KAUST Catalysts
Trailer
The idea behind Catalysts is to explore the stories of everyday students in various stages of their studies in the university, but connected by each student's pure passion and drive. It is a series of Profile videos of 5 students from different background and countries. The goal of the series is to inspire scientific discovery in young students and pursue a path in STEM, whether here at KAUST or anywhere else in the world; this is a social responsibility initiative calling back to KAUST's original mission statement: to be a modern day house of wisdom and expanding the effort of scientific discovery everywhere in the world. At the same time, it demystifies what a scientist is and looks like today, making them more relatable and helping the audience put themselves in their places. Or at least that's how I pitched it to the higher ups so I can get away with doing something totally awesome.
Catalysts has been a fun experiment in the production cycle, instead of recording interviews to camera like a typical Profile video, I had the subjects come into a recording studio and recorded our conversation like a podcast. This allowed the Catalysts to be far more relaxed, open, and vulnerable, sparing absolutely no detail without dealing with the pressure the lenses add of having to be constantly perfect-presenting. At the same time, this gave me more freedom to edit the narrative how I please, stitching many different parts of the story seamlessly without having to worry about cuts flowing into each other, jump cuts, or blinks or looking into the lens. I could surgically remove any undesired piece of audio like a lip smack or tongue click without having to worry about syncing audio to video. However, this also came with its own set of unique challenges: one being I have eliminated the safety net a talking head would give me if I had no relevant B-roll, so every shot had to be planned. the other challenge was distilling an hour of conversation into less than 2 minutes, one of the interviews even took 2 hours and it was really hard zeroing in on one single cohesive storyline. But at the end of the day, I managed to deliver the stories I wanted to tell.
Alan's story is an overview of the entire project: it goes into the past, present, and future. A proof of concept. Alan's story weaves into the people who influenced him and his relentlessness to be where he is. Alan comes from a background of no privilege, and has constantly earned his spot where he is today. He might be only at the beginning of his path, but he is already planning for the end like it's soon.
Ohoud was my very first pick out of the Catalysts cast because through just her words I was inspired, and when I brought her into the studio I was absolutely captured by her passion for what she does, she's the kind of person you never want to stop listening to. Ohoud is also in the very beginning of her journey, but it feels like she has been on this path longer than meets the eye. Anyone can find themselves in Ohoud.
Despoina is a departure from the first two episodes and marks the halfway point in the academic journey. She brings forward the more mature aspects of this field: failure. But despite of it, she's not shaken off. Despoina is someone who loves: she loves her family, she loves her friends, and she loves her field. I wanted to express that love she gives everything around her in her episode, she's someone who always gets up after being knocked down. When I was going through the candidates, I had no idea our conversation will get so real, every time I recorded one of the catalysts I don't give them any special input and I just slightly steer the conversation into what I think makes for a good story. The "familiar with failure" storyline came as a complete coincidence.
Abdullah's video was the hardest for me to do. In fact it was the last one I completed. What made his episode so difficult is the fact I had no idea where and how to start. He had so many unbelievable stories, so many things happened in his life that choosing a portion to do a minute and a half on was impossible. No matter how I cut it I felt guilty about leaving out so many incredible details behind, and in the end I had to go with the story that made the most sense to the overall narrative of the series. Abdullah is heading towards the end of his PhD, but he's also a co-founder of two start ups companies. I wanted to include this path to expand the universe the series takes in, it's not all academics. Sadly, we weren't allowed to record any of his start up office spaces and labs, and we were short on clips. But all that matters was capture the different Abdullahs and the incredible life he leads.
Finally, Ananya is at the very end of her academic path and before the shooting she had 3 weeks before her PhD defense. Ananya's conversation was more introspective, a big contrast to Alan's story who is focused on the future. And just like Alan's, her story is a totem of all the others, she talks about what it is like being a woman in STEM, about loving what she does, and about all the people who got her where she is now. Ananya has been humbled by her experience here, yet she has pride in being an academic that no one could take away from her. Despite being at the end of her journey, the passion that everyone else in the previous episodes showcase has not been burned away in Ananya. She is just as tenacious and as tenacious as everyone on Day 1 of their path, and I knew it was important to show that in this final episode.
Credits:
Videography: Ryan Yangyang
Executive producer: Tony Sheridan
BGM Production: Abdullatif Almethen
Graphic Design: Omnnia Atallah & Monique Engelbrecht
SFX: Alex Arias
Edited and directed by: Hassan Abuabdallah
