Griffith Film School has launched a short film with Children’s Health Queensland that will screen at the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital throughout the festive season.

LiveLab Creative Director Richard Fabb said the inspiration for the project was the annual short films produced by global retail giants like John Lewis and H&M.

“The Christmas initiative, Joy 2017, is a ‘feel good’ short film that captures the spirit of Christmas, ” he said.

“It will run at Lady Cilento through December and is designed to bring some cheer to families who are spending the festive season at the hospital.

“The genesis for the project was the kinds of films produced at Christmas by major brands like John Lewis, whose latest Christmas film cost 7 million pounds!

 

“They have enormous reach and impact, and we wanted to replicate that, on a much smaller scale, for the kids and their families.”

Jake Heinemann, who recently graduated from the Bachelor of Film and Screen Media Productionwrote the script and directed the short film, A Gift for the Lonely Heart.

“It is a really sweet little film with a lot of heart,” he said.

“It is about a little girl who sees how lonely an old man is at Christmas, and saves the day by sharing her Christmas gift.

“I hope the kids up at the Lady Cilento are able to watch and see a little of themselves in this character.”

Jake said he ignored one of the golden rules of film-making on the three-day shoot.

“They say never work with children and animals. On this film, we had a little girl playing the lead role, paired with the world’s cutest puppy.

“It all ran pretty smoothly, although it was definitely challenging to try and direct a dog!”

Post-production was supervised by local production house Empire Post, who are industry mentors for GFS students.

The film will be launched at GFS next week, and screen at the Lady Cilento and across the Children’s Health Queensland network throughout December.