One of our Exceptional Editors, Brian Kane, wrote this piece to give us a birds-eye view into life at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Saint Francis and what goes on between the moment an idea is conceived and the final product is approved. As you read, we hope you can picture what took place as this documentary came to life.
More babies. With every iteration of a recent video promoting the new Henry Zarrow Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Saint Francis Hospital, we could always expect to see one note among all the feedback: “More babies.”
There’s no arguing with a note like that because babies are like bacon. More is always better. Luckily, there was plenty of baby footage to go around. After two camera crews spent two days filming the real world of the NICU reality TV-style, there was plenty of doctor footage, nurse footage, parent footage, and volunteer footage, but most importantly there was plenty of baby footage.
The power of that footage comes from the fact that well-composed shots of newborns, particularly those in the NICU, will invariably illicit two responses. The first is “aww.” The second response, which hopefully occurs when the viewer sees a tiny miracle quietly fighting for life, is awe.
The effectiveness of that footage could have been easily predicted from the start of the project. What did wind up surprising all of us was the general stillness of the NICU. The cameras weren’t capturing a two-day episode of ER with doctors, nurses, and equipment flying through the halls. As we discovered, the world of the NICU is one of quiet patience as newborns slowly develop. The drama we expected to witness simply did not exist.
So we adjusted our approach. Instead of manufacturing suspense where there was none, we were true to the footage. Visually, the babies remained the stars. But by crafting the interviews to allow the parents to tell their stories, which they did very generously, we conveyed the steadfast love and dedication that pulse through the unit. And we showed that while drama can be great to watch, there is no substitute for a well-told intimate story.
