Please provide a brief description of the work or organization featured in your film:
CRADLE White eye detector and The Global Health Institute
Dana Farber/ Boston Children’s
The CRADLE app featured in this film helps parents detect the appearance of white eye in pictures of their children, as white eye can be a symptom of multiple serious eye diseases such as the cancer, retinoblastoma. As part of their work treating children with cancer, Dr. Carlos Rodriguez Galindo of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and The Global Health Initiative at Dana Farber/ Boston Children’s is working on a research project to investigate if the CRADLE app is as effective as the traditional method of detection, the ophthalmoscope. If it is proven to be as effective this would allow more parents and physicians worldwide to have access to this detection tool.
What motivated you to make this film?
We were in production for a different film on pediatric cancer and in the process of producing that film we learned about the CRADLE app that was being used in a research project run by Dr. Carlos Rodriguez Galindo. We were amazed at how this technology could help diagnosis children and how it was being tested in rural communities, we wanted to see it in action and share the information about the app and wanted to do so with a film.
What do you want audiences to take away from your film?
That you can use technology to innovate ways for more people to have access to healthcare. That painful personal experience like Bryan Shaw’s can be a powerful catalyst towards action and innovation.
Please list key points that should be covered in a post-screening discussion:
How can technology and Innovations in Healthcare be made more accessible globally.
What opportunities are available for those interested in getting further involved?
Depending on how people want to get involved you can contact us and we can put you in touch with the various people, organizations and researchers we worked with while making the film.
Please provide any additional resources (websites, links to additional videos, forms, articles, etc.):
http://howilivewithcancer.com/
http://www.danafarberbostonchildrens.org/why-choose-us/global-health.aspx
https://www.stjude.org/
http://cs.baylor.edu/~hamerly/leuko/
http://www.agapeinaction.org/
Is there a particular documentary film or filmmaker that had a major influence on your career?
Sherry Jones of Washington Media Associates
Please tell us what camera(s) you shot with primarily – and any other special equipment that you used and why you used it.
SONY FS-7
Please share a personal story about your experience making this film.
We drove for about 11 hours from Guatemala City into the rural mountainous town where the detection was taking place. We were going into the clinic to test the app with doctors from a local Guatemalan community group Ágape en Acción. These doctors are amazing – they are on the road everyday bringing healthcare to rural communities in Guatemala. Many of the people walk miles to the school house where the doctors set up treatment for the day. It was an insight into how far many people in the world must travel in order to have basic medical services.
Please tell us about any special styles or techniques that you used during the production of your film to help tell your story.
Verite style coverage allowed us to follow the action as it unfolded.
How did your story evolve from day one, to the very last day in post? Is your story what you thought it would be?
We didn’t think that we would be following this app as its own story but once we saw the screenings in action we wanted to follow the story of the CRADLE app.
Please describe the most rewarding experience you had while making this film.
While we were making this film we connected with Bryan Shaw the developer of the CRADLE app – hearing about how he developed this app and the plans he has to integrate it.
What advice can you give to other impact filmmakers?
Partnerships are important. We’ve found that if you want to create work that has an impact working with the NGOs and organizations that are already doing work in that arena partnering with them to tell and distribute your story amplifies the impact tremendously.
What’s your favorite part about the filmmaking process and why?
Getting to dive into the lives and experiences of different people and creating films that humanize those different lives and points of view.
What’s the one item you always take with you when working out in the field and why?
Extra batteries – you never want to have to stop rolling when an unexpected story comes your way.
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