Commissions

Greenlit: Inside Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Channel 4

Inside Birmingham Children’s Hospital w/t – Parents – they’re in at the deep end from day one, but the biggest test comes when ordinary life is interrupted. These are the stories of a new generation of families facing their greatest fears together.

With unprecedented scale of institutional access, this series, explores modern day parenting through just some of the hundreds of thousands of patient visits here. It follows children and their families on their journeys through 34 specialist departments and further afield into their homes across Britain. With intimate, long-form access to households across a vast spectrum of contemporary British society, the series discovers parental hopes and fears that are truly universal.

Using the latest in mobile and fixed camera technology the series takes viewers into the drama of a Children’s Emergency Department, to the bedsides of one of the largest intensive care units in Europe, where fixed rig filming has been allowed for the first time, and through life-changing surgery; all set against conversations round the dinner table at home and the fraught, funny and all too recognisable family car journeys to and from the hospital.

The series also features and hears from more than 50 members of staff ranging from leading surgeons and Emergency consultants to specialised nurses, technicians and clinical child psychologists as they care not just for their patients, but the emotional wellbeing of the whole families they have in tow.

During the series, we’ll follow a number of stories; from life-threatening illnesses and deeply personal psychological challenges to time-honoured childhood bumps and scrapes. These will include:

• The acute anxiety of parents of a 16 year old who’s facing pioneering brain surgery to change a life dominated by epilepsy
• The courage of a father who donates part of his own liver to his 14 year old son
• The frustration of a mum arguing with her teenage daughter over whether or not she should have a cosmetic eye procedure
• The strength and sensitivity of a father helping his daughter through depression
• As well as a football tackle gone wrong, a finger trapped in a door slammed by a big sister, a micro-scooter mishap, a tumble at a Christening and much more.

Set in the heart of Britain’s second city, the series combines single camera documentary filmmaking with a multi-camera rig set up throughout the hospital to give a 360 degree perspective on the whole hospital, its staff and of course, those that pass through its doors daily.

Channel: Channel 4

Producer: Dragonfly

TX: Spring 2016

Source: Channel 4 press release