Patient Connect: Bernie

For this series we were commissioned to drive home the emotional impact of diseases and treatments on patients and their families.

GENENTECH

Smush was asked to create video and still content for this rich media piece about scientific breakthroughs that have transformed the treatment of an aggressive form of breast cancer.

Take the Journey

Heritage Salvage founder Michael Bug Deakin rescues sustainable building materials from a fate of landfill. We follow him as he repurposes reclaimed wood into country furniture.

Making Medicine depicts the epic journey of a molecule to a medicine in a dynamic web experience with videos, galleries and articles, translating rigorous scientific processes into accessible and engaging content. On our own 10-week, 20-video journey, we had the pleasure (and challenge) of interviewing 53 of the brightest minds in science, and earned our honorary PhDs along the way… Making Medicine premiered at the Birth of Biotech exhibition at the Smithsonian.

Experience Making Medicine

The latest episode in our Big Ideas animation series exploring recent scientific breakthroughs. It’s science with a twist, complete with a colorful cast of characters working together to put the smackdown on pain.

The first and largest national wish-granting organization for adults, Dream Foundation enhances the quality of life for individuals, their families, and their caregivers battling life-threatening illnesses.

Client: “Your mission should you choose to accept it – Capture the inside perspective of our 12,300 employees’ daily activities in 120 seconds or less. Oh, and shoot it with Google Glass…”

The latest in our series of personal profiles features Wendy Kan.  Inside Genentech, she’s a programmer on the BioInformatics team, developing software to help make science faster. Outside, she’s a triathlete and a mentor to other women computer professionals.

Access to Clinical Trial data has been a recent subject of contentious debate within the scientific community. We created this piece to help bring some clarity to the process for both research scientists and the general public.

In our Big Ideas series, we start with a complex scientific discussion about a breakthrough discovery, distill it to a story we can actually understand, add hand crafted animation, mix in freshly composed music, a couple of high-kicks and… Well, you should see for yourselves…

In the second generation, we feature the lifetime of Samuel, Richard’s eldest son, born in 1851. We depict scenes from his life as he came west in the back of a covered wagon, witnessed his family helping escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad, worked as a freighter during the Gold Rush years, and raised a large family on the harsh plains of Iowa.  Over the course of Samuel’s lifetime, the United States made the monumental shift from antiquity to modernity. This gave us the opportunity to integrate much more archival imagery and written historical documentation into our storytelling and to reflect the many revolutionary and thrilling changes he was witness to. Our productions ranged from intimate interview shoots to full-scale location shoots with detailed period recreations that involved dozens of actors, including several children and plenty of farm animals. We directed live action scenes with dialogue, employed multiple splinter crews, and engaged drone units to provide some of the sweeping visuals that illustrate the wild country that Samuel called home.

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In the first generation of the American Story Project, we feature Richard, whose life spanned the better part of the 19th century and included journeys through seven different states. Richard’s story posed a particular challenge, as very little physical record of his life remained and much of his life pre-dated the advent of photography. Reconstructing Richard’s story challenged us to depict his experiences as a young orphan, a witness to the War of 1812 in Baltimore, a carpenter’s apprentice, a survivor of a cholera epidemic in New Orleans, a westward pioneer, a farmer, carpenter and family man. We engaged Pulitzer Award-winning historians, dozens of actors, full-film crews, and period-specific locations, sets and wardrobe in order to fully illustrate the thrill and adventure of Richard’s lifetime during America’s beginnings.

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A diverse cast of non-professional runners attempt to complete the four most difficult ultramarathon races on Earth. Their dramatic journey takes them across the World’s most picturesque yet brutal landscapes, pushing their bodies, hearts and spirits through myriad external and internal obstacles. A glimpse into the mindset of ultra-athletes, and the complex ways in which human beings deal with both heartbreak and triumph.

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MINE is an award-winning, feature-length documentary about the essential bond between humans and animals, set against the backdrop of one of the worst natural disasters in modern U.S. history.
PBS Independent Lens 2010 Audience Favorite

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This award-winning documentary film explores the timeless subjects of grief and healing through the story of a very unique journey. When six women from the US — all of whom have experienced a devastating loss — travel together to volunteer with children in need in South Africa, they find an opportunity to experience their pain as a part of a community. Ultimately it is a story about resilience, triumph of the human spirit and the power of unconditional love.

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