CEDARS-SINAI | INNOVATION CENTER
Healthcare Fundraising Film | Single-Cell Technology | Los Angeles, California
The Project
Bringing the Future of Personalized Medicine to Life
The Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Innovation Center is pioneering new approaches to diagnosing and treating disease through innovative single-cell technology.
Big Bite Films was commissioned to produce a fundraising film supporting a $50 million campaign to help bring this groundbreaking research from the laboratory into clinical care. The film was also created to premiere at Cedars-Sinai's annual Sunset Soirée gala.
Our team was responsible for the entire creative process, from researching and understanding the science to developing the concept, writing the script, storyboarding, filming, editing, and directing the custom animation.
The goal was to create a cinematic healthcare film that could explain complex medical technology to an audience without a scientific background while inspiring viewers to support its potential to transform patient care.
The Creative Challenge
Making Complex Science Personal
How do you explain sophisticated medical technology to an audience unfamiliar with the science and inspire them to care about its potential?
That was our central challenge.
Our creative development began with a tour of the Innovation Center's laboratory, where scientists introduced us to the technology and its potential applications. Through multiple conversations with the research team and independent research, we worked to understand how single-cell analysis differs from traditional methods.
Once we understood the science, we faced an equally important challenge: writing a script that could translate this complex technology into a clear, compelling story without overwhelming viewers with technical information.
But explaining the technology was only half the task. We also needed to communicate its human significance.
Because the technology was still moving toward clinical application, we couldn't rely on real patient success stories to demonstrate its impact. Instead, we needed to help audiences imagine what advances in personalized medicine could mean for people facing serious diagnoses.
Our goal was to create a film that made the science understandable, the possibilities tangible, and the need for continued research urgent.
Our Creative Approach
Bringing Complex Science to Life
We developed a visual approach combining cinematic live-action filmmaking, original scriptwriting, and custom animation to bring the science to life. We cast actors to portray individuals confronting life-changing diagnoses and filmed their stories against a white cyclorama. Through dramatic lighting, restrained performances, and layered sound design, we created an intimate, emotionally charged opening. Multiple voices overlap as individuals describe their diagnoses, conveying the overwhelming number of people affected by serious disease. The white cyclorama became the foundation for the entire film, creating a consistent visual environment that could transform through lighting, animation, and editing.
To explain single-cell technology, we developed a simple analogy: analyzing millions of cells together is like trying to understand a crowded room where everyone is speaking at once. Through animation and sound design, the audience experiences that confusion firsthand. Illustrated figures fill the screen, their voices overlapping until the room becomes chaotic. Then, with a snap of Dr. Jeffrey Golden's fingers, the room falls silent. As he gestures toward individual figures, they raise their hands and can finally be heard. This visual metaphor transforms an abstract scientific concept into something immediately understandable, demonstrating how single-cell analysis makes it possible to examine individual cells rather than analyzing them together.
Throughout the film, we integrated custom animation directly into Dr. Golden's presentation. Animated cells, medical equipment, scientific illustrations, and entire environments appear around him and respond to his movements, creating a seamless relationship between live action and motion graphics. Our team developed the creative concepts, wrote the script, and storyboarded the animation sequences. We then partnered with a specialized animation studio, closely directing and refining their work throughout post-production before presenting it to the client.
One of the film's most ambitious sequences illustrates the journey from scientific discovery to patient care. Dr. Golden stands inside an animated laboratory as he describes the Innovation Center's vision for moving single-cell technology beyond research and into clinical medicine. A glowing single cell emerges from his hand, and the laboratory dissolves around him. The cell travels through an illustrated environment before reaching a hospital, visually connecting scientific discovery with its potential to transform treatment.
The film then returns to the individuals introduced in the opening scenes. As glowing cells and strands of DNA descend around them, their environments brighten, revealing meaningful moments of everyday life. An artist paints, an architect works, and a mother embraces her baby. In the final sequence, the mother places her baby into a stroller. A match cut transports her from the stylized white cyclorama into a real park, bringing the story out of its conceptual world and into everyday life. The transition reinforces the film's central message: the ultimate purpose of medical innovation is to improve the lives of real people.
By combining emotional storytelling with accessible scientific explanations and imaginative animation, we created a film that makes complex technology understandable while keeping its human significance at the center.
The Fundraising Experience
Inspiring Support for Medical Innovation
The finished film was developed to support Cedars-Sinai's $50 million fundraising campaign and to premiere at the organization's annual Sunset Soirée gala. Rather than presenting a conventional overview of medical research, we created a cinematic experience that connects the work happening inside the Innovation Center's laboratories with the people who may ultimately benefit from its discoveries.
Through original storytelling, custom medical animation, and an emotionally compelling narrative, the film makes complex science accessible while communicating why continued investment in medical research matters. For Big Bite Films, the project demonstrates how healthcare video production can help medical institutions share their vision, connect with audiences, and inspire support for the future of patient care.
Let's Tell Your Story
Big Bite Films creates cinematic healthcare, documentary, and branded films for hospitals, medical research institutions, nonprofits, and organizations with meaningful stories to tell.
From creative development and scriptwriting to production, animation, and post-production, we transform complex subjects into clear, emotionally compelling films that connect with audiences and inspire action.