World Mental Health Day Video

Many thanks to everyone who took part, especially for your inspirational words of wisdom.

We were offered 15 minutes on the BBC Big Screen to mark World Mental Health Day 2007 to be shown in a prime city centre location twice a day for a week, and then posted permanently on the BBC website.
We said yes before we knew what we were going to do, confident we could come up with something.

We thought about how to convey the diversity of what we do, and the diversity of Leeds.
Images of diversity, with “meaningful” captions were an early idea – a glorified PowerPoint presentation, with music in the background.

Initially we thought about giving service users cameras to take photos of “Their Leeds.”
In the end, we used copyright free images and recycled some photos we had taken ourselves for various other projects.

With more time we’d get service users to take some photos, and tie it in to work around identity and culture.
We could try and give the photos more of a Mental Health theme – emotions and feelings, rites of passage and life changing events.

We had asked some of our partners if they wished to help us with the filming. Sadly they could not do this without making a charge, and we did not have a budget.
When we knew we’d be making it ourselves we decided we’d choose a simple format of “talking heads” – with everyone being asked the same questions. This did not require great technical knowledge, and was quite simple to set up/storyboard/edit. All we would need to do is make sure the lighting was sufficient and the sound could be picked up.

Try and piggy back on an existing project, and inject a mental health message into that. This way, we might be able to involve other people in the actual making of the film.
Ensure more CDWs knew how to film, so it did not fall to one or two people.
 Make the film shorter, 10 minutes is too long to post on YouTube.

We wanted the input we had to be positive and to choose words and questions which focused on positive aspects of mental wellbeing (in response to our negative experience of speaking with communities about “mental ill health”, “illness” “disease” etc.).
We also wanted to make sure the stars of the show were people “involved” in mental health – as clients, practitioners etc. We wanted them to share their very different perspectives on things. But we did not want to say who was who.

Encourage participants/service users to write their own questions, use the planning of the film as a tool for discussion within existing groups and be more authentically participatory.

All CDWs promoted participation with the film within their own communities, but some were more enthusiastic than others. For example, no Chinese people were willing to be filmed – even if their faces were distorted or their appearances disguised.
We thought about people speaking in their mother tongues but were concerned about being able to subtitle the piece accurately. We were also concerned this may detract from the message of the piece, so in the end we decided it would be in English.

We got a digital video camera and a tripod and set up in a variety of locations.
We asked various day services we knew if we could film there, and booked sessions there where anyone could just turn up and say their thing.
Although we turned up “on spec” to some places; others knew we were going and publicised our presence in advance.
We chose sessions during the day and evenings, to allow maximum participation from as wide a group of people as possible.
We scheduled filming around other existing activities, to ensure a good turnout.

We designed our own consent form based on the principles of informed ongoing consent, ensuring that all participants knew what was happening and why.
We produced information sheets that went along with the consent forms, so people could put the filming into context.
We ensured all participants were thanked personally, and received a copy of the DVD.
 We obtained a license for the music from an online music provider.

We used an ordinary Hard Disk Camcorder, with tripod.
A laptop (using Windows XP, Windows MovieMaker software).
When we finished it, we uploaded it to www.veoh.com as they have unlimited online storage for films.

We made the film in 2 weeks flat. We did this with no prior film making knowledge. Video is a very arresting format to use; and technology is so cheap that professional effects are not hard to achieve for next to no budget.
We have teamed up with local BBC staff, to offer some training in simple video making for staff and our partners to learn alongside one another.
We are supporting various partners to make some films documenting their own experiences (racist bullying of people with a learning disability, reminiscence work with older BME people) for use in GP surgeries, tapping into local Healthy Living Grant funding to buy the equipment (£750 buys you everything you need) and developing peer-to-peer communication on health.