World IBD Day Video 2016 - The making

On May 19 2016 we launched an awareness video for World IBD Day. The video went viral. So far it's had over 40,000 views, reached more than 125,000 people and had 1,500 shares just on Facebook - pretty good considering it was our first attempt at making a video!

Emily and I had been talking for some time about making an awareness video but we just couldn't decide what it should look like. We both had our own ideas which over several weeks chopped and changed until it eventually morphed into an idea similar to the shape the final video took.

The next challenge was to enrol a list of people who would be willing to talk about their IBD on camera - poo and all! But we were pleasantly surprised at the number of people who were willing to take part and we ended up having to cut some people (really sorry!). That's the great thing about the IBD community - everyone wants the same thing - to improve awareness.

The filming took me around the country - Leicester, Birmingham, Basingstoke, London to name just a few places. We wanted to make sure that it was representative of a range of different people, not just those we have easy access to down here in Brighton. It was truly a privilege to meet so many amazing people and listen to the incredible strength and courage they all have in facing their IBD. I learnt a lot and have hopefully made some new friends!

The footage came to hours and hours of interviews. As Emily wasn't able to accompany to most of the interviews (due to child care issues!) she had to sit and watch every piece of it when it had been done. She marked up pieces she felt would fit into the concept we had come up with. We knew that we wanted to tell a story of what it's typically like to live with IBD but we didn't want really know what that story was until this stage had been completed.

Then came hours and hours (and some very late nights) editing and re-editing all the footage to get it to fit with the music, to cut the film as short as possible (I think at one point the video was 12 minutes long). We had to be brutal and there were so many great pieces that we had to leave out. We hope to edit some more videos from the interviews to publish on IBDrelief in the future.

Once the video was ready the nerves really kicked in - we were convinced it would be a flop. Who would really be interested in our littls low budget film (ie, no budget - we paid for it all out of our own pockets)?

Turns out quite a few people liked it!

World IBD Day 2016