The Power of Sharing Your Story

"There is something about someone with CF, they have a determination that is off the scale!"

Mar 20, 2021

Hello friends,

As I write this update, it is St. Patrick’s Day and with that comes a humbling reminder that it is now exactly 365 days since I began Shielding. But with one vaccine already providing some level of protection against Covid-19 and the second dose just around the corner (next week), things are looking far more optimistic after a year of uncertainty and what somehow felt like the fastest-slowest year I have ever experienced.

I hope you find some value in today’s piece as I cover a few updates from the last month, my process for creating meaningful and sharable CF-related content and The Power of Sharing Your Story.

Enjoy.

(P.S. I’ll also include some useful tools for creating great content! I’ll list them at the bottom!)

FeBREWary

Towards the end of January, I received a call from Serena Wilson, Community Development and Fundraising Manager for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. Serena excitedly spoke about their upcoming fundraising campaign, and whilst being very complimentary about the videos I created during 2020 for the Trust, namely ‘The Wolf of CF Week’, she wondered if I’d be interested in creating something new for FeBREWary.

When I created ‘The wolf of CF Week’, I had no idea how the community would feel about it, after all, at this time Trikafta was still just a dream for most and whilst I was desperate to share the improvements I was experiencing, I was completely aware of how unfair the access programme may have felt for those still waiting.

Upfront, I think I assumed that a few close friends and family would enjoy the video, perhaps share a few comments and offer a thumbs up, before it quickly disappeared into the Facebook feed abyss. But to my surprise it took on a life of its own and amassed over 20k views on my social channels in a matter of hours, reaching as far as Canada and New Zealand as I received comments from CFers from all around the world. That video single-handedly introduced me to hundreds of mums, dads, brothers and sisters, aunties, uncles and individuals each with an emotional attachment to CF, many of whom I now consider friends. I’m immensely proud of it and it holds a very special place in my heart, lungs… and portfolio.

The Wolf of CF Week was an idea that came to me as I watched the UK tv premiere of the original Scorsese film in early 2020. When an actor addresses the audience directly through the lens within a film it’s called ‘breaking the fourth wall’ and it’s a deliberate choice by the filmmaking team. A particularly memorable example is the film ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’, not only is the movie a classic, but one of the main reasons for its popularity is exactly that - Ferris (Matthew Broderick) talking directly to the audience through the lens, frequently and at length.

Watching Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) look me in the eye whilst listing his cocktail of “medications” immediately made me smile whilst thinking of my own CF regime. At that moment, I rewound the TV to listen again whilst rewriting the monologue with a CF twist in my iPhone notes app.

Within 10 minutes the script for The Wolf of CF Week was written, together with a rough shot list ready to start shooting clips the following week with my Sony A7sii camera. I often find that when an idea appears in mind, there is a very short space of time to take action before you either forget, convince yourself that it’s no good, or come up with some other excuse that ultimately stifles creativity, and this basic process of ‘act immediately’ seems to serve me far better than any amount of procrastination ever could.

If you haven’t seen it, I have recently added the short film to a new YouTube Channel, so I’ll drop a link below.

Back to FeBREWary. When asked if I’d create something for the campaign, I was given a quick overview of the concept for FeBREWary:

FeBREWary is a new digital fundraising campaign for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. It is an opportunity to raise funds from a traditional tea and cake bake fundraising activity, designed to offer easy adaptation to a virtual event; allowing for changing Covid-19 restrictions on gatherings and social interactions in all four nations and counties.

I remember Serena following this with “it doesn’t necessarily have to be anything fancy or that requires lots of time, just a selfie video or something would be okay”, but I thought, if it’s worth doing it’s worth doing right, or in other words, it’s worth throwing myself into the concept and being as creative as possible. Ever inspired by Ferris and Jordan, an opening monologue started to appear in mind against the backdrop of a title: ‘The Great British Brew’.

How to Create Meaningful and Sharable CF Content

I’m not saying I have the answers but I do have an approach, so I thought why not share it. Here are some basic principles I tried to adhere to when creating ‘The Great British Brew’:

Root FeBREWary in modern British tea-drinking culture

The history of tea in Britain
The importance of a cup of tea in our culture
The fact that having a cup of tea is always step one in getting through any crisis

Acknowledge Covid-19 and highlight the benefits of an online solution

Demonstrate that this pandemic has brought the CF community closer than ever
Provide examples of how it’s still possible to raise money whilst in lockdown

Involve the community

Bring recognisable faces to the screen
Encourage participation in FeBREWary
Encourage shares across our network for maximum reach and impact

Make it fun

Share footage of how much fun an online FeBREWary catch up can be
Make fun of my own situation (in a light-hearted way)

And to break the production process down from idea to distribution, it looks something like this:

Gather inspiration

I mentioned the ‘breaking the fourth wall’ inspiration above, but I also love the narration style of Guy Ritchie’s famous films ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ and ‘Snatch’. I took inspiration from these in creating the script and in the delivery of it on camera (tone of voice etc.), as well as when choosing the music track too!

Conduct research and write the script

“The great british brew. One of life's little pleasures that's easy to take for granted, but without doubt brightens even the darkest of days…”

This line came to me immediately whilst researching tea drinking history and when it arrived in the UK. I grabbed a few facts online and when I came across the ‘Tea Council’ Twitter page the rest of the script wrote itself.

Search for music, record voice over

Whilst searching for music, I kept thinking: “could I hear this type of track on the Guy Ritchie films I love?” The chosen track definitely got the nod!

I use MusicBed.com for all my music choices, it’s a great way to search on either genre, mood or instrument type, and you can combine these for a more narrowed search. You can also create projects and add the music you like to a project to decide which to go for later:

The song I landed on is a track called ‘Fire to the Night’ by Native 51 and apart from having that Ritchie ‘vibe’ I was looking for, it just seemed to fit the script really well when I practised delivering it over the music.

I record all my audio with a few key tools:

Computer: 5k iMac
Software: Cubase Pro 10
Mic: Aston Origin (in a room with no echo!)
Audio interface (what the mic plugs into): NI Komplete Audio 2

In terms of processing my voice over (to make it sound, well, good!), I use the following approach:

EQ: I take out the low bass frequencies - this ensures the vocal isn’t clashing with the low bass frequencies of the song
Compressor: think of it as something that makes the loudest parts quieter and the quietest parts louder, for a more consistent level to ensure every word is heard
De-esser: This does exactly what it says on the tin, it reduces the harsh “ss” sounds on certain words which can get really annoying for listeners
Limiter: This squashes the vocal even further, allowing it to sit nicely on top of the music so it’s heard clearly, but not too loud

Create shot list and shoot

I use the Notion app for shot lists, it’s basically a fancy (free) notes app and I love it for structuring ideas:

In terms of gear to shoot the talking-head shots, here’s what I used:

Lights: Aputure 120D
Camera: Canon 70D (which has great autofocus!)
Sound: Rode Video Mic Pro

Collab for wider reach

I asked for a few helping hands from within my CF network. The first idea was to host a FeBREWary tea party of my own to capture a few clips of us chatting and laughing (big thanks to all the guys who offered help with this, you can find them and their IG handles on the video below).

The second was to ask actress and CF friend Gabriella Ashcroft (@gabriellaashcroft) to record some scripted snippets for me to make the whole thing feel like a FeBREWary zoom of its own. Gabs is great and you should definitely check her out on IG too!

Edit then distribute

Editing is the time-consuming part, here are the tools I use:

Editor: Adobe Premiere Pro
Effects Editor: Adobe After Effects
Sound Effects: Splice

Distributing is also a difficult one to crack, uploading is easy, gaining traction isn't! I use a standard set of hashtags for IG and I never pay to boost the posts, it’s organic all the way for me, but I’m still learning.

Something I love to do is to reply to EVERY comment. This not only leads to great conversations but it also helps with reach.

If you have any questions about my process, want help or advice on how to up your video game (or if you can offer me any) please let me know. I’m always open for collabs too, so get in touch!

The Power of Sharing Your Story

Finally, I wanted to draw your attention to another recent project.

We live in an age where it is easier than ever to connect with like-minded others who share the same passions or who go through the same things we do.
Weather it's forums, Facebook groups, via blogs or right here on Instagram (or substack), everywhere we look there are virtual scenes where people come together to talk about things that are truly important to them.

Below is the first episode of a new series I’m creating where I talk to some of our community’s most well-known and loved faces about the power of sharing your story.

I have two episodes available to watch already and another ready to upload next week. Let me know what you think and please share with anyone who might be interested in real CF stories.

And if you know anyone who would be a great person to interview on the next run of ‘Sharing Your Story’, please let me know.

Marc Cotterill: Health and Life.

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