‘47’ is an animated short film we made for Café Joyeux, a global chain of coffee shops that employs people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The story follows ‘Robert,’ a boy with Down syndrome on a personal odyssey. Guided by his mother’s love, symbolized by a yellow scarf that turns into a sail, he journeys down a river fraught with rejection, exclusion, and bullies; until the age of 47, when he finally reaches safe harbor at Café Joyeux and discovers a world that embraces his extraordinary abilities.
4 Cannes Lions (two Silvers and two Bronzes)
12 LIAs (1 Grand, seven Golds, three Silvers, and a Bronze)
14 Clios (1 Grand, five Golds, five Silvers, and three Bronzes)
Production partners: Zombie Studio, Canja Audio Culture
“The Bridge” is an animated short film inspired by a true story about a man who is struggling with his mental health, and, in parallel, a story about a dog abandoned by his family and left on the streets of NYC. As these two characters experience lives filled with rejection, we see their paths cross and a quiet bond begin to grow. The film explores how this connection ultimately saves both of their lives.
Thirst is a short film about sexual equality that outsmarts social media censorship using metaphors that cannot be flagged or hidden by algorithms. For too long, women have been denied the right to access and enjoy their own sexual freedom. Our film follows a woman on a journey of self-exploration as she seeks what previously felt out of reach: pleasure. The film itself follows the rhythm of the sensation of pleasure and the building of a climax, but without using words or images that would trigger social media censorship biased against women’s sexual health. This is a film made to make you feel.
Skindeep is a hand-painted short that brings race-based trauma to the surface, inspiring people of color and allies to recognize, address and engage in healing. In collaboration with Empowher_NY, the goal of this film was to drive awareness for, and provide resources to educate therapists on the best practices for treating race-based traumatic stress. The creative content worked in conjunction with a podcast series featuring Dr. Robert Carter, a leading expert in the therapeutic field of race-based traumatic stress. This film has been highly awarded, achieving a gold Lion, and many craft/direction awards across multiple festivals.
Client: EmpowHer NY
2020/21 Cannes Lions :: Gold, Health and Wellness
2020/21 Clio Health :: Sliver, Design Craft (Health & Wellness)/Animation
2020/21 Clio Health :: Sliver, Film Craft (Health & Wellness)/Animation
2020/21 Clio Health :: Silver, Social Media (Health & Wellness)/Social Video
2020/21 Clio Health :: Bronze, Digital/Mobile & Social Media Craft (Health & Wellness)/Sound design
2020/21 London International Awards :: Gold, Health + wellness: craft: illustration
2020/21 London International Awards :: Gold, Production + post-production: 2d + stop motion animation
2020/21 London International Awards :: Silver, Health + wellness: craft: music, sound
2020/21 London International Awards :: Silver, Health + wellness: craft: art direction
2020/21 London International Awards :: Silver, Health + wellness: craft: animation
2020/21 London International Awards :: Bronze, Health + wellness: education and services
2020/21 London International Awards :: Bronze, Production + post-production: direction
To create each frame of the Skindeep animation, thousands of newspaper articles about racial discrimination and violence, from the 1920s to today were used as canvases to tell this incredibly emotional story. Each hand-drawn watercolor frame was created by Black women illustrators. To further reinforce the watery atmosphere of the film, The YOUTH developed a new technique filming reflections of the drawings through a water-filled aquarium.
Sleeplessness has risen dramatically since the start of the pandemic with people lying in bed, scrolling through their feeds, and unable to shut off their brains. This habit of doomscrolling is so deeply ingrained that it is impossible to break. Instead of fighting the habit, we asked ourselves if it could be turned into a solution. The realization? Scrolling isn’t the problem — it’s the content you scroll through that is the problem. So we invented and launched Scrollaby, the digital lullaby hidden within your social feed that is scientifically designed to get you off of your social feed and falling asleep.
Scrollaby, features 1,000+ randomized tiles of scrollable sleep content. The content features many sleep-science–proven sleep therapies, including heart-rate variability breathing techniques, psychoacoustic music, quietly narrated sleep stories, ASMR sleep sounds, and looping visuals that the user can stare into as they scroll. The UI is designed to feel familiar and mimic common social platforms.
This consumer launch campaign is designed to show that when patients aren’t suffering from a migraine attack, even the smallest moments feel epic.
The second TV execution (:45) in the Imagine campaign.
The third TV execution (:45) in the Imagine campaign.
We needed to develop a campaign that would cut through the clutter at launch and differentiate from the competition. The “Possible” campaign disrupts the current migraine management status quo to show how Emgality makes the impossible, migraine headache freedom, now possible.
CLIO Bronze 2018 Winner - Social Media/Health & Wellness
Manny 2019 Winner - Best Social Campaign
One Show 2019 - Finalist
Despite being home to some of the best restaurants in the world, the food served in New York City public schools is some of the worst. With thousands of families relying on school lunches to feed their children, countless students and parents are left with no other options. In a city known for great dining, we wanted to raise awareness about the unhealthy food New York’s young residents are forced to eat every day and encourage the New York City Mayor’s office and the Department of Education to make school lunches healthy.
We hacked Yelp so that parents could finally hold their children’s NYC public school cafeteria to the same standards as the food that they eat. Our first step was to create a Yelp profile for The Caton Cafe—a new restaurant with the same name, address, and menu as a notably bad NYC public school cafeteria. On our Yelp page, we received hundreds of reviews speaking out against the unhealthy food options. As Yelp reacted using their algorithm to remove review after review, we amplified our efforts to ensure our message was heard. Simultaneously, we created a complementary website for the restaurant, complete with a menu derived entirely from the actual school lunch menu. On our website, parents were asked to sign a petition to demand healthier lunches for New York City public schools.
Every prescription pain medication comes with warnings. But these warnings are not enough to halt the opioid epidemic ravaging millions of Americans.
This print campaign shows the journey from prescription pain medication to full-blown addiction through the reinterpretation of drug warning label language and imagery.
By communicating the real warnings people are never given—the ones that may have been able to warn against the true devastation of addiction—we can help remove the blame placed on so many individuals.
While most physicians consider migraine a painful neurological condition, they may not be aware of the true impact that it has on their patients’ lives; framing many moments, big and small, with debilitating pain and symptoms.
We needed a way to get physicians to recognize this gap in communication and ask the right questions to have a more revealing conversation with their patients about migraine.
Featured in Lürzer’s Archive 2018
This ad for the International Women’s Health Coalition brings awareness to the 15 million girls married as children each year, who are denied their rights to health, education, and opportunity, and robbed of their childhood.
This short documentary style film features the story of Sylvia. After overcoming addiction and accepting her HIV diagnosis, she uses her personal experiences to educate and empower other women living with HIV.
