World of Better

This video launched an internal marketing campaign that encouraged employees to think of each other. Due to various travel schedules it had to be shot and edited within a day. The black and white palate, the extreme subject placement and the minimal sound design were determined by the client to match previous work for the campaign. I assembled the 15 interviews for the narrative flow that made sense to me and the client accepted that without changes.

Fight C diff

Over the summer I worked with the Peggy Lillis Memorial Foundation to create a series of video announcements to raise awareness about this opportunistic infection (Clostridium difficile) and the work of the foundation to educate the public. It was inspiring to see this family take a terrible loss and create something that will benefit others.

Proud to be an RPSGT

Earlier this year I directed, shot and edited a video about the important role of Registered Polysomnographic Technologists in sleep medicine. It was an interesting opportunity to learn about this relatively new field and the history of the BRPT, a credentialing organization, that ensures the qualifications of RPSGTs. The BRPT team was a great group of people to work with and if you take a sleep test you should certainly ask for an RPSGT to perform it.

In the States: New York

I was honored when In the Life asked me to produce a segment on the marriage equality vote in New York State earlier this year. They had been taping the action in Albany all summer and had a lot of material. My job was to quickly make sense of how and why the vote succeeded this time when it had failed almost two years earlier and to find a coherent storyline based on the experiences of the many players involved. A large challenge was scheduling numerous interviews with public officials on a limited shooting budget.

Consumers United for Evidence-based Health Care

This is the second video I have done for CUE and the fourth one related to Cochrane. They are a fantastic group of individuals who are clearly passionate about the work they do to improve your health. CUE is a national coalition of consumer health advocacy organizations. If you work for one that doesn’t take a lot of money from big pharma you should consider joining.

Tobi and Janee

This video is one in a series of stories documenting same-sex couples who are seeking the right to marry, or in this case, are legally married in a state, but face life obstacles without federal recognition of their marriage. Tobi and Janee are concerned how lack of federal recognition affects their ability to care for their son. Cristina and Monica are another couple who are married, but face possible separation through deportation. You can see a version of their video in Spanish and also in Spanish with subtitles. Finally, George and Farid are another couple who shared their story. I produced these for In the Life Media and Freedom to Marry thanks to a grant from the Haas Jr Fund. You can find out more about this campaign to overturn DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, at Freedom to Marry.

Chinese New Year Promotion

This video is an excerpt from an in-house project documenting on-site marketing activities related to a Chinese New Year promotional campaign. The goal was to demonstrate the effectiveness and reach of the street marketing efforts. I shot on location in Flushing, Queens and Chinatown, Manhattan and had 1.5 days to turn around the final 6-minute video.

Hide/Seek

In the Life asked me to story produce a segment on the Hide/Seek exhibition that opened at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC last year. The original producers left the project and I had two weeks to take their material and create the segment by deadline. I wrote the script over the weekend, supervised a week of editing and then sought clearances for the numerous images that appear in the segment. Being able to work with these incredible images and hear the stories behind them was the funnest part of the assignment. If you missed the DC exhibit you can still see it at the Brooklyn Museum through February 12, 2012.

Chimbre Excerpt

The goal with this project was to use footage and photos from a variety of sources and formats to tell the story of how the Chimbre retreat was founded. There were only two days to cut it down to less than three minutes for a contest. For more information visit Chimbre.

Tehom

This video documents the installation of Tehom, the first solo show of artist Angelo Musco. It took five days to install 191 pieces in the Carrie Secrist gallery in Chicago. When Angelo returned with his footage, I cut it together with an interview we had taped previously. The goal here was to capture the momentous effort of installing an exhibit that was the culmination of two years of work from concept to completion.

You can read more about this photo shoot and see other making of videos with Angelo Musco on the blog.

An Afternoon in Agustino

This short documentary follows a unique group of local leaders starting a community center for gay and transgender individuals in a working class neighborhood of Lima, Peru. I had the opportunity to shoot and edit this piece thanks to a good friend who works on this project. It was a rare opportunity to see a side of Lima that I otherwise never would have witnessed. You can read more about the project and find a link to donate or connect with organizations in Peru at the blog.

Cochrane Consumer Network

I shot and edited this nine-minute video for the Cochrane Consumer Network and features members of CCNet describing how they work together to improve healthcare in communities around the world. It was shot at the Cochrane Colloquium in Sao Paulo, Brazil. So how do you produce a video that covers healthcare around the world on a shoestring budget? A strategic use of photographs was critical as well as the full collaboration of the members who provided them. Being able to communicate with the subjects in their own language made things go much smoother.

Occupational Post Exposure Prophylaxis

This video excerpt is from a project I produced and directed for the New York State HIV Clinical Education Initiative that will deliver information including the full length video to emergency departments and other health care sites via a widget. MM Design did the motion graphics and the editing.

This project was featured in the Health Section of the New York Times on September 7, 2009.

Marcus’s Story

For a membership drive at a community center I worked with the membership manager to create the video part of the campaign. This is one of three individuals profiled. There was no budget for this project, so we had to let the personal story of connection to community deliver the message.

HIV/AIDS & Immigration in New York City

This two-minute excerpt is from a video project I completed for the HIV Education Center at Saint Vincent Hospital. It was used to open and guide the first conference ever held on this topic. It was an interesting project because it involved taping in neighborhoods all over New York City, but it was also challenging to engage immigrants in their communities on a difficult subject. Finding the right cultural liaisons was key. This was produced on a very small budget – I shot and edited it myself and MM Design did the motion graphics. You can see the full 18-minute video at CEI and if you are interested in a DVD copy for an organization working in this field, it is available as well free of charge.

PEP411 Excerpt

This excerpt is from a video I wrote, produced and edited for an initiative raising awareness about PEP, Post Exposure Prophylaxis, among young men of color who have sex with other men. The story line is based on feedback from focus groups where we discovered there is not a high awareness about the availability of PEP.

At PEP411.com you can learn more about this intervention, see the full video, and hear true stories in English and Spanish, which I also produced. The explicit nature of the content was designed for maximum impact in the target audience, but was not intended for all audiences.

In the Pipeline

The goal of this video I created for UCLA was to explain rectal microbicides to the target audience of men who have sex with men (MSM) and persuade them to participate in future clinical studies. Starting with research on public perception of a product that doesn’t exist yet, the challenge was to explain the clinical facts in lay terms.

After speaking with many individuals at agencies participating in the project, it made sense to set it in a group meeting familiar to viewers and let the message unfold through peer conversation.

The client wanted the final video to be ‘sexy’ to keep the viewer engaged, so it is sex positive. Be aware there are explicit scenes and dialogue that match the reality of the target audience. You can learn more about this study here.