Fred Hollows

Brief

The Fred Hollows Foundation had already created powerful work with people living with cataracts. The challenge was not to replace those stories but to build on them from the other side: find a way to stop a younger social audience and make an unfamiliar condition feel immediate, before they had ever experienced it.

Solution

Rather than explain cataracts through another patient interview, we let people experience a simulation for themselves. Three participants wore cataract goggles while attempting ordinary tasks, and their unscripted reactions revealed how quickly blurred vision can affect independence, confidence and connection.

The budget was close to nonexistent, so the production stayed close to home. We shot the entire thing in my garage studio, my neighbour and my best friend stepped in as talent, and the only real money spent went to one paid performer.

Instead of telling a younger audience what cataracts feel like, we let them see for themselves.

The goal was never simply to explain cataracts. It was to turn something medically understood into something emotionally felt.

Result

The client’s note said it best: “I’m not sure what we’d go over, Will. What you’ve made exceeds anything I would dream that made-for-social video would do for us.” The good people at Fred Hollows also mentioned a few of them shed a tear or two whilst watching. For a film built to make a condition felt rather than explained, that was the surest sign it was landing.