Connecting professional values with lived experience for CESPHN
A documentary-style film made to move oral health practitioners, not just inform them.
Speck of Dust is a Sydney video production company, and this is a documentary-style film we made with CESPHN, filmed in a Sydney dental surgery. CESPHN is the Central and Eastern Sydney Primary Health Network, and the film was made to move oral health practitioners to care about their oral health program, not just inform them.
The challenge
CESPHN (the Central and Eastern Sydney Primary Health Network) had an oral health program they believed in, and a harder job than it looked: getting busy practitioners to really care about it, not just watch a video about it.
The brief arrived as “a short promotional video,” and the early conversations were even about the psychology of influence, how to make the program appealing to clinicians. We saw it differently. The way to move practitioners was not a harder sell, it was a more human one: changing how they think and feel by putting the professional case and the human reality side by side.
Our approach
We led with listening. Before anything else, we took the time to understand the program, the people it serves, and exactly what CESPHN wanted clinicians to feel and do.
From there we built the film around three voices: an oral health professional, a person with lived experience, and a practitioner. That structure does the work, it puts the clinical value and the human reality side by side, so the message is felt, not just stated. We approached the lived-experience story with care, to celebrate and respect the person sharing it rather than reduce them to a case.
The result is authentic and relatable, the kind of storytelling that actually moves the people watching.
What we made
A short documentary-style film for CESPHN, plus shorter cut-downs designed to work across their communication channels.
The outcome
CESPHN chose our approach and we delivered the work into production together, warmly and collaboratively. Here is what Naomi had to say about the experience:
“Working with Speck of Dust significantly enhanced the impact of our project. Jose has a great way of listening and tuning into what matters most. He really brought our message to life. Jose and his team created a space where everyone felt safe, supported, and confident on and off camera.”
Naomi Halligan, Intellectual Disability Educator and Service Navigator, CESPHN
Frequently asked questions
Who made the CESPHN oral health film?
Speck of Dust, a Sydney video production company, made the documentary-style film for CESPHN’s oral health programme. The brief started as a simple promotional video. Through conversation with CESPHN it grew into a film built around three real perspectives: an oral health professional, a person with lived experience and a practitioner. That structure carried real human weight alongside the clinical message.
What was CESPHN’s experience working with Speck of Dust?
Naomi Halligan, Intellectual Disability Educator and Service Navigator at CESPHN, says “working with Speck of Dust significantly enhanced the impact of our project” and that “Jose and his team created a space where everyone felt safe, supported, and confident on and off camera.” That standard of care applies to every health and lived-experience shoot we take on, not only this one.
How do you handle contributors with intellectual disability or lived experience on camera?
Consent is treated as an ongoing conversation rather than a form signed once, contributors are told what to expect before filming starts, and people can step away at any point without needing to explain why. Nothing is staged, and contributors see how they are framed before anything is released. It is the same care Naomi Halligan describes CESPHN experiencing, and it applies to every health-sector shoot we run in Sydney.
Could this approach work for another health or primary health organisation?
Yes. The three-perspective structure used for CESPHN, pairing clinical evidence with lived experience, works for any health programme trying to reach busy practitioners or a general audience without resorting to a dry, list-of-facts video. An appeal film we made for a Sydney not-for-profit foundation raised $175,000 using the same instinct, building the film around the moment that actually moves the person watching.
What deliverables came from the CESPHN shoot?
A short documentary-style film plus shorter cut-down versions optimised for different communication channels, so CESPHN could use the same material for practitioner-facing and public-facing purposes. This multi-length delivery from one shoot is standard for health and not-for-profit programme films, where a single conversation often needs to reach several different audiences.
Have a program worth caring about?
If you are a not-for-profit or health organisation with a story that deserves to be felt, let’s talk about how we’d approach it.
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