It’s just asthma.
Creative | Director
Client: AstraZeneca
There are many misconceptions about the severity of asthma, even among policymakers and health care professionals. Sometimes with fatal consequences. We created this animated film for AstraZeneca featuring real patient testimony, in the middle of the first COVID lockdown, to challenge those misconceptions.
“A lot of people think that asthma is a mild disease, that it doesn’t cause any serious problems, and certainly that it can’t kill you.”
Dr Mark Levy
Historically, asthma has been overlooked as a comparatively ‘un-glamourous’ condition – largely because people think they’re familiar with its severity and see the SABA blue inhaler as a simple catch-all treatment. But asthma is a potentially fatal, though entirely treatable, disease and over-reliance on the SABA can actually exacerbate the condition cause life-threatening complications for patients.
We have the treatments, but the system is broken.
The challenge.
To highlight this global issue and engage HCPs and policymakers, AstraZeneca tasked us with creating a film that was visually arresting, emotively powerful and rooted in real-life human testimonies from around the world. Something that would shock people out of their apathy for the disease and leave our audience feeling challenged and even uncomfortable.
The creative solution.
Recording remote interviews with our contributors across three continents, we were able to represent their stories authentically, even at a time when they were shielding due to COVID. Their testimonies became the inspiration for our visuals - representing triggers (like pollen), the constricting feeling of having an attack and the terrifying experience of being rushed to A&E.
Policymakers and HCPs see countless case study films from all manner of worthy causes, so we knew our approach had to be unlike anything they had seen before while also ensuring it was instantly understandable as a film about asthma. By combining the ‘real’ recognisable SABA blue inhaler with ‘unreal’ image of the lungs, and setting this in a ‘support group’ setting, we were able to make something that was surreal, unsettling and beautiful.
We created this film in COVID lockdown with a small but immensely talented team on a tight budget in a short timeframe. All the while faithfully representing the important and heartfelt stories of our incredibly generous contributors. Not least, Dawn Wilson, who we also made this additional short film about…
Client: AstraZeneca
Agency: ENGINE MHP
Production Company: ENGINE Film
Creative | Director: Leo Birch
Animator | Motion Artist: Ryan Dzierzek
Sound Design: Laurie Shenoda
Producer: Georgina Moxey
Dawn case study film DOP: Curt Taylor
Executive Producers: Adam Booth & Dave Roberts
Account Team: Catrin Hughes & Arabella Moore
Clients: Jay Ark & Anna Lawson
