Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health

CLIENT

Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health

PROJECT

The first of its kind in Australia, the 2019 Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System aimed at accelerating improvements in access to mental health services, service navigation and models of care.

The initiative provided an opportunity for a wider community conversation about mental health, with the goal of ending stigma and discrimination. It offered a community a platform to have a say about how the mental health system can be more effective with reform recommendations.

Artificial Studios was engaged to provide video and film coverage of this important once-in-a-generation initiative. A high degree of sensitivity was required for those being interviewed due to the personal sharing of their experiences with mental health being discussed.

Among the important voices the studio captured were former ALF footballer Wayne Schwass and former federal MP Andrew Robb, who talked about their struggle with depression. Wayne gave moving testimony evidence about sitting in his car for hours one day after training, too ashamed to go inside, in case his fiancee saw him crying. "I lived in fear for 12 years,” he said.

DELIVERABLES

• Portraits of the commissioners and community witnesses

• Dozens of high quality short interviews with commissioners, personalities and community witnesses giving their testimony of their experience with the mental health system and what being a witness means to them

• Short call-to-action videos encouraging the public to have their say during the Royal Commission

• Photo coverage of the public hearings at Melbourne's majestic Town Hall