“I am an Assistant Producer for BBC Sport’s interactive team – basically that means I make live and on-demand video content for the BBC Sport website and Red Button.
I love my job – it involves watching sport all day, so who wouldn’t?! – but I rarely get the opportunity to go out and about on shoots and I wanted to keep my filming skills up to date.
So volunteering to make a film for the Seashell Trust had two main benefits for me – the chance to develop my shooting, producing and editing skills, and also an opportunity to help out a local charity.
The Cheshire-based Seashell Trust is dedicated to providing a creative, happy and secure environment for children and adults with complex and severe learning disabilities which include little or no language abilities.
My brief was to create a short film showcasing how work placements for the Trust’s students can be beneficial to all – building the students’ self-confidence and sociability, while simultaneously helping the businesses develop their commitments to corporate and social responsibility.
After meeting with Wendy Bray, the Trust’s Corporate & Events Fundraiser, to clarify the brief, I planned to create an uplifting and non-patronising video that spoke to both the heads and hearts of local business owners and eased some of the fears that I had personally upon arrival at the trust about working with the profoundly disabled.
As a storyteller it’s essential to use genuine voices in order to be authentic, but the students of the Seashell Trust are among the most disadvantaged people in the country. Many are mute, or unable to communicate their feelings, and most are unable to communicate through anything other than sign language.
So I decided to tell the students’ stories through the eyes of those closest to them – the carers that work with them every day, and the staff at the businesses that offer work placements. My plan was to blend their voices with those representing the Trust and travel with two students – Georgia and Robert – on their respective work placements.
I asked for two days’ time so I could get the widest variety possible of contributors into the piece. Luckily the weather was good, so I was able to film interviews in the garden at the Trust, which helped to give the film a friendlier feel.
My time working at Seashell was genuinely inspirational – the courage the students show in the face of such adversity and the staff’s love for their jobs was infectious. By the time it came to editing the film I was genuinely nervous about being able to deliver something I felt would fairly represent and showcase the incredible work they do. Luckily though, they loved it.
Since making the piece I’ve been able to work on a couple more films at work and feel more confident about single-camera directing. Most importantly though, it reminded me just how lucky I am to be doing such a privileged job and how important it is to be inclusive of some of the most vulnerable people in society.”
See the Seashell Trust film here
*BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility connects the BBC directly with its audiences, particularly those identified as harder to reach. The Seashell Trust applied to the department’s Community Doorway programme, which gives BBC staff an opportunity to work with various charities and community groups.
Applications are particularly welcome from organisations based in the neighbourhoods where a large number of our staff work - namely Salford, Greater Manchester and the two London boroughs of Hammersmith & Fulham and Westminster - and those that work with 16-24 year olds and/or groups that are considered to be disadvantaged or socially excluded.
