Step into the Light - Bringing the Lives and Stories of NHS Workers to Life

Ben is Just R’s Video Lead, responsible for the in-house production team and bringing to life our clients campaigns with engaging video and photography.

nhs video storytelling

Ben has worked on a wide variety of film and video projects, including adverts for Channel 4 and ITV along with winning a Royal Television Society award for his short documentary film ‘Leith’. He is a passionate storyteller with a deep love of films, music, literature and art which he enjoys bringing to his work.

nhs video

On my first step into the ICU at Southampton Hospital, it was clear this was a different ball game. Guided into the ward by the sister, my silence must’ve given the game away that I wasn’t used to filming in a location that was a functioning hospital. Let alone the area that holds the sickest patients in the building, all being kept alive by nurses working their way through the spaghetti of wires lying around the beds to keep the patients alive.

Up to this point, my career in videography had led me down various routes making a wide range of video material – from TV adverts to documentaries, animations to social media content; I felt I had become adept at turning anything and everything into some form of video whilst always sticking to what I truly love: telling a good old fashioned story. This however concerned real people with real lives and it was time to step up to the plate and lend my passion for narrative to a proper cause: attracting people to work in healthcare.

Once that initial shock at Southampton hospital had vanished, it was like a new world had opened up to me. Across our country there are nurses, doctors, practitioners, housekeepers and support workers with a whole host of stories from their jobs. All with their own thoughts, feelings and a tale to tell about what they do, how they do it and why.

The excitement of filming in a functioning hospital or sitting down with a healthcare veteran to discuss their career with them never gets old. We get to cut through all the red tape the NHS is wrapped up in and dig down to the essence of why these people choose to do what they do in the hope that this will inspire others to pick a career in healthcare. Whether it’s capturing the warmth that emanates from a midwife as she holds a newborn baby or the kinetic energy of an emergency department nurse, it’s these moments and characteristics that bring to life what the job really means to those who do it and can mean to those who want to.

nhs photography

These are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Absolutely humble in their ways, no matter what the job has thrown at them they’ve stuck it out because deep down in their hearts they love what they do. We’re on a mission to bring their passion and stories to life. To capture it in a short film or in a photograph and let it capture the hearts and minds of those considering a role in healthcare and make them shout: “that is what I want to do!”.

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