The brief

Siemens Healthineers wanted a film for its new MRI scanner, the MAGNETOM Lumina. S.I.S Cần Thơ was one of the first hospitals in Vietnam to install it. A few months before we were called, the hospital's team had saved a stroke patient whose chance of survival was put at 1%.

The film had two audiences. People in the Mekong Delta, who should know what their local hospital can now do. And the people at other hospitals who decide which scanner to buy.

What made it hard

The story had already happened. The brief asked us to tell it without re-enacting it, and we agreed: a re-enacted stroke tends to look staged, and doctors watching would notice. We kept it matter of fact. The patient, her family and her doctors tell what happened, in the places where it happened.

Our main character had survived a stroke only months earlier and had never been in front of a camera. We gave her time, and let the interview run as a conversation before we asked for anything specific.

The hospital kept working around us. Emergencies come first, so the shoot plan changed through the day, as it does in every hospital we film in.

The decision that made it work

We had planned to end the film on her walking and smiling. It showed she had recovered, and it was the shot everyone expected.

During her interview, some of her family came in and stood nearby. One of them was her young nephew, and it was clear the two of them were close. Long, our director, asked her if she could carry him now. She said she could.

So we filmed that. She walks with her nephew, talks with him, then picks him up and carries him. It became the last image of the film. Walking tells you she survived. Lifting a child tells you what she got back.

Two smaller choices shaped the rest. The line about a 1% chance came up in the interview, and we moved it to the opening, so the audience knows the stakes from the first seconds. And the grade starts cool and pale in the early part of the story, then warms as she recovers.

The result

The client was very happy with the film, as they had been with our Lý Sơn Island documentary. We have kept making films like this with Siemens Healthineers ever since.

Who this kind of film is for

This film sold two things at once: a machine and a hospital. It works for any client whose product changes someone's body and state of mind, where the honest way to show the product is to show the person it helped. Equipment makers, hospitals and clinics, rehabilitation and medical device companies.