In Pursuit

The real challenge wasn't just coordinating partners, it was making 18th- and 19th-century figures feel immediate to students raised on short-form video, without sacrificing the historical accuracy educators and historians required. The series had to work as compelling documentary storytelling and as a classroom resource at the same time, two formats with different instincts for pacing, tone, and depth. Every creative decision, from how a script framed a historical moment to how an episode opened, had to hold up under both standards at once.

As Creative Director, I shaped the creative brand for the series, rewriting scripts and designing the tone and visuals of each video to align with the broader In Pursuit brand and the source essays each episode was built from. I also had a hand in selecting the historical figures featured, guiding creative strategy, production, and post-production, and coordinating cross-functional collaboration across multiple organizations.

Working across multiple organizations, internal teams, and external partners, I ensured every piece of content aligned with the project's educational goals while maintaining a cohesive creative vision.

I started by defining the creative brand for the series: the tone, visual language, and storytelling approach that would carry across all five episodes and align with the essays each was built from. Rather than treating each figure as a standalone profile, I made the decision to build every episode around a single civic principle, a structure meant to make abstract ideas feel immediate and personal for a classroom audience. I rewrote each script to fit that structure, shaping how historical fact became narrative, and had a hand in selecting which figures would anchor the series.

From there, I set the production plan: scheduling, resourcing, and interview direction, ensuring each shoot captured the material the scripts needed. In post-production, editorial choices stayed anchored to that original creative brand, so five separately produced episodes would still feel like one cohesive series. I also worked directly with marketing to shape the national release strategy, treating launch as a creative decision, not just a logistical one, so the series would land as a unified statement rather than five disconnected videos.

The result was a five-part documentary series accompanied by classroom resources and a coordinated national launch across partner organizations. In the first 21 days alone, the series drove over 300,000 views. The top-performing episode, John Quincy Adams, held viewers for 56.8% of its runtime on average, well above the series' own average retention of roughly 47%, and the James Madison episode posted the highest click-through rate in the series, a sign the creative choices behind its title and thumbnail resonated strongly with audiences. The project demonstrated how thoughtful collaboration and creative leadership can bring together multiple stakeholders to produce educational content with lasting value and measurable reach.

In Pursuit sharpened something I already believed: that history resonates most when it's built around a single, human idea rather than a full biography. Choosing to anchor each episode in one civic principle, rather than a life story, meant every creative decision, from script to visual language, had to serve that idea specifically. That discipline is the kind of creative leadership I want to keep bringing to projects: not just managing a production, but shaping the idea underneath it so a team of historians, educators, and filmmakers can rally around something clear.