A thank you is enormously powerful. The Hallway gets that. Forever Grateful's Jayden Cummins gets it from a first-person perspective. He is a heart transplant recipient. The Hallway and Cummins have collaborated to deliver some incredibly moving thank yous in their campaign for DonateLife Week. All but one of the thank yous are offered by people waiting for transplants to the anonymous person whose future organ donation may save their life. That last thank you comes from a young girl who received a heart last year. The film was written and directed by Cummins. It was made with the help of a community awareness grant from the Organ and Tissue Authority (OTA).
The three-minute film has no bells or whistles. Nothing that gets in the way of the impact that its monologues convey.
If it doesn’t motivate you to consider becoming a donor, you might wonder if you are human.
The campaign takes inspiration from handmade roadside posters and bridge banners often used to publish personal messages to loved ones in a very public way, usually to wish a happy birthday, welcome someone home, or even to propose marriage. It draws on the power of old-fashioned personalisation used for a message that is almost too personal for conventional advertising.
Sydney man, Jayden Cummins, was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy in 2017 after a bout of the flu. His condition rapidly deteriorated into heart failure and Cummins was in a coma for two weeks. After being put on life support, he made it onto the organ donation waiting list and earlier this year, he received his life-saving heart transplant.
The experience inspired him to write a letter to his donor. A letter that would never be read by them. He published the text on social media, The Organ & Tissue Authority (DonateLife) picked it up, and the film idea grew from there.
The Hallway’s chief executive officer, Jules Hall, is a friend of Jayden’s and jumped at the chance to help him amplify the message and film project.
“His story and the way he tells it, make it impossible not to be moved,” Hall noted. “For me it was even more powerful because exactly the same disease and transplant experience happened to one of my flatmates at uni. Twenty years later and he is still alive with three lovely children. Bottom line, this is a cause that really matters.”
Cummins added, “I’ve never worked on such a deeply personal campaign before, so embarking on this journey with The Hallway has been the most wonderful experience. The team has breathed so much empathy, compassion and imagination into the project, and I feel we’ve created something truly unique and beautiful that will ultimately change lives. I really am forever grateful.”
The full story can be viewed here.