SCIENCE FILMS
As a science film director, editor, videographer, animator, and writer, I get to tell a lot of weird, wild, and wonderful stories. I’ve made over 75 short films and videos. 12 million people have seen those productions, too. I like to find one of a kind stories and communicate science so it’s fun and you understand it. In the past, that’s meant working with scientists and reporting on their research to explain mole units or naked mole rat brains. Also, I’m always asking questions, like what happens to your body when you die in space?
A More Perfect Unit: The New Mole (Popular Science)
What Happens to Your Body When You Die in Space? (Popular Science)
This is Your Brain on Naked Mole Rats (Popular Science)
When aspect ratios change, I think up visually compelling, artful ways to make the audience stop their scroll and take notice, like with these vertical science videos made for Instagram Reels for the Wildlife Conservation Society. And because I design vertical templates, editing is streamlined for quick turnarounds.
First Voyage to the Hudson Canyon (Wildlife Conservation Society)
How Wild Tigers Keep Our Planet Healthy & the Return of Tigers in Thailand (Wildlife Conservation Society)
The Students Protecting the Hudson Canyon (Wildlife Conservation Society)
Photographing the New York Life Aquatic (Wildlife Conservation Society)
I make imaginative science films, like the upcoming “scale: BRAIN” for Pioneer Works Science Studios. In collaboration with executive producer, scientist, and author Janna Levin and animator Ramin Rahni, we consider the brain on three unique scales. Microscopic: nanometer-sized neurons, the domain of the invisible. Human: the world that we can perceive. Macro: a brain the size of a planet, a realm that can seem improbably vast. This is my Powers of Ten, but for the brain. (Coming in 2025)
I create sponsored content—your brand, your story, your world seen through any editorial lens—like the “Driving With Scientists” series I made with the multi-talented Jason Drakeford for Popular Science and Continental. From pitching concepts with custom decks, to managing client relationships, to actually making the videos, my sponsored work at PopSci brought in over a half million dollars in revenue.
Driving with Coyote Biologists (Popular Science + Continental)
Driving with a Firefly Researcher (Popular Science + Continental)
Driving with an Environmental Landscape Designer (Popular Science + Continental)
I make editorial series you don’t find anywhere else, like the Webby Award-nominated “Wild Lives” for Popular Science (animations by the incredible Beth Wexler). I mean, if you’re not intrigued by the title “Frasier the Sensuous Lion,” are you even human?
Frasier the Sensuous Lion (Popular Science) - Webby Nominee
The Shearwaters, or: When Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ actually happened (Popular Science)
The Love Life of the Horseshoe Crab (Popular Science)
I make profiles for science organizations featuring scientists and their work, like the “Science for the Planet” limited-series for Columbia Climate School. Filmed in the lab, the field, and the communities we all live in, cutting edge research is explained, discoveries are made, and real solutions are possible for a climate changed world.
There’s Too Much Carbon Dioxide—What If We Sink It? (Columbia Climate School)
As Greenland Goes, So Goes the Planet (Columbia Climate School)
How To See Climate Change in Tree Rings (Columbia Climate School)
I’m always thinking of different ways to tell stories—explaining hibernation like a Peter and the Wolf performance, or connecting three stories on the theme of nautiluses, or imagining Laika’s space flight from the dog’s POV using declassified Soviet documents. (You can read more about “Nautiluses” on the Sloan Science & Film website.)
L’Orchestre d’hibernation animaux (Popular Science) - Webby Honoree
Nautiluses (Popular Science) - Jackson Wild Media Award for “Finding Captain Nemo” segment
Laika, Our Hero (Popular Science) - Webby Nominee
I’ve accompanied Field Museum researchers to an undocumented part of the Amazon rainforest, co-producing the educational miniseries, “The Brain Scoop’s Amazon Adventures.” Along with the amazing Emily Graslie and a rag-tag crew of scientists, we made the whole series with one DSLR camera, two lenses, and entirely by the seats of our pants. Also, I direct documentaries of all sorts, like a Thrillist series featuring a tarot card reader, burlesque dancer, and brass band. And I find stories lost and forgotten in archives, like my viral Science Friday short film “Diary of a Snake Bite Death.”
The Brain Scoop’s Amazon Adventure #1 (The Field Museum) - Webby Honoree
Otis, the Tarot King of New Orleans (Thrillist)
Diary of a Snake Bite Death (Science Friday) - 2.1 million views on YouTube
I make videos for institutions, too—stuff like curator interviews, lo-fi public service announcements, as well as trailers.
The Hidden History of Black Dolls (New-York Historical Society)
The Good, the Bad, and the Piping Plover (National Park Service)
MoMI-Sloan Student Prizes trailer (Museum of the Moving Image)
See even more of my video work on Vimeo or search the archives of Popular Science, The Brain Scoop, and PBS Digital Studios on YouTube.