University of Arizona Health Sciences
Brand Storytelling
MY ROLE
Creative Direction · Brand Storytelling · Producing · Directing · Editorial Strategy · Production Leadership
Street Medicine Phoenix takes health care out into the community, where University of Arizona medical students and faculty care for people experiencing homelessness. They address immediate medical needs and connect people with services.
I spent a day with the program while making this film and was struck by how at ease the medical students were with their patients. Their conversations flowed naturally. There was a genuine familiarity between them, and I found myself humbled by the students’ dedication.
This was also the first brand film I made after joining Health Sciences, just a few weeks into the role. I’d been hired to establish a new identity for our video storytelling and I wanted the films to feel cinematic. Before shooting began, I ordered new cameras, lenses, lights and audio equipment to support that vision.
Our staff media specialists brought years of experience in news-style production, a discipline with its own strengths and a different approach to filmmaking. I used the Street Medicine Phoenix shoot as a creative training ground, bringing in members of my longtime freelance crew who worked with the same cinema gear I had just ordered. They worked alongside the staff, turning the production into a hands-on workshop.
Narratively, the film followed a problem-and-solution arc; visually, we aimed for something intimate, natural and cinematic. That combination became the model for the brand films that followed.
Looking back, there was something fitting about the alignment. Street Medicine Phoenix is a story about meeting people where they are, with patience and an openness to learn from one another, and that’s exactly what unfolded behind the camera too. The students taught me something about showing up fully for another person. My crew shared a different way of seeing and telling a story with our staff media specialists. Both forms of generosity left a mark.
It’s rare that the making of a film mirrors its subject so closely, but this one did. I think that’s part of why it still resonates with me as the film that set everything else in motion.