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Videocraft assists Week without Words Campaign for St Lucy's School

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Videocraft
Published on
August 4, 2014 at 10:35:26 PM PDT August 4, 2014 at 10:35:26 PM PDTth, August 4, 2014 at 10:35:26 PM PDT
Due to a family connection at Videocraft Sydney we were asked to help produce a short video to help promote an important fundraising initiative for St Lucy’s School “Week Without Words”. St Lucy's is a Catholic primary school for children with disabilities. St Lucy’s helps each child individually to unlock their unique potential and encourage them to become independent adults. St Lucy’s School combines the latest therapies with academic programs and a focus on the creative arts. Week Without Words raises much needed funds to give St Lucy’s children the tools they need to communicate. Around 95% of the students have a communication disability for reasons like cerebral palsy, developmental dyspraxia and intellectual impairment. Week Without Words raises money for speech therapy and tools like iPads and communication apps that can “speak” for them. Week Without Words is also an awareness campaign designed to spread understanding about the challenge of verbal disabilities. Videocraft asked some industry friends and without hesitation David Lewis ACS and Ryan Somerfield came on board to shoot the spot. And Jacqueline Cosgrove from Bardic Studios agreed to come on board to edit the piece and came out on set and was a huge help in managing the shot schedule and making sure we had as many options available as possible. Videocraft put together two Sony PMW200 camera kits and a small Kino lighting kit. We had to capture scenes in around the school both interior and exterior from the morning assembly to news time in the classroom and plenty of fun out in the playground. We opted for the PMW200 camera kits to be less intrusive in potentially sensitive situations and also to enable David and Ryan to move easily and quickly around the school and setup quickly from room to room and move from tripod to handheld operating without any fuss. David Lewis ACS commented on the cameras “It was the first time I had the opportunity to shoot with the Sony PMW200 camera, the ability to setup the two cameras on basically auto settings so we could work on obtaining as much coverage and options for the editor was great. The results from such a compact camera were great and the zoom lens gave us enough range to capture different framing options for the editor to help tell the story of the children at St Lucy’s and their communication challenges.” We were not on site for very long before our small crew became very interesting in the playground with future Directors and Executive Producers who were keen to contribute and especially during our turn in the library lesson where the cameras were turned on us by the students. This made for a truly rewarding day. Jacqueline from Bardic Studios commented about the experience "It was an enormous privilege to be part of the team for the Week Without Words project for St Lucy’s. David and Ryan captured the ethos of the school beautifully and it was a wonderful experience to work with their footage and relive the experiences of the shoot. We saw children facing huge challenges with great courage and teachers supporting them with infinite patience. Tiny achievements are celebrated at St Lucy’s, where it takes a well coordinated team to support children to take steps that I just assume my granddaughters will achieve as a part of growing up. As a filmmaker I have the good luck to be able to communicate freely and earn my living doing so. Most children at St Lucy’s have great difficulty communicating but they clearly have so much to say. Bardic Studio is thrilled to be part of Week Without Words and we encourage everyone in the film industry to participate to give these great kids the support they deserve." Here is some of the behind the scenes footage captured by our editor Jacqueline who cut together a great reel to highlight how much fun the crew had working out as St Lucy’s.   Here’s the final piece… please check it out and share with your mates. Do you know people who would pay for you to be silent for a day or even an hour - want to get involved? .By standing in the students' shoes and 'going silent' you could also help us share their stories and raise the much needed funds to help provide more communication tools needed at St Lucy’s. Become an Everyday Hero for St Lucy’s - click here to join up!