ARTS & LETTERS - AGENCY PRODUCER
As agency producer I handled all post-production for this Google TV campaign including partnerships, UI, special effects, and color. Multiple versions of the spot were delivered for the campaign highlighting different features and running across platforms and media.
Also an amazing hardware product I personally use every day because of the campaign.
As an integrated program manager at Meta, I was part of the GTM (go-to-market) cross-functional campaign and product team launching the pro version of the iconic VR headset.
I managed the workstream for the product film, highlighting the beauty and capabilities of the device. The video and imagery that came out of that was used across social, web, CRM, PR, and 3P retail channels. Teaming up with Man Vs Machine as our production partner, I worked with our internal marketing, product, media, and channels teams, as well as leadership, and helped run the workstream from strategy to finish and beyond. We addressed campaign pivots and ensured the success of the launch campaign.
Working with cross-functional teams company-side, ensuring that teams’ needs are met and input taken into account, while staying focused on the end goal of a successful marketing campaign, has been a favorite career experience. This taps into my own range of experiences from running a company, leading teams, production, and working with tech clients.
The product film was a large success within the overall campaign, and the work was used across PR, launch events, paid and organic social and media, in multiple global markets.
ARMADA - Co-Founder and Executive Producer
We partnered with the Samsung team at R/GA to shoot five unboxing videos as well as still photography for the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 in five towns and two countries over a month, working with famous Fortnite gamers including Ninja, the most famous gamer in the world, and Harry Kane, captain of the UK’s World Cup soccer team.
It was important to the clients to have a light crew footprint and to maintain a balance in creating polished content that still resonated as authentic with the influencers’ audiences.
The agency engaged editorial partner Whitehouse to edit on location for same-day release on the influencers’ social channels. Ninja’s Youtube video post alone garnered over 6MM views in one week. It was a great and fun team effort.
The content we created ranged from still images and boomerangs to stories and videos for Instagram, Youtube, Twitch, and more. Total views exceeded 30MM.
The anthem unboxing video made the list for Top 10 Most Popular Global Video Ads for Cannes 2019.
The content project was part of a larger R/GA campaign releasing the Galaxy Skin in Fortnite, a skin that players could wear to become Galaxy Man. The campaign went on to win a D&AD Pencil and a Mobile Webby.
VCCP - AGENCY EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
As executive producer, I built a team of 5 motion designers and additional producers to handle the transcreation of a U.S. Chrome campaign for global media usage, including 8 countries in Europe as well as broadcast delivery.
I managed a production that included translation, motion design, VO and mixes, and ensuring the integrity of over 430 master spots to be delivered across media. Organization, team building and management, team and client communication, and addressing shifting priorities were key to this ongoing production and delivery.
In my role as a program manager at Meta, we created a launch film to debut at Cannes and on social media announcing the collaboration with several high end fashion brands to create outfits for avatars to wear across many different app platforms within Meta.
Working with the product and marketing teams I helped keep a tight timeline on track while delivering a launch film that pleased many disparate teams and our brand partners involved on the product and targeted very specific strategies.
I wanted to test out using AI content generators to see how close I could get to something that was watchable and theoretically usable; not just an animatic or a storyboard, but something that felt real.
I tried two approaches, using a short non-fiction story I wrote many years ago as the creative foundation, and then a music video concept.
For the short story, trying to generate AI imagery and video clips that conveyed the correct narrative was challenging. Precision and consistency felt impossible. This isn’t dissimilar to trying to use stock imagery and footage to create something that tells a narrative. In some ways it was more powerful than stock and closer to what I wanted, and in other ways, the people in the images had too many fingers, or walked like drunk people, or their heads became the blue coffee cups when I just wanted them to hold a coffee cup.
This led me to try something surreal. The AI video generators would come up with crazy ideas based on my prompts and it felt right to try to go with that and work with it, play with the inspiration from the content that came back. I was still trying to follow the narrative concept I had previously written for the Panda Bear album “Panda Bear Vs the Grim Reaper”, but the dreamlike, surrealist quality of a lot of the video content pushed it in new directions. The psychedelic music track from Panda Bear for Tropic of Capricorn felt at home with the AI imagery.
With the short about Mohammed, in trying for realism I had tried everything to keep the look of Mohammed consistent, even feeding Midjourney the image that looked most like him over and over trying to get more images of the same man, and it would not work. The first image shown of Mohammed is the one that looks most like the real Mohammed.
Unintentionally in this short, Mohammed becomes many middle-aged Muslim men operating coffee carts in midtown Manhattan, a generalization and an amalgamation instead of a specific person, and there can be interpretations of what that means which I am conscious of, and are completely unintended and unwanted.
There are many people operating coffee carts in New York, but Mohammed was one man; a special person in my daily life who was a rock for me even if he didn’t know it, and even if I also wasn’t totally aware of it at the time. I missed him when I switched jobs, and later went back to his cart’s spot, and there was another man there.
Putting in terms such as “tall 55 year old Muslim man” felt biased and I thought it was only fair, or so I thought, to put myself through the same treatment, though “38 year old average weight jewish-english woman” led to model-like results, the kind of image you might see at the top of a location search in Instagram. My makeup and cheekbones in real life were never 25% as sharp and perfect. I don’t even have cheekbones. Adding “uncool” didn’t help the results; it gave them all sunglasses. Just describing myself as “jewish” gave me a hasidic hat and vaguely payots-like curls in the sides of my hair.
It’s important not to forget how biased the AI still are. They are created by humans, and fed biased images and content from the internet. Not a real representation of what the world looks like. “Person” or “office worker” etc will return men much more often than a woman.
In a curious twist, the AI also could not possibly imagine how dirty and gritty New York actually is. Everything looked shinier, nicer, more quality-of-life-friendly, as if it were in Europe. There were much fewer people, even when given prompts like “super crowded” or “rush hour” or “filthy” or “gritty”. The coffee carts all had lovely cafe chairs around them and were shiny and full of lovely objects. There was sunshine and smiling people, nothing like the New York I experienced on the best of days in my New York.
Ultimately the feedback I got from friends on the short about Mohammed was that maybe the story wasn’t well served by AI imagery, and could be better with real photos and film. I think that’s telling for where the AI is now. It does an okay job, and it’s powerful because this is the easiest and cheapest way for me to create a visual film for this story, but it’s not quite there yet, and the AI issues are distracting.
ARMADA - Co-Founder and Executive Producer
At ARMADA we worked on several direct-to-brand projects where we were able to produce projects from concept to completion. This usually included creative ideation, production, and post-production. Uber Eats was a great partner to work with to concept this fun spot and bring it to life. It demonstrates their enhanced animated UI and a new product feature that shows users just how long they have to do the other good stuff in their lives before their food arrives.
We worked with director and creative Mary Dauterman and the Uber Eats team on this social-destined spot with best practices in mind including the swipe-stopping adorable pup in the first frames.
We produced several versions for social platforms and still photography as well.
ARTS & LETTERS - AGENCY PRODUCER
Agency producer for the post-production portion of the Google Chromebook campaign including localization to multiple global markets and full versioning and delivery of all assets.
ARMADA - Co-Founder and Executive Producer
We produced a few fun projects for Google and B-Reel including this campaign featuring mega-influencer Chrissy Teigen and the voice of John Legend, shot in their home in LA.
The spot was published on Chrissy Teigen’s Instagram page and received over 4.8MM views and 450K likes.
ARMADA - Co-Founder and Executive Producer
We shot this campaign for Google Pixelbook, which features four talented influencers who use the device to enhance their work and passions.
We worked with director Brandon Loper in collaboration with the wonderful team at B-Reel to produce these spots.
ARMADA - Co-Founder and Executive Producer
Over a year from 2017-2018 we were hired to work on the production of #WarGames, an interactive movie from director Sam Barlow (creator of Her Story ), in partnership with M ss ng P eces, MGM, and Eko.
The film is an interactive remake of a cult classic from 1982 of the same name, which starred Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy.
We were responsible for the digital design and development of the interactive cinema experience, including UX, motion design, and interface design, hiring senior designers and developers to bring the film to life and construct the backend mechanics which shape the user's experience of the story simply by how they watch it.
PRESS:
WIRED
"#Wargames is a unique interactive revival of the ‘80s movie… It encourages you to keep your hand on the mouse, seeking out the most interesting perspective, almost challenging the story to hold your attention. It turns a viewer, ever so minutely, into a player."
ENGADGET
"#Wargames is the ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ of interactive cinema… #WarGames is one of the first attempts to push interactive media into the mainstream... It's not a choose-your-own-adventure book where viewers attempt to unlock the best outcome; it's not a role-playing game where the audience is a hero on a quest to save the world. Instead, you're an observer deciding which screens look the most interesting at any given time, navigating the chat windows like you would with Discord, Skype or FaceTime. The fact that the series actually responds to your decisions only increases the level of immersion, how real the on-screen action feels."
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners - Senior Interactive Producer
What do you do when you need to create a global campaign around new (global) Late Night flavors of Doritos chips with interactive music videos that need to incorporate the product, one headliner celebrity, and 5 global bands?
You create a production platform where a custom-built 360-degree filming rig and core team travel to each of the participating 5 countries to plan and shoot their own unique 360 music video - and this was in 2010, the first 360 degree music videos, playing in a custom-built 360 video player on the site.
You create an augmented-reality driven music video for the headliner, Rihanna, where the user needs to be holding the product in their hands in order to unlock the sexy, darker, late night version of the video.
You create a globalized site, personalized and translated for each country.
Not a single media dollar spent on this campaign. $5Million in earned impressions.
Mother New York - Head of Digital Production
To launch a new book from James Patterson, we created a social campaign based around a self-destructing version of the thrilling novel, and tapped into the author's dedicated Facebook fanbase.
Over 400 million media impressions were garnered, all without spending a single media dollar.
It became one of the most award-winning projects in Mother New York's history.
Facebook - Freelance Producer and Consultant
During nearly two years freelancing for Facebook, I worked in two different capacities. I first worked through the Facebook Studio as a consultant, helping the London and Paris offices source full-service agencies, production companies, strategy-focused shops, and research companies for a wide range of projects focused on helping European small business owners, developers, and individuals.
Once the European offices were up and running with locally-based resources, I worked mainly with the west coast offices in Menlo Park, Seattle, and Los Angeles on a resource called Facebook for Creators. This initiative was based around a website designed to inspire and assist influencer content creators. I worked with external production partners and internal development teams to launch and maintain the site in 28 languages, including different versions for different geolocations, prepped for a refresh, and built and published the blog updates.
ARMADA - Co-Founder and Executive Producer
As co-founder of a 100% women-owned company, it was an important part of the company mission to elevate young women directors and promote diversity in the production industry through diverse hiring practices across the entire crew on every project. On set for Man Repeller x Olay, our clients, talent and crew were entirely women as our clients shared our goal.
This project in particular championed women who work and have flourished in male-dominated industries... with a crew of women who also work in a male-dominated industry.
We produced both the live action shoot and post for this project.
Huge, Inc. - Freelance Executive Producer
At Huge, Inc., I was responsible for the creation of 28 pieces of live action and motion graphics content to live in-store in a redesign of the in-store experience.
Live action and motion graphics (2D and 3D) made up this extensive production.
To view content, please contact me.
Mother New York - Head of Digital Production
CB2's first campaign tapped into the masses of interior design fans on Pinterest. We crowd-sourced the design of an apartment in real-time over 5 days with the help of Pinterest celeb stylists - "Pinfluencers."
Viewers chatted live with the Pinfluencers and voted every hour by liking furniture and accessories to be placed in the NYC apartment.
Mother New York (Design) - Head of Digital Production
For Zaha Hadid's first permanent building in New York, we created teaser and launch sites in order to help our client sell the residences of a structure which did not yet exist.
The teaser site was a rendering of a paper model used by Zaha Hadid's team to show how the sunlight would play in shadows as it moved over the building, activated by user scroll.
The informational launch site let the imagery and renderings speak for themselves in an elegant Tumblr-like format.
Mother New York - Head of Digital Production
Oh, did we do banners.
And this is just a taste of the ones we did for Target.
Banners are an important piece of the puzzle, and can be done poorly, or can be considered a creative opportunity - for something fun, or something well designed and executed.
Banners to me are like cheese pizza - if you can't do them well, anything more complicated isn't going to turn out great either.
Y&R NYC - Executive Producer of Digital Content
To launch the all-new Range Rover Sport, we created an interactive film that let the user go on a James Bond-style adventure using their smartphone as a game controller to take the most exciting test drive of their life.
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners - Sr. Interactive Producer
Creating the first in-browser augmented reality, we launched an infographic-based site for GE that explained for users how the new smart energy grid would help the world with lower cost, improved utility, and better access to renewable energy resources.
Launched as part of a Super Bowl campaign, users continued to be drawn to the site for months after through the many organic user-generated videos of people experiencing the augmented reality experience for themselves.
We pushed the limits of the AR technology when it had only previously been experimental.
To calculate the many permutations of equations in the infographics, I worked with an international nuclear energy consultant, and used my background in advanced mathematics.
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners - Sr. Interactive Producer
A design-focused, information-rich site that revealed the attention to detail that went into the build of the luxury car, and led to a significant growth in sales as a result.
- Seamless interactive video, CG animation, stop-motion photography, interior 3D mapping, design.
Executive Producer of Digital Content - Y&R NYC
For Land Rover's All-New Range Rover Sport, we created an interactive print ad that put users in the driver's seat.
WILD THINGS - Freelance Producer
Working on an animated video campaign for a CBD beverage brand is everything high school me could dream of and not imagine possible. Therefore, adult me was incredibly thrilled to work on the campaign launch of everie CBD beverages (under their parent company, Fluent), comprised of animated videos and banner ads intended for different formats and media destinations to be A/B tested as part of the launch. The rules around CBD advertising in Canada are formal and we were able to put something fun and bright together to launch a brand new line of beverages.
Goodby, Silverstein & Partners - Senior Interactive Producer
You can get people the most jazzed of any booth at the SXSW trade show with a 360 degree bullet time photobooth and Texas-themed props.
Y&R NYC - Executive Producer of Digital Content
Using non-linear interactive video storytelling, we pushed the limits of HTML5 with a video-based game.
Users could examine the data of Dell's sponsored F1 race car and make minor modifications to the vehicle to try to improve their lap times, while learning more about the science of speed and aerodynamics with the engineers behind the race.
Medical Assistant and Cameraman
While at UCLA I took a semester off to volunteer for the Tibet Vision Project, an American medical mission in Tibet working with Nepalese, Chinese, and Tibetan doctors. The project provided medical equipment, trained doctors, and organized "eye camps". We traveled to remote parts of Tibet with the doctors to take over local hospitals to serve the nomadic and local people with cataract surgeries, eye glass fittings, and provide other ophthalmic services.
I served as both medical assistant at the eye camps and solo cameraman on the trip. Some of the footage was used in Isaac Solotaroff's award-winning documentary about the project.
"Vividly documents a miraculous project in Tibet...a tremendously worthwhile film..." - The Dalai Lama
Mother New York - Head of Digital Production
Stella Artois Cidre is the perfect drink for a summer picnic.
To launch the beverage in New York, we put together a sweepstakes for people to win a valuable piece of real estate in the Hamptons for the summer - a perfect, picnic-sized property.
Users could view a tour of the property on StellaArtois.com or have "Le President" call their phone to have an interactive video chat to assess whether they were suitable future owners of the picnic space.
