Telling the story of scientists across the world

Thermo Fisher Scientific has a partnership with Seeding Labs, a non-profit who works with scientists to donate equipment and instruments to those who need them. We were tasked to interview three scientists from around the world – Mexico, Benin, and Namibia – about their research and how donated instruments benefit their work. I was tasked to edit each hour-long Zoom interview down into a compelling 5-minute video that succinctly tells the scientists’ stories and creates a desire to donate. We also developed a 30-second overview video that boiled down all the critical information into a quick, punchy promo.

Problem / solved

1. Finding the heart of the story 

• Because each interview was an hour-long, there was lots of content that needed to be sorted through.
• I sat in on each interview, making a rough outline and noting any particularly salient or moving moments in the interview. On receiving the full footage, I watched through the interviews again, selecting the notable moments noted before and clips that best captured the main structure of the story. 

2. Sure, I know Spanish (well, enough Spanish)

• One of our interviews was with a scientist in Mexico who spoke using a translator. This added extra complexity to my editing process as the final video would be in Spanish with English subtitles.
• To edit this video, I used my own working knowledge of Spanish alongside the translator’s dialogue in the raw footage to identify the right clips. 

3. Boiling it down

• Going from 60 minutes of footage to a concise 5-minute video requires a lot of thought and storytelling. We had to strike the right balance of just enough relevant content to establish the story, while still keeping the story brief and the call to action clear.
• We kept the Q&A format from the interviews, which establishes some consistency across the videos while also giving the editing a way to quickly advance through topics.