This short witness-statement film is part of a wider initiative to make cyber crime visible at a human scale, documenting how digital offences affect real businesses, livelihoods and confidence across West Yorkshire. By giving space to first-hand experience, the film helps translate what can feel like an abstract or “technical” crime into something tangible and urgent for local communities, decision-makers and other business owners. In the UK, cyber crime increasingly targets small and medium-sized organisations through phishing, ransomware and invoice fraud, often exploiting limited resources, time pressure and trust built within local supply chains. In Yorkshire and West Yorkshire in particular—where many firms are owner-run, digitally connected and regionally rooted—the impact can be disproportionate, leading to financial loss, reputational damage and long-term disruption. Future films in this series aim to build awareness, encourage early reporting and resilience, and foster a more informed, collective response to a threat that is growing quietly but persistently in our local economy.

Behind the Scences
The film was developed through a close working relationship between West Yorkshire Police and director Dave Hackney (The Digital Cortex), ensuring the brief was clearly understood and sensitively handled. We scouted Northlight Studios, where previous shoots and test footage confirmed the space as a strong fit for an intimate, confrontational witness statement. Support from Hebden Bridge–based CanCan Productions allowed us to cast Grant Gillespie as the CEO—chosen for his ability to convey the weight and unease of the issue with credibility and restraint.

Cinematography followed a two-camera interview-style setup with a dramatic edge. Aa low, A camera addressing the actions to the lens, and a matching hight B camera off-axis to the left and lit by a key from the right, balanced warmer, neutral key to push existing fluorescents blue-green. The set was stripped back, practicals hidden, and our own top light and kicker lifted Grant from the background. I choose Viltrox 1.3× anamorphic lenses—a 35 mm full-frame on A camera and a Blackmagic Design 12K Super 35 on a 50 mm for B. Both cameras were matched in DaVinci Resolve and graded under a Kodak film emulation LUT with Dehancer, creating a high-contrast, saturated look that keeps the performance firmly front and centre.