The Lewy Body Society has released its first ever commercial on World Lewy Body Day.

The mini-film will get its global premiere this week at the eighth International Lewy Body Dementia Conference, in Amsterdam.

Student creators from the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) worked pro-bono at the world-famous Pinewood Studios, in association with Sony and Cooke Optics, to raise awareness of Lewy body dementia and reassure viewers the Lewy Body Society is always there to help.

Jacqui Cannon, CEO of The Lewy Body Society, said: “The charity feels privileged that we’ve had this commercial made for us. As a small charity, it has an enormous impact on social media and getting our name out there. This commercial is not just something to use for a few weeks but will be ongoing.”

The creators were for it not to be just another student project.

BA (Hons) Film Production student and the commercial’s director, Dominic Hodgson, said: “We wanted to do something for the greater good. I chose The Lewy Body Society because of my personal connection with it.

“Lewy Body is the second most common form of dementia, but we don’t know enough about it, so it’s important for charities like The Lewy Body Society to show that there is someone there to support people suffering from the condition.”

Director of photography and BA (Hons) Film Production student Stephen Bull said: “I was instantly attracted to this film because it educated me on symptoms of dementia that I wasn’t aware of.”

Shooting at Pinewood, a location where the students wouldn’t typically be able to film, gave them access to state-of-the-art Sony’s digital media production centre (DMPC) facilities and its professionals. This included the Sony Venice 2 camera and a set of Panchro/i Classics lenses, lent to the students by Cooke Optics, delivering the ‘warm and homely tone’ they wanted.

Carey Duffy, director of product experiences at Cooke Optics, said: “This project immediately sparked our interest. It wasn’t just another student project, but a charity commercial, which was client-led and a more professional way to learn about producing content.”

Stuart Newton, regional sales head for Northern Europe Sony, remarked: “By taking the phenomenal technology we have at our fingertips and working closely with UCA, it can help us explore innovative new workflows that we hadn’t previously considered.”

“I am so incredibly proud of our students,” said Christopher Nicholson, UCA Associate Professor of Convergent Media. “When they were offered access to state-of-the-art camera equipment and the SONY DMPC at Pinewood, they decided to pay this favour forward by creating a broadcast quality charity commercial, under industry best practices, for a really important cause.

He added: “In doing so, they worked to an actual commercial brief given by a real client in the most professional way possible. Speaking as someone who has employed many graduates over the years, this is bound to impress a future employer when they leave us and begin their careers.”