Video testimonials and patient experiences

If you were treated at The Christie in the last 2 years and had a positive experience, we would love to hear from you.

We are looking for patients who want to record a set of short video clips about their positive Christie experiences. If you would be willing to share some of your thoughts, feelings and experiences, we want to hear from you.

We will use some of these videos in a variety of ways including on our website, our social media sites, or in our annual highlights of the year video.

The questions we are asking people to film themselves answering are:

Describe your cancer story as briefly as you can – what treatment you have had at The Christie?
How was your Christie experience?
What would you say to people if they asked you what The Christie has done to improve your quality of life?
Can you sum up your Christie experience in one word?
(If applicable) How have you raised money for The Christie charity and what motivated you to fundraise?
(If you work at The Christie) What is the best thing about working at The Christie?

You can read our guide to filming a video testimonial for us below, including how you can send us your video clips when you're done.

Unfortunately, we might not be able to share every story but we do want to thank you for taking the time to tell us about your experiences.

Once you have sent us your video clip, if you would like to know if and how we plan to use it, then please email us at the-christie.press.office@nhs.net

When you are recording your video clips, please try and give your answer some context. We may not include the question in the video so the audience won’t know what questions are being asked.

Instead, please try and include the question in your answer: For example,

Q: Please describe your experience at The Christie?

A: “I had a really positive experience at The Christie. I always felt well looked after. The staff could not have been more attentive and they became like a second family!”

We are looking for short soundbites so try to keep your answers as short and concise as you can!

Questions

These are the questions we’d like you to answer. It’s probably easier to get someone else to ask you the questions if you can.

Describe your cancer story as briefly as you can and say what treatment you have had at The Christie?
How was your Christie experience? (For example, you might talk about the staff, the facilities, how well organised things were, how you felt about the treatment you received, how safe you felt, - especially if you’ve had treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic)
What would you say to people if they asked what The Christie did to improve your quality of life? (For example, “The Christie offered me treatment closer to home to minimise my stress or The Christie planned my radiotherapy treatments to make sure I could still do the school run.”)
Can you sum up your Christie experience in one word? (Please begin this answer with the question for example “If I was to sum up my Christie experience in one word, I’d say… reassuring”.)
(If applicable) How have you raised money for The Christie charity and why did you do it? (for example “I ran five miles every day for a month to raise £500 for The Christie. It was just my way of saying thank you and giving back.”)
(If you work at The Christie) What is the best thing about working at The Christie?

Filming

You’ll probably be using your smartphone to film yourself – your smartphone will have a higher quality camera than a tablet or webcam please use your phone if possible.

To get started, here are some tips:

Make sure you have enough memory on your device to record a short film.
Keep your device is in a fixed position and not handheld. You might want to use a smartphone tripod or just place your device where it will be stable and steady throughout your filming.
Please film yourself in landscape mode.
Please film yourself indoors, standing in front of a plain coloured wall.
Try to keep your eyes in the top third of the screen, and leave a bit of space between the top of your head and the top of the frame.
Check the background in your film – make sure you aren’t filming in front of anything that will distract the viewer.

Sound

Try to record somewhere quiet where there isn’t a lot of background noise.
If you have a smartphone microphone (sometimes part of the earphones supplied with the phone), this can improve sound quality. Try to hide the wire as much as possible so it doesn’t show on camera. You can do this by pinning the microphone to your top and drop the cable down the front of your shirt or top and bring it out of the bottom of your top into the phone.

Lighting

Record yourself in a room with plenty of natural daylight or close to a window in a darker room. Mornings give the best light so aim to film at this time if possible.

Other filming tips

Clothes

Avoid small patterns like narrow stripes or fine checks as these can distort on camera.
Try to avoid wearing noisy jewellery. It can catch on the mic and any jewellery jangle can be very distracting.
Avoid wearing clothes with a lot of creases or textures as this can create a lot of shadows.

Glasses

If you wear glasses, please check the video clip to make sure you can’t see any reflections in the lenses.

Body language

When you’re filming your video clips, stand up tall and uncross your arms.

Try to avoid blinking too much. You can move your arms and gesture but try not to be repetitive in your movements. Try to avoid rocking forward and back as this can affect the focus of your video.

Confidence

You might feel awkward filming yourself but try your best to be confident. This will help your body language look natural. Just take your time and remember to breathe.

Try to smile while you are filming your video clip as this will make you come across more confident. At the end of your video clip, please pause for around 4 to 5 seconds at the end of the recording, looking straight to the camera and saying nothing.

Think about your audience and imagine you’re talking to them, rather than a phone or camera.

File format and sending your clips to us

Please send videos in MP4 format. Your phone will save your video to the camera library and you’ll need to email it to us using the free Wetransfer service.

To do this, visit Wetransfer on your phone. It may ask you to sign up for a paid version but you don’t need to do this.

Follow the instructions to add your video file and send to the-christie.press.office@nhs.net

Let the file upload to WeTransfer – this could take a few minutes.

If you would like to check that we have received your clip, you can send an email to the-christie.press.office@nhs.net and we will check it has come through and let you know.

If you have any questions about this, please call 0161 446 3706 / 0161 446 3840.