Schrödinger About Us Video

Design | Animation | Videography | 3D Particle Simulation | Editing

The Project

It’s hard to describe what Schrödinger does because it’s a company that does a lot of things: material science, drug discovery, molecular simulation software, machine learning, collaborative research, and more.

We have offices and teams all around the world and are heavily involved in major scientific breakthroughs and have been at the forefront of machine learning for the past 20 years.

Yet, no one knows exactly what they do.

Our task on the creative team was to quickly introduce what they do. The target for the video was both the public and investors: people who have don’t understand the complicated science behind the company.

As the Motion Designer and Videographer on the team, I was tasked with creating a short video that did just that.

The Process

I was provided an ongoing, in-process script to work from and immediately created a storyboard which we iterated on in collaboration with scientists across the company.

The video was to include animations, live footage, and a voiceover.

Representing Chemical Space

One major focus of the video was to present Chemical Space in visually appealing way (but also retaining a level of scientific accuracy that would satisfy all the stakeholders. So, I developed the visual language of the Chemical Space Cloud.

Chemical Space is the concept of all possible molecules and material compounds, mapped into physical 3D space with XYZ coordinates and my imagery was based on the PubChem model:

PubChem Chemical Space Visualization

There were several challenges:

• MAKE IT OURS: the model above is only theoretical and is specific to one area of research. We had to make it ours.
• MAKE IT PRETTY (and smart): the conceptual space had to be visually appealing, but also scientifically representative

Creating Assets to Build On

Thinking beyond the scope of this video, and knowing that we wanted Chemical Space to be a defining character in our brand story, we also wanted this to be a re-usable asset… something that could be applied to any division within the company, versatile enough to adapt to any area of science as well as each department’s or piece of software’s individual branding.

So, in Houdini, I created a procedural point cloud that could be re-colored and shaped to any purpose with a scalable point count (up to 80 million particles).

Houdini viewport with 80+ million points

And from this cloud we could create a series of assets to serve any purpose (backgrounds, textures, features, web imagery, etc.)

Looping Clips for General Use

Schrodinger software Splash Screens

The People

Scientific concepts can help to build a narrative, but Schrödinger is a great company because of the scientists who work here (one of the unique things about Schrödinger as a company is the astounding percentage of the workforce that has PhD’s).

I shot footage around the office over the course of several months, coordinating with team leaders and coworkers to arrange shoots that felt natural while also maintaining high production standards that would present them in the best possible light.

Shooting between the offices in Boston and New York and shooting at the laboratory in Framingham, I tried to capture what the experience of working here was like: intellectually challenging, scientifically advanced, and, above all, collaborative.

production stills from the shoots

In the end, the video served not only as the centerpiece for us to tell our story, but as the foundation for more department-specific videos to come.

For more about this project (and lots others), please reach out!