Since 2000 Hand Pict has specialised in 'DV' documentary making - mainly of an observational style - my interest started in perhaps an unusual way.

A few years ago I was filming in the Western General Hospital for a friend's production company which specialised in medical programming - the filming was for a European tele-conference on centres of excellence for the treatment of breast cancer. I was filming with a standard Digi Beta crew with lights - we filmed the surgeons' morning meeting followed by a mastectomy, then a doctor describing how a diagnosis can be made from a Mammogram and a Fine Needle Aspiration and latterly we filmed a counselling nurse in discussion with a patient two years after her mastectomy.

After 8 months of negotiation we were given access to the Western General hospital to film Cancer Stories which followed eleven cancer patients over a year of their lives. It was a hard series to make - the participants became our friends and three of them passed away during our filming.

I realised that filming in a 'traditional' fashion (i.e. big cameras, lights...) would alienate the participants and make any sense of intimacy impossible. We decided to shoot on DV and without any lights for a 'closer' feel.

Much of the material was not for a lay audience and was well above my head.

I turned a corner in the hospital between locations to see my mother, Rita, sitting in a corridor waiting area - she had forgotten to tell me that she had an appointment at the Western General that day. Rita herself had been diagnosed with breast cancer the year before and had an operation to remove a tumour. Sadly the cancer had returned.

I was startled, I also had my director's 'hat' on - "What are you doing here?" I said. Rita laughed and said "You know fine why I'm here - but what are you doing here?" Good question Rita!

That day I was making a programme about cancer from a medical viewpoint - and meeting Rita made me realise that very little had ever been made from a patient's or
family's perspective.