Labocine | Head of Video (2019–2021)
At Labocine, I led the platform’s video and social media production during a period of rapid audience growth and monthly editorial releases.
Labocine is a streaming platform and online publication focused on the intersection of cinema and science. Its monthly issues curated short films, documentaries, and feature-length works around scientific themes and concepts, creating a space where research and storytelling could meet.
Responsibilities
My role combined editorial, creative, technical, and marketing responsibilities across the platform’s monthly publishing cycle.
Video Production & Editing
I edited the monthly trailers for each issue, creating promotional videos that introduced the scientific themes and highlighted featured films. These trailers were used across Labocine’s website, newsletter, and social media channels.
I approached the trailer for each issue so that each clip in it reinforced the monthly issue in some way.
I applied the principle that interesting association between clips will result in a trailer that’s fun to watch and one that draws in the audience.
It was very important for the trailers to communicate the novelty of Labocine and to position the streaming service as a unique product on the market. I aimed to carefully set the atmosphere for each trailer to connect scientific concepts to a strong mood.
Newsletter & Editorial Communication - The Weekly Waves
I wrote and designed the weekly newsletter campaigns in Mailchimp, helping communicate new releases, editorial features, and platform updates to Labocine’s international audience.
I was on the lookout for interesting news and developments from the science world that combined filmmaking and a scientific interest.
Social Media & Audience Growth
I managed the platform’s Instagram presence, creating visual content and promotional assets tailored for social media distribution. I also set up and managed Facebook ad campaigns to support the launch of monthly issues and increase audience reach.
These are screenshots from the “Scenes” section of Labocine - these are short, community-sourced videos from research labs, posted by scientists working there.
Workflow Automation
To streamline the editing process, I wrote a custom script that automatically downloaded all films associated with the current issue into an organized local workflow. This significantly reduced preparation time for trailer editing and content production.
I used the python libraries Beautifulsoup and Selenium to achieve this. Since the videos were hidden behind a login screen, I used web scraping and browser automation. This essentially turned the task of manually downloading source videos to launching a script, saving up to 2 hours / issue.