passed on the message that he wanted me to incorporate dancing into the project, as the clients are both dancers and he wanted to merge the two concepts.
With that in mind, I had a meeting over coffee with the clients and heard their stories about how they coped with having eat disorders, how it affected their lives and what they wish their friends and family would have noticed or done if they had picked up on the tell-tale signs of their issue.
At the end of the meeting, I suggested in creating a short film with no dialogue that used classical music to convey the struggle of living with an eating disorder and have the audience understand those very problems by getting them under the skin of someone living with the condition.
They loved the idea and so I researched a number of classical tracks that would best reflect the issue and I settled on 'Danse Macabre' - the 'Dance of the Dead'. I then developed the script based on the stories I was told by the clients and then asked a casting agent friend of mine if she knew anyone would is a ballerina and would be interested in working for free (something I hate asking of actors, but we're a charity - the budget is tight.) She found me an actress who was a trained dancer and was also hospitalised by an eating disorder herself just under a year ago - she was excited to be a part of the project and the role was cast.
I then contacted the college of the clients' and asked if they would be good enough to allow us to use their dance studio (again, for free) and they were happy to accommodate. Following on from that, I asked the clients if they had any friends who would be interested in portraying the extras - as the charity's funding relies heavily on target numbers, the more young people who sign up and get involved, the better. We secured them and that was everything in front of the camera taken care of.
Getting closer to the production day, with the script, treatment, budget, call sheet and risk assessment cleared by the management team, I got in touch with a contact of mine at ProCam to hire out the necessary equipment and lenses (I chose to go for a long and fast lens to help isolate the main character and get in deep with those gross food shots).
With only myself and one colleague, we drove out to Burnley (where the clients are based) on the production day and got the whole film shot in one day - starting at 10am and finishing at 6am. It was only myself and one other person that had to handle all bases, so it was a very tiring day but we were pleased with what we achieved.
The film was edited the following week and has done well views-wise (could be better, in my opinion but I'm not in the comms department, unfortunately).
All of this was accomplished within four weeks.