MIDIRS Essence > May 2010 > Midwifery News

Mother of Many – Birth, Babies and a Bafta

Originally posted on May 2010

Bristol animator and film director, Emma Lazenby, gives a fascinating account of the making of her animated film, Mother of Many, which went on to win a Bafta film award at this year's ceremony in London.

When my mum retired two years ago, I started thinking a lot about the job that she had spent almost 30 years doing. Mum was a midwife in Airedale Hospital in West Yorkshire and during her 28 years there she delivered more than 3000 babies.

The idea of being the first person that so many people meet, of helping so many women and families through such a hugely emotional, unpredictable and intense day or so in their lifetimes – each day and everyday, is amazing. It is such a hugely privileged and incredibly worthwhile achievement; a very beautiful and extremely giving way to spend a lifetime’s work. Inspired by my mother’s experiences and her commitment to assisting women through their births and into motherhood, I was prompted to make a film that would be a celebration of this amazing profession – being a midwife.

I managed to get digital short funding (a tiny budget) from Channel 4, the UK Film Council and South West Screen and started making the film in January 2009. The film process felt quite akin to carrying a pregnancy (though I have never yet been pregnant). For the first few months I felt sick and nervous, and totally overwhelmed – I wanted the film to be so perfect. Then, as the film started to develop and grow with the animatic (a moving storyboard) and the introduction of audible sounds and music, and as the animation started to come together, I grew increasingly excited. I enjoyed watching it grow, though I worked extremely long days and weekends to nurture it and found myself growing increasingly tired. Towards the end of the production process, where the compositing and sound design were being finalised, I was struggling to finish the project with the edit constantly changing; everything got complicated and messy, the computer even broke down. My schedule was nine months, but a week overdue I managed to get the film out into the world and am already very proud of its achievements.

Researching for the film was frantic and emotional. I wanted to find out everything I could and show birth and midwifery as honestly as possible. I watched all the birth footage that I could find, anywhere (YouTube, films, TV, friend’s birth videos); though I tried, I never quite made it to the real thing. I read books and went to pregnancy yoga and asked my friends and family about their own birth experiences. It was eye-opening – people tend not to talk about their own experiences of childbirth to the childless, however painful or exhilarating. They probably don’t want to put us off? However, the more I found out, the less scary it became; birth now seems like such an immensely instinctive and natural experience, and such a life-changing, exhilarating achievement.

Mum talked me through her own vast knowledge and experiences over and over, and I began to appreciate how women’s bodies work. Mum even taught me the ‘mechanisms of normal labour and birth’. Anna Stealey, who as a student midwife had delivered my film producer, Sally’s, first baby, also leant me her midwifery textbooks. Anna showed me around one of the local maternity units and inspired me a lot with her enthusiasm and love of the job. Sally Randle – an Independent Midwife in Bristol – also talked to me a lot about her experiences and let me borrow her own birth videos. Sally also managed to obtain an audio recording of an entire birth for me (with the consent of the family and a little training in audio equipment). I got another audio recording from a lovely lady, whom I met from the pregnancy yoga class; she also kindly agreed to record her baby’s birth when the time came.

I listened to the recordings of these births while I animated and it spurred me on; the recordings made me feel very emotional every time the baby came. Working in a room of young male directors at Arthur Cox, I was often trying to hide a tear.

The film was made using traditional animation techniques but in a more modern way. I did some hand drawn animation and some painting on glass (for the wombs). I scanned this for the ‘painty’ textures and also scanned midwifery text books. The film was mostly animated in Adobe Flash (hand drawn straight into the computer) and Adobe After Effects was used to bring it all together. It was quite a long and fiddly process at times, but I knew how I wanted it to look and aimed at achieving that for the finished product.

I mainly chose incredibly talented people to work with who had also closely/intimately experienced birth. Sally Arthur (producer) had her son, Stanley, a year earlier on her houseboat during a power cut. Mark Simon Hewis (editor) was present and had helped at the home birth of his daughter, Peppa, two years earlier. David Schweitzer (musician) has two amazing sons, Arlo and Zubin. Zubin was a few months’ old when production started and his heartbeats feature heavily in the film. Emily Mantel (one of my animators) was due to give birth around the same time as the film delivery date. In fact, the film seemed to be a bit of a fertility charm — Sally fell pregnant with baby number two; Barnaby Templer (sound designer) used the early fetal heartbeats of his baby-to-be in the soundtrack; Sue Harding (foley artist) made authentic sounds of belly rubs on her own growing pregnant abdomen. All of these babies are safely out in the world now and growing bigger by the day.

The resulting film, ‘Mother of Many’ is a six minute short animated film — charting many years of birth and work through a day in the life of the midwife, as well as the journey of a baby from the very first labour contractions to birth. It is based on rhythms — the midwife's calm, controlled steady beat in contrast with the frantic beating of the baby’s heart. The film won a BAFTA award in February and I am still in shock and disbelief.

Mum is very modest – and to begin with I think she was a little embarrassed that I was making a film about her. During production she was a huge help — I rang her and pestered her most days and she was, as always, patient and supportive, and incredibly helpful. I took her with me to the BAFTA Awards Ceremony and we held hands as they read out the winner for our category. It is only very recently that I have seen my speech footage and have seen my mum proudly, happily crying in the audience. Mum is ridiculously proud of me and I am as proud as ever of what she has achieved - she is an amazing woman.

The film will be released on the internet in a few months and on Channel 4 toward the end of the year. To get a copy (for a small fee) contact info@arthurcox.co.uk.

The above article was written by Emma Lazenby, creator of Mother of Many

Anna Stealey, student midwife, who helped Emma with her research while making the Mother of Many film, writes about her own involvement.

Anna showed me around one of the local maternity units and inspired me a lot with her enthusiasm and love of the job. Emma’s gorgeous animation, Mother of Many is a truly realistic and honest depiction of what happens on a labour ward. The building rhythms of a labour progressing naturally, the ‘five o’clock shadow’ of the concerned birth partner, the deep breath of the midwife at the end of another busy shift: it is these small details which contribute to how special a film it is.

My involvement was through the film’s producer, Sally Morrison. I was fortunate enough during my training to ‘catch’ her first baby, on a boat, in a power cut at Christmas! I was delighted when she asked me to help with the film a year later.

On meeting Emma in a busy café on the Gloucester Road in Bristol, I was unsure what she might gain from me, as she had a midwife mother with 2900 births on me! It didn’t take long however before I was bombarding her with the science and scribbles of the mechanism of labour, how a midwife fits in with these mechanisms and what I felt to be of most importance in a midwife’s role. Having to describe my job in detail to somebody was, in a sense, reaffirming for me as a midwife, particularly as a newly qualified midwife in a busy obstetric unit.

There emerged a focus on the activity of a midwife’s hands, their dual personality switching from clinical duties to calm reassuring contact with the woman, few words needed. Emma transferred this beautifully to her animation, which includes only three words in the whole six minutes, the hands telling much of the story – particularly emphasised with the girl rocking on the birthing ball!

I am delighted that the film has gained such recognition. I know the film has already been used by many midwives in their antenatal education in Bristol and I’m sure it will travel much further afield.

Emma Lazenby | Anna Stealey

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