All Work

SEE International

Second Sight

2019 — Short documentary

0:00 / 0:00

The challenge

A blind mother, the husband who became her eyes, and the surgery that gave her back the world.

Virgilio’s hands pressed together in prayer during the operation.

Joanaly Laniohan had been blind from cataracts for two years. Her husband Virgilio had become her eyes. Second Sight follows them from the rice fields of Negros Occidental, in the Philippines, to a free surgical clinic run by SEE International.

SEE International brings free cataract surgery to people who could never pay for it. It needed more than awareness: a film that would make the loss of sight felt, and give people a reason to act.

Client
SEE International
Scope
Creative · Packaging & Sales · Production · Post · Photography · Web
Delivered
Documentary short, 28 minCutdowns, :60, :30 and :15Landing page with gated interviewsPaid social campaignProduction photography

The strategy

We cast it like a feature film.

We wrote the story’s arc first, then went looking for the family who could carry it. The search took two scouting trips and more than 60 interviews. The film was funded by a 2017 Musicbed Film Initiative grant.

  1. 01

    Archetype

    We gave our local producers a character archetype and the questions that would reveal it.

  2. 02

    Scouts

    Two scouting trips with Fixer Ink and more than 60 families interviewed, every story’s pros and cons on one list.

  3. 03

    Point of view

    We told it through Virgilio: few people know what losing their sight is like, but most know what it is to care for someone.

What made it hard

We filmed in the rice country of the Philippines, in nine days, through translation.

Mailum is a farming village in Negros Occidental. We worked through live translation with Fixer Ink, a Philippine production company. To reach the clinic, Joanaly's family walked her across a river and through the jungle, and we walked with them. Each surgery takes under ten minutes; the clinic did more than 400. There was one chance to film hers.

  • 2Scouting trips with our local producers
  • 60+Families interviewed before we chose one
  • 9Days shooting in Negros Occidental

What we made

Virgilio holding Joanaly close among the trees.
A farmer in a grey shirt, on 35mm film.
A patient in protective glasses after surgery, smiling.
A young mother holding her baby.
Virgilio kissing Joanaly’s cheek, her eyes bandaged after surgery.
A small child in a white sun hat.

A 28-minute documentary, three cutdowns and a digital campaign with SEE: paid social and a landing page with gated interviews. It played 14 film festivals, from Austin and HollyShorts to Santa Barbara, won two Silver Tellys and Mountainfilm's Norman Vaughan Indomitable Spirit Award, and reached more than a million people.

How we did it

How do you show what it is to lose your sight?

Vintage anamorphic glass, shots framed through doorways and color held back until the final scene put the viewer inside the blur and haze of cataract blindness.

  • 7Awards, including two Silver Tellys
  • 14Film festivals
  • 554Surgeries funded

The series

  • Film01

    Second Sight

  • Cutdown02

    SEE Presents

  • Cutdown03

    Sight Is Freedom

  • Cutdown04

    Quiet Heroes

Key art

  • The Second Sight poster: Virgilio kissing Joanaly’s cheek, her eyes bandaged after surgery. “One family’s life forever changed.” A film by Cole Sax, with laurels from Santa Barbara, Mountainfilm and eight more festivals.

In Negros Occidental

Joanaly and Virgilio live in Mailum, in the rice country of Negros Occidental. After two years without sight, she could no longer work the fields or see her grandchildren. Virgilio did both, and cared for her.

Joanaly in shadow by the river.
A man in the tall grass against the sun, on medium-format film.
Virgilio from behind in a dark room, his hand to his face.
A single light in the trees at night.
Virgilio, eyes lowered, in the shade.
A farmer standing in a cut cane field at dusk, on film.
Joanaly looking up, light through the leaves.
Joanaly with her head bowed.
A woman bent over in the rice field under a big sky, on film.
A farmer in a head wrap, looking out across the field.
Joanaly in profile in a dark room.
A young man laughing, a towel over his shoulder, on 35mm.
Joanaly in profile, eyes closed.
A man backlit in the grass.
A silhouette against the evening sky.
Patients in surgical caps waiting in the hospital corridor, on film.
Joanaly and Virgilio at home at night, through the doorway.
Virgilio waiting at the clinic.
Dr. Jeff Levenson in the window light.
A ward seen through a doorway, a crucifix on the wall.
A patient and a nurse in a ward, through a dark doorway.
Virgilio praying during the operation.
Kids playing basketball outside the hospital, on 35mm.
A farmer laughing under his straw hat.
Joanaly holding her grandchild after surgery.
A boy swimming in the river, on film.

The result

Start a project