The film
Four overnight shifts with the NICU team, told through the hands that hold the smallest patients in the building.
The problem on the table
The NICU had gone eleven months without filling two overnight nurse positions. Job postings described the unit accurately and attracted no one.
How we made it
We embedded with a single care team across four consecutive nights, filming only with consented families and shooting handheld on fast primes so the room stayed dark and calm. No scripts, no staged blocking — one nurse's voice carrying the whole film.
Behind the scenes
- Two operators, no lighting kit — the unit stays at 3 lux after midnight and we matched it.
- Consent was re-confirmed with every family at the start of each shift, not once at the top of the shoot.
- The film’s final line was recorded in a stairwell at 4:40am and never re-taped.
They filmed our unit the way it actually feels at 3am. Two positions we had posted for a year were filled within two months of release.
