RING BURNER

THE STORY

Berkeley Lab is one of the world's leading research laboratories. Thirteen Nobel prizes are associated with Berkeley Lab. The lab was founded in 1931 by Ernest Orlando Lawrence, a UC Berkeley physicist who won the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics for his invention of the cyclotron, a circular particle accelerator that opened the door to high-energy physics.

The lab approached LFF with an idea to create an episodic web series about a group of researchers learning how to commercialize their technology. The client came with a specific intention for the series — they wanted to persuade PhD researchers to consider the commercial viability of their inventions. The series needed to be inspiring, informative and entertaining. We decided to shoot the series intimately, with a single camera over the course of 6 weeks. The interview techniques and shooting style drew inspiration from The Office, attempting to turn our researchers into empathetic, witty, and humble characters. This was a story of people going about their work; their work just happens to be the development of advanced low emission combustion systems.