When Covid-19 hit in March 2020, the funding Macmillan received was dealt a catastrophic blow. 98% of their income comes from public donations.

In addition, it soon became apparent cancer was becoming the “Forgotten C” and Macmillan’s services were more vital than ever. Because of this disruption, as many as 50,000 people in the UK are missing a cancer diagnosis.

This entry deals with the film, which is an ideal medium for the type of emotional storytelling we wanted to portray. With raw truth, we see Macmillan nurses literally doing ‘Whatever it takes’. We see their tough, tenacious side and their more well-known caring qualities. Having seen their unflinching grit, skill, ingenuity, humour and tenderness, we’re left with a better understanding of the important work they do.

Not applicable. Cancer and Covid-19 are unfortunately universal.

The approach to the cinematography was to keep the characters central, witnessing the emotions, the reactions and trying to respectfully capture the intimate moments. It was key to us that the performance would always stay central and we enhanced this by shooting in the 1:33 aspect ratio. We wanted to focus in on the relationship between the patients and the nurses, carefully placing the camera and capturing their intimacies. In order to reflect the perspective of the nurses we mainly used short focal length lenses and placed the camera (and thus the audience) in between the characters. We used longer lenses for the moments when observing them and staying more afar. Similar to the lighting; our aim was to either enhance or reflect the emotional state of the characters and situations.