Here are some highlights from our recent commercial and editorial productions.
Client: Genesis + Design Milk
For this campaign, we challenged some of the best minds in digital art to create NFTs based on the Genesis G70.
Despite intense heat waves everywhere we shot and an insanely tight turnaround, we had an absolute blast thanks to the amazing creative minds at Design Milk and these impossibly talented artists.
Client: Land Rover & COOL HUNTING
Nany Ramirez and Gabe Sanchez were already well known fashion bloggers when their son Nico arrived last year. It didn’t take long for him to take over the family business. The three of them now travel around together, discovering the coolest spots in the world’s hottest melting pot, Miami.
This project - one of a continuing series produced in collaboration wth COOL HUNTING and Land Rover - was made to launch the new Range Rover Evoque.
Client: Verizon 5G
Doing business during Covid hasn’t been easy. So Verizon set up a program to help small businesses thrive now and set themselves up for the future. Joining the head of Verizon’s 5G Labs on a tour of small businesses in Hoboken, NJ was a fantastic experience.
Client: Cigna
Cedric King lost both legs in Afghanistan.
Then he learned to run.
Client: Strayer University
When we travelled to Decatur, Alabama in March 2020 to shoot with local students, we had no idea it would be our last shoot for months.
In any case, I can’t think of a more inspiring group of people to have left off with. It takes a special kind of strength and determination to go back to school while working and raising kids, and the students we profiled are nothing less than heroic.
Client: General Mills/NBC Brand Studio
When Cheerios began awarding “Goodness Grants” to people doing good in their communities, we had the honor of meeting Frank Abel, a renowned bandleader best described as a funky drill sergeant teddy bear.
Frank came out of retirement to save his hometown marching band and ended up changing hundreds of kids’ lives forever. It is truly amazing to see a man in his 70s who can inspire so much respect and admiration from a bunch of high school kids.
Client: COOL HUNTING
Urban blight + heirloom beets = life.
Client: Land Rover & COOL HUNTING
This Webby Honoree followed Instagram famous photographers from coast to coast to celebrate the unveiling of the New Range Rover Evoque.
Dozens of videos ran on a huge variety of screens - from a 72-foot wide monster at the Chicago Auto Show to movie theaters to Instagram, Snap and FB.
Client:
MarketWatch
Whether walking, on a bike or in a private jet, this ongoing series invites viewers to join the world’s most powerful and fascinating CEOs on their ride to work. From “the most powerful woman on Wall Street,” Sallie Krawcheck to MailChimp founder Ben Chestnut, we delve into the habits of these incredibly successful people.
If you think your commute is long, think about this: Our morning with FlexJet owner Kenn Ricci involved 3 cars, a Gulfstream G5, a golf cart, a helicopter, 2 Ubers and a train.
Client: Lexus
When Lexus launched their first luxury sedan, the LS500, they wanted to do something different than the standard “speeding through the desert” car commercial.
Instead, we made a series of videos with Cool Hunting founder, Josh Rubin, that concentrates on the unique design elements of the Lexus and how they fit into other current design trends.
That being said, the LS500 does look pretty sweet speeding through the desert.
As the premiere cover artist for the New Yorker Magazine, Barry Blitt has emerged as one of the most important satirists of our age. But in the Trump era, he has faced an unprecedented challenge: How to caricature a real-life cartoon.
Client: Land Rover & COOL HUNTING
Nikk La was going to school to become an x-ray technician when he discovered a knack for taking a more creative type of pictures. Now the award-winning photographer uses his quiet, subtle style to document life across the planet. But he still loves exploring his home town, San Francisco, the most.
This project - one of a continuing series produced in collaboration wth COOL HUNTING and Land Rover - was made to launch the new Range Rover Evoque.
Client: General Mills/NBC Brand Studio
One of the first winners of Cheerios “Goodness Grants,” Steve Brosnihan is a cartoonist who works with kids at a local cancer hospital. On a whim, he began blinking “good night” to them on his flashlight as he left the hospital each night, and this soon grew into a citywide tradition. There are no words to describe how moving it is to see hundreds of regular people come out to show their support for no reason other than human kindness.
Client: Land Rover & COOL HUNTING
Fashion and design writer Olivia Lopez exposes hidden pockets of LA’s culture and cool in this project - one of a continuing series made in collaboration wth COOL HUNTING and Land Rover to launch the new Range Rover Evoque.
Client: NBC Brand Studio
On the first anniversary of Hurricane Maria, we partnered with NBC Brand Studio and Today to show The Salvation Army’s relief efforts in Puerto Rico.
Maybe the only thing more shocking than the utter devastation we witnessed was the depth of the Salvation Army’s determination that the island’s residents would not be forgotten.
Client: Land Rover & COOL HUNTING
Dallas has somehow been able to transform into a world class art and culture center without abandoning it’s distinctively Texas roots. Local photographer Paul Tellefsen took us on a tour of the places that demonstrate the uniqueness of this great American city.
This project - one of a continuing series produced in collaboration wth COOL HUNTING and Land Rover - was made to launch the new Range Rover Evoque.
Client: Land Rover & COOL HUNTING
Joe And Maddie Greer moved to New York City with a strange agenda: to not be the best.
This project - one of a continuing series produced in collaboration wth COOL HUNTING and Land Rover - was made to launch the new Range Rover Evoque.
Client: Genesis + Design Milk + COOL HUNTING
For this campaign, we challenged some of the best minds in digital art to create NFTs based on the Genesis G70.
Despite intense heat waves everywhere we shot and an insanely tight turnaround, we had an absolute blast thanks to the amazing creative minds at Design Milk, COOL HUNTING and these impossibly talented artists.
In this weekly series, we profile Gen Xers who have done extraordinary things with money; paying down 6-figure debts, starting businesses, house-hacking.
We were also able to extend the videos’ value by very carefully shooting all footage to be framed both horizontally (for TikTok and Snap), and horizontally (for a separate Youtube channel and the MarketWatch site).
Here, the horizontal versions are followed by vertical versions.
(If viewing on a non-mobile device, double click the vertical versions to see them in their correct ratio).
Part explainer, part experimental series, Unboxed features prominent print reporters explaining complicated financial subjects, like meme stocks or Web3.
Each week we examine a different aspect of a trend, then perform a real-life demonstration (buying or selling stocks, gambling on sporting events, etc.).
New episodes are delivered weekly, the day after they are shot.
MarketWatch Snapchat:
We developed a full slate of series concentrating on celebrity news, culture and scandals to contextualize financial news for younger viewers,
(If viewing on a non-mobile device, double click the vertical versions to see them in their correct ratio).
Client: LifeWorx
The more you interview ordinary people, the more you realize no one is all that ordinary.
This series of interviews we did with people who care for the elderly revealed just how deep a calling this job is, and just how special are the people that do it.
Client: Cancer Treatment Centers of America
Few events are more life-changing than a battle with cancer. These profiles of people affected by the disease demonstrate how the team at Cancer Treatment Centers of America is able to help cancer patients continue rich, full lives during and after treatment.
It was such a pleasure to get to know Jennifer and her family. She is truly superhuman.
Client: Smithsonian
Fred Armisen and Bill Hader are not only two of the funniest people you could ever meet; they are also huge film nerds. So it's no wonder their brilliant documentary parody series, "Documentary Now!' earned them an American Ingenuity Award from the Smithsonian.
Sitting down with them to geek out on Gray Gardens, Nanook of the North and other docs worth satirizing was so much fun it hurt.
Client: PBS/People Magazine
When the BP oil spill threatened to destroy the gulf coast, a group of renowned musicians gathered in New Orleans for a benefit concert. It’s unofficial anthem was “It Ain’t My Fault” by Mos Def; written and recorded in a single (very long) night with help from Lenny Kravitz, Trombone Shorty and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
The results reflect the heartfelt emotion, exasperation and anger of the situation without abandoning the inimitably funky New Orleans spirit that has helped this great American city survive everything that’s been thrown it’s way.
Client: Smithsonian
At the ripe old age of 14, Lilianna Zyszkowski has done more than most of us will in our whole lives. A born problem-solver, she has dedicated herself to helping others through her inventions.
On the surface, her devices tap into existing technology to make life more productive and easier. Look a little deeper, and they just may offer a glimpse into what the future will look like.
Client: Smithsonian
You’d have to be living under a rock not to have seen some of the massive publicity surrounding Lin-Manuel Miranda, whose, “Hamilton” has reinvented musical theater and single-handedly reinvigorated Broadway.
As part of an assignment for Smithsonian, we were lucky enough to have the very first on-camera interview with him about the extraordinary play, even edging out 60 Minutes.
Client: Smithsonian
If there’s a word to describe Alan Stern, it would be tenacity. He has spent his entire professional life in pursuit of our most illusive planet, Pluto (and don’t even dream of referring to it as a dwarf planet to Alan).
His decades-long mission to the farthest planet completes our look at the solar system, and is one of the biggest stories to come from outer space in our lifetime.
Client: Cancer Treatment Centers of America
Few events are more life-changing than a battle with cancer. These profiles of people affected by the disease demonstrate how the team at Cancer Treatment Centers of America is able to help cancer patients continue rich, full lives during and after treatment.
Kelsey’s story is so incredibly moving, and she is wise far beyond her 19 years.
Client: The Washington Post Brand Studio
This project highlights the people behind Lockheed Martin’s autonomous vehicles, and their innovative efforts to transition from military to civilian use.
Client: Smithsonian
Hugh Herr has lived a fascinating life. He started out as a mountain climbing prodigy from a Mennonite family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but when a horrific case of frostbite robbed him of his legs, he devoted his life to developing better, smarter prosthetics.
His incredible invention, the Biom, is the first true bionic prosthetic, and has helped rebuild the bodies of everyone from wounded war heroes to a ballroom dancer who lost a leg in the Boston Marathon bombing.
Client: Cancer Treatment Centers of America
Few events are more life-changing than a battle with cancer. These profiles of people affected by the disease demonstrate how the team at Cancer Treatment Centers of America is able to help cancer patients continue rich, full lives during and after treatment.
Ken is one of those extraordinary human beings who never stops thinking of others, even in the midst of his own challenges.
Client: Johnson & Johnson
Nothing can destroy our lives more than health problems: it changes how we feel, the way we look at ourselves and our relationships with loved ones. And it can be even more devastating when others can actually see the illness.
As part of a campaign for the psoriasis drug, Stelara, we sat down with women around the country who had struggled with this debilitating condition, and what it meant to find treatment that helped them regain their lives and themselves.
Client: Fortune Magazine
Photojournalist Doug Menuez was embedded in Silicon Valley in the tech center’s infancy in the 1980s. Several decades later, the scenes he captured give a singularly unique perspective into the mind of one of the greatest minds of the technological age, Steve Jobs.
In a piece for Fortune Magazine, Menuez tells the story of Jobs’ most brilliant failure, Next Computer.
Client: Land Rover & COOL HUNTING
What better way to spend the coldest week in US history than trekking around Chicago with guerrilla photographer trashhand?
This project - the first in a series produced in collaboration wth COOL HUNTING and Land Rover - was made to launch the new Range Rover Evoque at the Chicago Auto Show, North America’s largest car event.
Client: Smithsonian
How does a little-known potter become one of America’s most forward-looking social revolutionaries?
What began for Theaster Gates as an art project soon took on a life of its own as a wholly unique way to address social and cultural ills on Chicago’s South Side and beyond.
Client: Intel
Mark Verstegen has trained some of the biggest names in professional sports. Instead of using simple brute strength, he has developed technology that enables training to be smarter and more efficient.
In this spot for Intel, Mark explains his methods.
Client: Microsoft
Revolution Foods started with a simple mission: to provide healthy food and nutrition education to the kids who need it the most. They’ve devised a way to provide fresh, nourishing school meals in some of the country’s worst food deserts.
Even more incredibly, they do it for the same cost as the far-less-nutritious existing school lunches, while at the same time building a profitable company.
They are a great example of social responsibility and business working hand-in-hand, and helping tell their story was truly inspiring.
Client: Avon
Another in our series on women who work for Avon around the globe, here Sarah Jane uses her own personal health scare to illustrate the company's dedication to women's health issues wellness.
Client: Intel
As part of an ad campaign for Intel, we were given the assignment to interview Morris Jarvis: a man building a spacecraft out of used airplane parts in the middle of nowhere, Arizona.
On the way, we began to wonder aloud if he was for real, or just another crackpot fried by the desert sun. By the end of that dusty, 120° day he had convinced us all that he might just be onto something.
This one’s for all the DIYers out there.
Client: Smithsonian
The Bard Prison Initiative is a revolutionary way of looking at our penal system. The brainchild of Bard College graduate Max Kenner, it provides a 4-year Liberal Arts education to people who society has given up on; maximum-security prisoners. And the results have been extraordinary.
Client: Avon
This was one of those gigs that is so unusual it can’t help but be fascinating: Fly around the world interviewing women that sell Avon door-to-door in different countries. Their stories turned out to be incredibly interesting, heart wrenching and inspiring.
Before I left for England, a friend’s daughter had given me a Flat Stanley – a paper doll that you pass around from person to person, keeping track of it’s progress by sending postcards back to their 3rd grade class. Vicky’s daughter saw it sticking out of the camera bag and asked if she could play with it, so there it is at 1:23 in the video.
Client: Fortune Magazine
Doug Menuez spent 15 years as a photographer in Silicon Valley, documenting the companies and innovators that would change our world forever. He had unlimited access at Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and other tech giants.
Here, in a story for Fortune Magazine, he describes his unparalleled role as eyewitness to the greatest business story of our age.
One of our favorite ongoing projects is this series profiling the relationship between in-home caregivers and their clients.
Audrey is an absolute dream: That rare person who can convey touching, beautiful stories in the most hilarious way possible. Even off-camera I could listen to her talk about her life for hours on end (and I often do, when she calls me to fix her computer).
Client: PBS/Time Inc.
As part of a benefit concert for the gulf during the BP oil spill, we interviewed some of the people most affected by the disaster.
Allen is a subsistence fisherman deep in the bayou. There are no roads that will take you to his home; you can only go by boat. Alligators live underneath his house. He is tough as nails, which made his pain that much more moving.
Client: Smithsonian
It’s rare to meet someone who will transform history. Who will change not only your life, but the lives of everyone you know. Rana el Kaliouby is that person.
Her work bringing emotion recognition technology to our digital devices would be great science fiction, except it is real.
In time, this technology may prove to be as revolutionary as the invention of the personal computer, smart phone, or social media.
Client: Inside Jobs
Inside Jobs is a digital service that helps people find the jobs that are best suited to them. Here two best friends describe leaving their safe corporate jobs to follow their dream of opening a bakery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
By the way, we ate almost every cupcake that you see in this video, and they were good.
Client: Intel
Dan and Dave Barber are icons of the farm-to-table food movement. Their motto is, “Know Thy Farmer,” although in their case, it’s not that difficult; it's only about 50 feet between the farm and their tables.
In a campaign for Intel, they explain the joy of forging a connection between farmer and chef.
Client: Microsoft
Technology is the great equalizer: the more accessible it becomes, the more even the playing field.
At The Bronx New School, an innovative filmmaking program enables the young students to show what’s happening in their world, giving them the power to teach adults their concerns. And it all started with one inspiring teacher.
Client: Avon
Rebekah Testar has become a phenomenon in England, known as the £ 1,000,000 Avon Lady. Here she tells how the company empowered her to build her own business.
Client: Microsoft
We’ve all had teachers who changed the way we thought about the world and our place in it.
Working at an underfunded school outside Washington DC, Shana Sterkin used her own money to start a program to teach community responsibility to her students.
She is truly an example of how an ordinary person can affect the lives of those around them forever.
Client: Inside Jobs
Very few people understand how important music is to a movie or TV show. Done right, it helps mold all the different elements into an inseparable whole. But often the composers who make this vital contribution remain all-but-unseen to the general public.
This profile of film composer Chris Hajian brings an under-appreciated role to the forefront.
Client: Microsoft
What do you get when you cross a troupe of brilliant improv actors with elementary school kids? The Story Pirates, of course!
From its origins as a student project at Northwestern University, Story Pirates has used unconventional methods to help countless children learn to express themselves through creative writing.
An interesting aside: when we filmed this spot for Microsoft they were sharing a cramped office with a struggling actor and musician named Lin-Manuel Miranda, who just a few years later would go on to write and star in the Broadway phenomenon, “Hamilton.”
Client: Principal Financial Group
This was a case of using life’s lemons to make lemonade.
As part of a campaign for Principal Financial Group, we flew around with personal finance guru Jean Chatzky talking to ordinary families about their retirement plans.
The day we were set to shoot the Harris family, a freak Dallas snowstorm and the resulting power outage left us scrambling for generators to light their home. It was stressful to say the least. But it paid off in spades with gorgeous footage of these wonderful people and their adorable granddaughter enjoying that most precious of rarities, the Texas snowman.
Client: Principal Financial Group
It's not often you get to do commercial work that helps people as much as this series for Principal Financial Group.
The Williams family was finding it incredibly difficult to get ahead, despite working hard at stable careers.
When they sat down with Personal Financial expert Jean Chatzky, she was able to teach them about tax breaks and incentives that would save them tens of thousands of dollars: a great, personal example of what a good financial advisor can do.
Client: Inside Jobs
Too often, people with unusual lives or interests are treated as eccentric oddballs. As part of a series for the job-finding web service Inside Jobs, we met up with people with atypical careers to find out about their lives.
Here, the Head Knight at a New Jersey Medieval Times prompts the question, “What’s so funny about taking your job seriously?”
Client: Principal Financial Group
Sometimes the best stories are right in front of your face.
Despite a lengthy and expensive casting process to find families to profile in this series for Principal Financial Group, we ended up going with Keith and Marjan Beebe, who we knew because she sold her outrageously delicious pies from a folding table at our local farmer’s market.
Client: Smithsonian
MIT’s Steve Ramirez and Xu Liu grew up obsessed with sci-fi movies. Their game-changing research implanting false memories into the brains of mice brought fantasy to life, and earned them a Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award.
In case you missed it: These guys implant false memories into the brains of mice.
Client: Smithsonian
The best thing about our interview with Rosanne Cash happened off-camera.
As she was tuning her guitar, I asked her where she’d learned to play. She replied, “My dad asked Carl Perkins to teach me when I was a kid.”
In all the people we’ve interviewed, that could be the coolest sentence ever uttered.
Client: Smithsonian
Palmer Luckey taught himself how to build virtual reality equipment by downloading 15 year-old manuals off the internet in his parents garage. In just a few years, he had revived the seemingly dead technology and sold his company to Mark Zuckerberg for billions of dollars.
When asked what his parents thought of his success, he said, “You know those bumper stickers that say, ‘My kid’s an honor student at…’? My parents pretty much won that game.”
Client: Smithsonian
Kimberly Bryant likes to quote a startling fact: Each year more guys named Dave graduate with a degree in computer science than all the women who earn the same degree put together.
So she did something about it.
Client: Smithsonian
Found-footage filmmaker Bill Morrison’s work blurs the lines between art, music, filmmaking and history.
Here he speaks of his film “The Great Flood” which uses decaying archival newsreels to shine a light on a crucial but almost forgotten period in American history.
Client: Smithsonian
Janet Echelman uses fishing nets, technology and the urban landscape to create public art on an absolutely massive scale.
Client: Smithsonian
Talk about thinking outside the box; Frances Halzen transformed a kilometer-wide block of ice at the South Pole into the lens of the world’s largest telescope. Now his work is revealing the origins of the Universe.
Client: Smithsonian
This one was a nail-biter.
When Shamim Momin got the news she and her co-curator Zoe Crosher were being honored by the Smithsonian, she was less than a week away from giving birth. We rushed to LA to get the interview done in time, and she ended up having the baby only two days after.
Client: Smithsonian
Francoise Mouly takes comics seriously. She’s the Art Editor for The New Yorker, the founder of Raw Magazine, and is married to Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that she saw the educational potential in comic books when few others did.
Client: Intel
As individuals everywhere strive to live greener lives, Ron Gonen came up with Recycle Bank, an innovative company that gives financial incentives for increasing good practices, and shows that business and sustainability can go hand-in-hand.
Client: Johnson & Johnson
Justine is a strong, driven person; not one to sit around feeling sorry for herself. So when she began struggling with psoriasis, she took action.
Here she describes her attitude on life, and how the groundbreaking treatment Stelara helped her regain control of her life.
Client: Smithsonian
Drs. Rudy Tanzi and Doo Yeon Kim have developed a game-changing method of Alzheimer’s research that may well cure the disease in the next few years.
In a shining example of truth being stranger than fiction Dr. Tanzi is also an accomplished pianist who plays in a band with Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, and wrote and performed the music we used for this profile.
Client: Massachusetts General Hospital
Too often the inclination is to see science as cold and methodical, discounting the intense creativity that goes into cutting-edge innovations.
Dr. Jay Vacanti has one of the most ingenious minds in medical science. A passing glimpse of a building covered in scaffolding inspired his groundbreaking work in building living human organs.
(Plus, he had a cold on the day we interviewed him, which gives his voice an extra bit of drama and gravitas.)
Client: Massachusetts General Hospital
Dr. Dan Haber’s use of genetics to treat cancer is the future of medicine, and one of the reasons that Massachusetts General Hospital is the #1 rated hospital in the country.
Client: Genesis
Everything on this reel was shot in a single day with a crew of 7.
