Talking heads and happy feet with new, cross-Faculty collaboration

With a helping hand from her peers in another Faculty, one health student’s final-year project is getting ‘camera ready’.

The University’s Podiatry team reached out to colleagues in Creative Film, Television and Digital Media Production for professional and technical support because student Lolli Harris-Jones is taking a novel approach to her forthcoming dissertation.

Lolli is looking into diabetes and how it can affect the feet body, especially the feet – something podiatrists are used to treating and providing advice about.

Diabetes develops from high blood glucose levels that can damage our smallest blood vessels and circulation to our feet and legs. Over five million people in the UK are estimated to live with diabetes.

For her dissertation, Lolli is using the power of film to create ‘talking heads’ about the experience of diabetes patients at the University’s Podiatry Clinic.

Questions included what diabetic education they have received to help manage the condition, their experience of working with diabetes professionals and what they know about their own role in preventing foot complications from developing.

Lolli says: “The area I have chosen for my dissertation appealed to me because of the element of the human psyche I could incorporate. I am attracted to investigating the more subtle areas of being human that can have a huge impact on our daily lives and how we each navigate living with a condition or disease.

“I’m using these ‘talking heads’ to provide a more nuanced, emotionally rich and in-depth understanding of patient experiences and perspectives, making it a valuable tool in health research where patient-centred insights are crucial.”

To help this idea come to life, the Podiatry team brought in the services of Creative Film, Television and Digital Media Production second-year students Lewis Tyler, Ellie Elliott, Tom Knibbs and Josh Gordon.

The team were ‘on set’ (one of the Clinic’s bigger consulting spaces) early in the morning over two days to ensure the cameras, lighting, microphones and the sound equipment were ‘Hollywood standard’. On one day, Josh and Lewis concentrated on the camera while Ellie and Tom took more of a lead with the sound and microphones; to get as much experience as possible, they swapped duties on the second day.

Lewis Tyler films Lolli Harris-Jones during one of her ‘talking heads’ patient interviews.

Lewis adds: “This was our first time at the Podiatry Clinic, but we immediately recognised that it is filled with essential, high-end resources and supportive students and staff. From listening to the interviews, we could understand the care and valuable impact the Clinic has on its patients.

“Now the footage is ‘in the can’, we’ll move on to a thorough, systematic editing process, which will involve selecting relevant footage/audio, cutting, syncing, colour grading/matching/correcting, adjusting audio levels and more.

“This has been an invaluable experience, including building on professional communication with interviewers and interviewees and continuous experimentation with equipment and setups. If another opportunity like this arises, I’m sure we’d all be keen to collaborate with the Clinic again.”

Lolli’s videos mark the start of further collaboration between the two subject areas. Creative, Media, TV and Film students will, for instance, make promotional content about the clinic and its services.

Lolli concludes: “The filming was great! The crew were professional, funny and full of character, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to educate them on foot care, too! Nothing great is accomplished alone, but when working together, mountains can be moved, as we have proven here.”

Find out more about Podiatry at University of Northampton.

Find out more about Creative Film, Television and Digital Media Production at University of Northampton.