Sightsavers had originally wanted to invite three community medicine distributors form around Africa to speak at the launch of the Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases Declaration, at the Natural History Museum in London, with the WHO and Gates Foundation amongst the delegates they wanted to communicate the success stories on the ground. However getting visas in such a short space of time ruled this out.

Wrangling with customs officers, visas and hugely long car journeys we filmed in Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia over 10 days, where we travelled to the remotest regions to hear these people’s stories.

Hosted by Sightsavers and attended by over 200 people from across the pharma, donor and NGO sectors including the Gates Foundation and World Health Organisation, the film was used to launch a discussion on the importance of attaining the WHO 2020 goals for Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Mme Chebin is on the frontline of community drug distribution to eradicate Onchocerciasis. She lets nothing get in the way of her making sure that each and every person takes their Mectizan treatment in her community in Cameroon.

This interview and many others from this trip to Cameroon was the result of using a local core team working with local partners and a shooting director from the UK, Lewis Davies filming to a script and schedule that allowed for space to spend time with people like Mme Chebin.

In the UK a Montessori education is usually only accessible to those that can afford it. Thanks to Sustainable Coffee Bay, Ikhaya Labantwana offer free Montessori pre-school education to a remote community in Coffee Bay, South Africa.

This Cloud9Media passion project was a chance see life through the eyes of the local children, witnessing the amazing impact this very alternative education method can have, giving them confidence, independence and hope for the future.

Cloud9Media spent an action-packed week in Western Uganda to create video and photographic coverage for TV presenter Charlie Webster’s trip as she saw with her own eyes the impact of malaria – and come to terms with a fatal disease that she caught herself two years ago when cycling to the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Using archival shots taken from Charlie’s broadcast career and stills of her hospitalisation, our team combined these with our own footage to show the background of Charlie’s journey. The result is a short film that captured the challenges she and other sufferers of malaria face, and how there is hope for the elimination of malaria. 

Don’t be fooled – being interviewed is never easy.

So the key to getting someone comfortable in an interview is to not dive in with the hard-hitting questions. If your interviewee is nervous or not used to being in front of a camera, asking them basic questions and getting them chatting is the perfect way to warm them up. Our go-to?: what did you have for breakfast.

As it turns out, we’ve asked this a lot so we thought it would be a fitting tribute to a well-trod question to make a compilation of some of our favourite answers (with a few familiar Cloud9 faces!).