Director’s treatment
facing iGan
Vertex Unbranded - Patient Testimonial Shoot
Conversations like the one we are going to capture between Ariana and Jeff are extraordinary. They are a privilege to witness and a gift to watch as a viewer. They do not just happen. They are the result of intentional, disciplined team craft — a coherent orientation that begins long before Ariana and Jeff ever arrive on set.
My job as the director is to hold everything: the story, the details, the narrative, the disease, the messaging, the science, the humans. I hold all of that — and I structure the production such that there is a clear, unencumbered space for the unfolding and the capturing. There is much process, much busyness, many details. The thought work for all of it has to happen before, so that the doing and the busyness do not dominate. Instead, we create space for the beings to emerge.
That has been my guiding principle on every shoot I have ever directed: create space. Have the sensitivity to capture the sacred, the human, the authentic. The currency of this entire production is trust — and it starts being built the moment I first speak with Ariana and Jeff, weeks before Dallas.
The Currency Is Trust
Why I Am the Right
Director for This
I have been working with Vertex Pharmaceuticals as a trusted patient storyteller since 2017. I have reported on their disease areas around the world — cystic fibrosis, myotonic dystrophy type 1, and now IgA nephropathy. I am learning this disease area with them. I wrote the discussion guides for the Byron Wade and Maureen Sackett IgAN stories. I know the messaging. I know the red lines. I know what self-advocacy, community connection, and patient empowerment mean inside this specific therapeutic context — and I know how to open a conversation that brings those themes forward without ever making a patient feel they are on a compliance checklist.
Vertex trusts me with their patients. There is no simpler way to say it than that.
This is not my first time directing exactly this kind of content. Below are direct references to prior work that speak to my approach, my voice, and my results:
In 2019 we canvassed the country for a year’s-long storytelling campaign to capture a pivotal moment in cystic fibrosis history. People were still suffering and dying from this devastating disease, while others were experiencing a new lease on life with therapeutics that for the first time treated the root cause of CF. And still others lived days marked by the losses of loved ones who lived and died before medical advances could help them.
Along the way, we captured a series of conversations that spoke to aspects of life with CF (several are below). These were efficient and small productions (captured only by myself, our DP and audio engineer), but I would like to highlight the quality of conversation, and the space created for such intimate, authentic connections.
Relevant Work examples
Vertex
Cystic Fibrosis Conversations
2019
Margarete and her son, Eric, who lives with cystic fibrosis. His sister Jena (and Margarete’s daughter) died at 13 from the disease. See full story here
Ginger, and her daughter, Emma Virginia. Ginger’s other child, King, has cystic fibrosis. See full story here
Stacy and her husband, Danny. Stacy has cystic fibrosis. They discuss their decision to get married and pursue a family.
Starting in 2025, we started telling stories of patients living with IgAN for Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Maureen and Isabella’s story debuted in November 2025 at the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Kidney Week in Houston, Texas. Byron and Melissa’s story is currently in roughcut form (going through CRC right now).
Relevant Work examples
Vertex
iga nephropathy - patient stories
Maureen was a new mother when she was diagnosed with IgA nephropathy (IgAN). Her journey is one of strength, resilience, and hope in the face of uncertainty. See video on VRTX.com
Byron didn’t realize he had IgAN until his symptoms were severe. Several years after diagnosis, he received a kidney from his fiancee 7 weeks before their wedding. NOTE: Currently in roughcut form, going through CRC.
Pre-Production
The Work That Makes the Shoot
Long before Dallas, I will have done my own reporting on Ariana and Jeff — who they are, what they advocate for, what they have shared publicly about living with IgAN. I bring myself to this as a journalist, not just a director.
At the patient/director meet the week of April 27th, I will meet them together first, and then follow up with each of them individually in a deeper one-on-one conversation — typically about an hour each. I take extensive notes. Out of those conversations, I build a full picture of who they are and what their priorities are. They get a clear sense that I am going to listen to them, advocate for them, and bring their priorities forward. That is where trust begins.
I will also invite Ariana and Jeff — with client approval — to capture short, vertical, first-person video clips of their journey toward Dallas: a thought they are holding, something they want to say to the other person, a question they are carrying. Shot casually on their phones, the way they would text a friend or post a story. These user-generated clips serve multiple purposes: they warm them up to the camera, they give us pre-conversation insight that may inform our prompts, and they become native social content that we can weave directly into our social deliverables.
The edit begins
in pre-production.
The Set
Space, Light, and Democracy
The creative deck’s reference image — two individuals facing each other directly across a large, beautiful table — is exactly right, and it is what I want to build toward. But the space matters as much as the table. I need a generous room. Not cramped. One that gives us sight lines, breathing room for the light we are bringing in, and a sense of air around our subjects. Simple. Clean. Light and space as design elements in themselves.
Greenery is essential. The plants in the reference bring freshness, life, and a sense of opulence that is entirely democratic — it does not read as wealth, it reads as vitality. That is exactly right for this story.
The location will be a residential or home-like setting sourced in Dallas — not aspirational, not a showroom. Per the brief’s guidance on IgAN patient demographics, the environment should feel relatable and grounded. We will art direct around the specific table setup as the hero piece, with careful attention to what falls in and out of frame.
The space will also need a completely separate area for individual interviews — lit specifically for that purpose, intimate, distinct from the main conversation set. These are two different visual worlds sharing one location.
Look & feel
Camera:
Coverage That Honors the Conversation
For the main conversation, I am working with four angles.
The master wide is the two-shot: symmetrical, democratic, giving equal visual weight to Ariana and Jeff. This is the anchor. It establishes them as equals at the table — which is the entire premise of this piece.
Each patient gets their own three-quarter close-up that grazes the shoulder of the other, with looking room that creates the sense of eye-line connection between them. The light that hits them straight-on in the wide gives their face dimensionality and shape in this angle — depth, sparkle in the eyes.
The fourth angle is critical: a floating, handheld or easy-rig angle dedicated to telling details. This person operates from a distance, never intruding into the intimacy of the conversation. Their job is to find the hands, the pause, the half-smile, the moment before the words come. This angle is also our BTS angle — and I want to explore, with client approval, the possibility of letting some set elements live in these frames: lights, equipment, the trappings of production. I have had beautiful results with that choice before — it does not undercut the polish, it adds a layer of credibility and authenticity. If the client prefers a clean world, that is equally achievable with this same camera position.
For individual interviews, the A-camera is direct to lens for both Ariana and Jeff — they look the same, they are equals. The B-camera flips screen direction between them, so in the edit we have a natural visual call-and-response. The fourth/detail camera serves as a third angle here as well.
All capture at 4K or higher.
Below are 3 videos from an ongoing internal campaign about Vertex culture. We share these to highlight the use of the BTS angle that shoots off set and brings a sense of authenticity to the pieces.
Note: VERTEX INTERNAL (not for public distribution)
Note: VERTEX INTERNAL (not for public distribution)
Note: VERTEX INTERNAL (not for public distribution)
Editorial Approach:
Let It Breathe
The {SkinDeep} {THE AND} reference is well chosen and I know this format well. What I take from it is permission to let things roll — to resist the impulse to cut every silence, to honor the moment before the answer as much as the answer itself. Our hero video is four to five minutes, so we have to be more judicious than an eighteen-minute SkinDeep episode. But to the extent the content earns it, I want exchanges to breathe. Imperfect is real. Real builds trust with viewers.
Split screen is a strong tool here and I want to use it with intention, not decoration.
The formats I am drawn to:
Individual close-ups of Ariana and Jeff pushed to opposite edges of the 16:9 frame, with the two-shot in a square aspect ratio centered between them.
The two individual heroes sharing the full frame nose-to-nose, each occupying 50%. Pure connection, pure symmetry.
One hero and one telling detail side by side, where the detail carries the emotional weight of what is being said.
Split screen comes in at moments of drama and resonance. It is motivated by content, not by a design template. Between those moments, we let the full frame breathe.
Graphic treatment:
I strongly respond to the handwritten line quality in the reference deck. I recommend a clean, white, handwriting-style font (rather than captured handwriting itself, which can compete with readability) for supers, titles, and social text. Informal, direct, honest.
Music:
For the usage and rights requested, we recommend a custom score with rights buyout. This provides the most flexibility and the broadest usage option at the best price.
B-roll
seeing them in the world
I want to build a visual portrait of each person — not as a patient, but as a human being living their life.
With each of them, I will select — through our pre-production conversations — an activity or action that speaks to who they are. Something simple: a walk, a coffee, a craft, flowers, movement. We shoot that at 48 frames per second, off-speed. Slow motion gives us permission to see them as we might see a stranger next to us in the world: who is this person? It creates the visual space to ask that question before we know the answer.
At the end of the shoot, I want Ariana and Jeff to take a walk together. We shoot it from the ground and from the air. Drone perspective does something specific and important: it places two human beings inside a world that is enormous and indifferent, and makes us feel the scale of what they are carrying together. From the sky, we are all the same. We are all fighting our battles. I have seen this work with Byron and Melissa Wade, and I want to bring it here.
Portraits in place will be woven throughout — individual and together. A contemplative dolly push-in during the activity scene, a held eyeline during the interview, a shared moment after the walk. These portraits are among the most effective storytelling tools I use, and they appear in nearly every story we make.
Beyond the conversation and interview setups,
Social Content:
Native, Not Repurposed
Social content is built into the fabric of the shoot —
The fundamental challenge of modern production is that 16:9 and 9:16 are physically opposing compositions. Most schedules don't allow shooting everything twice. And with non-actor subjects sharing unrepeatable moments, we cannot afford to ask Ariana and Jeff to do it again for a different frame.
Our solution is to shoot the entire production on the ARRI Alexa 35 in Open Gate mode. Open Gate captures the full 4608x3164 imaging area of the sensor — an almost square 1.33:1 aspect ratio, significantly taller than standard 16:9. This gives us a 4.6K 16:9 extraction and a full 4K 9:16 extraction from the same frame, simultaneously, with no resolution sacrifice for either format.
On set, frame markers for both 16:9 and 9:16 will be visible on every monitor. Every composition decision will account for both frames. The 16:9 extraction lives in the center of the sensor; the 9:16 uses the full height above and below it, though with such a large source file, generous re-framing options exist for both vertical and horizontal. The overlap zone — where both frames share the same real estate — is where our critical action lives.
Open gate: The ‘How’
Example from production partner Camp4 Collective on open gate capture.
Dedicated content: The ‘What’
We will have a camera dedicated solely to social and BTS capture throughout both shoot days. Rather than an afterthought, this content will capture some of the most sensitive and intimate visuals of the campaign. By definition, it seeks the off-formal, the in-between, the moment before.
Fill-in-the-blank prompts:
At the end of each individual interview, Ariana and Jeff speak directly to camera in a series of structured prompts they complete in their own words:
"The moment that changed everything was…"
"If I could tell my doctor one thing, it would be…"
"Something I want everyone to know…"
"When they said I had IgA nephropathy, I thought…"
"What I wish someone had told me early on…"
They will answer these prompts twice: first individually after their interviews, and again together after their joint conversation. It will be revealing and meaningful to watch how they answer together. Who answers first? Do they answer simultaneously? Where do they agree? Or do they discover a new answer together?
These also work as call-and-response pairs in the edit — Ariana finishes a sentence, we cut to the moment in the conversation where that idea surfaced, Jeff responds. The social content and the interview are in active dialogue with each other.
The joint ad-hoc interview:
At the end of the main conversation, we bring them together casually — standing near the table, the formality of the shoot behind them — and ask what surprised them about each other. What they didn't expect. What they're carrying away. We used this format in our recent IgAN story with Byron and Melissa Wade and it carried extraordinary warmth and weight.
User-generated content:
In pre-production, we invite Ariana and Jeff — with client approval — to capture short vertical clips of their journey toward Dallas: a thought they're holding, something out the airplane window, a quiet moment before it all begins. Already vertical, already native, already theirs, it wraps directly into social deliverables and adds a layer of intimacy no production crew can manufacture.
The Team:
trusted collaborators
I build the smallest possible trusted team
The Team
On set with patients, the crew is everything — their presence, their energy, their ability to disappear when they need to. This high bar is a non-negotiable on my sets.
Camp4 Collective — Production Partner
Camp4 Collective is the producing arm of this production, and their involvement is not incidental — it is central to what makes this bid exceptional. An award-winning, Emmy-nominated creative studio built on a foundation of authentic storytelling, Camp4 has produced work for Apple, Porsche, National Geographic, and The New York Times. What sets them apart is not the scale of their clients but the philosophy behind their approach: small, highly experienced teams that move quickly, operate in complex environments, and connect on a personal level with their subjects in a way traditional productions rarely achieve. The result is work that feels real, elevated, and deeply human — which is precisely the register this project demands.
Daniel Routh, Director of Photography
Daniel Routh is a Dallas-based cinematographer whose work is aesthetically extraordinary — his lensing is precise, his lighting is immaculate, and his sensibility is perfectly calibrated to the intimate, human-centered register this project requires. He brings his own trusted Dallas-based crew, which is a significant logistical advantage for a shoot of this complexity. His work can be seen at danielrouth.com.
Adam Johnson, Sound
Our trusted long-term sound recordist, whose quiet precision is essential to the intimacy of this kind of capture.
Aram Boghosian, Stills / Drone / BTS Stills & Video
A photojournalist who has been in my orbit since we were young — since our days together at The Boston Globe. He never intrudes. He finds the moments no one else finds. His work can be seen here.
Post Production
Post supervision remains with Dina Rudick through delivery. Camp4 Collective handles all post production workflows including editing, graphics, audio, color, and final delivery.
Video Village
Will be out of sight of patients at all times, on comms, with full visual and audio feed. Key crew members who must be physically present will be positioned behind curtains or visual barriers wherever possible. We build a world for Ariana and Jeff and we protect it.
Director
That is me.
The post supervisor? Also me.
Ariana and Jeff need a face to attach to this entire process — one face, consistent from our first pre-production call through the final day in Dallas. I will hold their priorities. I will hold their confidence. I will hold my team. And I will deliver for the client.
The currency is trust.
