Brought in to explain cultural and historical “whys” about fine art, comic books, cars, video games, and more

This was one in a series of documentary videos that I researched, defined, wrote, and then produced the written and video versions. I led video and photo shoots with the art piece as well as licensing for 3rd party assets to bolster both versions.

The long form work was cut down into posts for Instagram, Twitter, YouTube shorts, TikTok, email newsletter, and in-app display.

We tested YouTube thumbnails and tags for reach, but also wanted to keep them on brand and in the aesthetic of the brand guidelines. It is a balance when playing to the algorithm.

I wanted to talk about how portraiture for Caesars started to highlight attributes that were inaccessible to the normal citizens - age that would mean wisdom, individual identity, and high-profile placements. Like a movie poster with impossible beauty, placed in a town center.

We also compared how Byzantine art made different saints easily recognizable through postures, props, and features. Monroe's look was similarly iconic.

And wanted to squash a bit of the criticism about Warhol's notorious duplications by talking about the artistic practice of repeated subjects by bringing in artists like Monet and Rothko.

And wrapped up by talking about branding, logos, Warhol's time in advertising and his Catholic upbringing would have easily exposed him to all of these ideas.

I’m working on Season 3 of On This Spot - Stories of Pioneering Women Artists, in production now.

On This Spot NYC site

Role: Researcher, writer, creative director, narrator, producer

Role: Researcher, writer, creative director, art director, producer, editor, narrator

Role: Researcher, writer, creative director, producer

Role: Researcher, writer, creative director, narrator, producer

Photo Shoots - Art Direction & Production

One of my jobs at Rally was defining the non-campaign art direction, supervising weekly photo shoots with the archives, documenting these design guidelines for 3rd parties and partners to use, and setting up special capture sessions in the art storage facility.

The challenges were working with the variety of “things” in the archive (luxury watches to fine art to vintage comic books to dinosaur bones), and defining a unifying treatment for all of that variety.

These shoots were used as starter assets for evergreen social content designed to present all of the types of items in the collection similar to museum-held assets. I also led making a back catalog of sizzle reels for assets (an example is the Stella Rolex here) that had captions both separate and baked in, so the social feeds could be updated to promote objects related to our main campaign at any given time.

Freelance

Theater Pre-Rolls

Videos designed to play before movies and concerts. “The Rules of Hades” was designed to run before Jeremy Messersmith’s Halloween 2023 shows.

Role: Research, art direction, and editing

Horror Movie School

A designed curriculum that will take you (or your friends) from “I don’t watch horror movies” to The Shining in six weeks.

Role: Co-designer and presenter

Beer & Game Collaboration

Co-designed a custom tabletop game with Modist Brewing including story, campaign site, (first in the world!) can designs, and custom simplified D&D ruleset.

Role: Producer, co-designer