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MillimeterDream Job: Video Support
May 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Kristinha M. Anding
Survivors share their breast cancer experiences through WomenStories.
WomenStories’ productions were shot with Ikegami HC-400 and Sony BVP70IS cameras and edited on a DPS Velocity system.
When Mimi Dow found herself coping with a breast cancer diagnosis 14 years ago, she realized her doctors were ill-equipped to offer her and other survivors emotional support. It was this experience that led her to co-found WomenStories, a Buffalo, N.Y.-based nonprofit organization offering informational psychosocial videos for women newly diagnosed with the disease.
Dow, a former schoolteacher, didn't have any video experience, but she was able to enlist and learn from her son, Whitney, a documentary filmmaker affiliated with Two Tone Productions in New York. In 2000, Whitney Dow produced the first video for WomenStories, which discusses the emotional issues that arise during the initial discovery and diagnosis of breast cancer. Since then, Mimi Dow and producer George Campos have completed nine other pieces.
There are no omniscient narrators or overarching medical opinions in the videos; the focus is on how individual women make decisions to take care of themselves psychologically and medically while dealing with breast cancer. Survivors talk candidly about both treatment options and topics often overlooked, such as familial support and intimacy issues. Dow, who conducted the interviews, says it wasn't always easy to find the right women for the productions. “I was determined to have a good cross-section of women age-wise, socio-economic-wise, and with race,” she says.
Dow also had each piece checked for medical accuracy by WomenStories' national advisory board, comprising several oncologists and other medical doctors.
The productions were shot with Ikegami HC-400 and Sony BVP70IS cameras and edited on a DPS Velocity system at Campos Group and Orange in Buffalo. The 10-video series was released on VHS in the spring of 2006 and on DVD earlier this year. Dow says the videos are mostly purchased by medical libraries, research centers, support groups, and cancer centers. The complete series is also available for free viewing online at WomenStories' website. According to Dow, the organization is currently focusing on other distribution avenues.
Dow, now a two-time survivor, says that breast cancer is never something welcomed or expected, but she's seen a lot of good — including WomenStories — come out of her personal experience. “You get stronger and wiser,” she says. “It's something that you never imagined would change your life, but it does.”
For more information, visit www.womenstories.org.
