Pre-Production

Concept & Scripting

The creative push behind How We Fail to Heal – Act I & II was grounded in a clear directive: take complex regenerative biology and translate it into something narratively strong, visually clean, and medically accurate. This wasn’t just about explaining science—it was about getting the tone right. We had to dramatize biological failure without drifting into clinical detachment or tipping into emotional overstatement.

We structured the story in two parts from the outset. Act I walks through the role of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in natural healing. Act II steps into what happens when that system breaks down—how aging and tissue degeneration disrupt the process. This act break was critical not just for pacing, but for clarity. It created a clean division between how things should work and how they fail.

We did a deep dive into tissue microanatomy, cell interactions, and MSC behavior early. That research shaped our visual strategy. We started pulling reference imagery—cross-sections of tissue, microvascular networks, clean scientific illustrations—and used those to design toward a 2.5D look: flat, analog-inspired surfaces with layered motion and simplified depth. It gave us enough dimensionality to dramatize interaction without losing the clarity of medical illustration.

Rapid Prototype (RP)

We used After Effects to build the RP, focusing entirely on speed and decision-making. This was about laying out the structure, finding the rhythm, and validating shot logic—not final visuals. We used flat 2D graphics over a simplified stick figure, no rigging, no complex movement—just placeholders timed to narration. The point was to sketch out a visual map without overcommitting to technical direction.

This let us quickly test the transitions that matter—like the moment of injury, or the cellular response to damage. Early on, we dropped in rough icons and diagrams: pills, vessels, macro tissue shots. Those test visuals helped us gauge metaphor density and adjust pacing while the story was still in flux.

We weren’t touching physics or simulation yet—this was all about layout logic, clarity of sync between what the narration says and what the viewer sees, and how dense we could let visuals get before they overwhelmed the story. We spent a lot of time defining when the animation should drop into cellular zones and when to pull back. The RP gave us a way to define those boundaries before touching cameras or shading.

Early Visual Styles Explored

From day one, the visual tone was built around the idea of textbook-style clarity. We explored paper textures, anatomical line overlays, and low-poly models to hit that balance. We tested soft lighting setups with flat-shaded geometry and studied how to stylize cell shapes without losing biological credibility.

We knew we had to live in two worlds—symbolic narrative moments like a stick figure falling, and scientifically grounded sequences like MSC adhesion to a vessel wall. RP helped us start testing how that back-and-forth could work. Even at that stage, we were already exploring the line-pass treatment that would later open the Full Production intro—proof that the visual logic was in place early and that render decisions were being baked into creative planning.

Prototyping Animation Concepts

We began to sketch out camera behavior even during RP, though most scenes were never intended to have moving cameras. For this type of content, static compositions work better—they give space for infographic overlays and anatomical storytelling without adding visual noise. The exception was vertical camera moves—upward and downward pans that followed movements of the MSCs through layers of the body. We tested some of this early using simple frame shifts in RP.

We also focused on how specific moments of cellular behavior would be visualized. One challenge: showing MSCs “activating” without anthropomorphizing them. RP helped us figure out how long we could stay on complex ideas like macrophage recruitment without killing pacing or clarity. These tests also validated one of our early rules: no hero cells, no main character MSCs. That was a critical direction from the client—this story was about system behavior, not cellular protagonists.

We also confirmed that transitioning between the acts needed more than a VO shift—they needed visual punctuation. That decision carried into the structural split between Acts I & II and Act III, which allowed each section to stay focused and thematically self-contained.

Client Feedback During RP

Client notes during RP were sharp and actionable. The early voiceover was flagged for sounding too grim—so we pulled it back. We re-recorded VO to strike a better tone, something clinically serious but still accessible and future-facing. That tonal reset informed everything else—visual pacing, voice cadence, even how the scenes were framed. The intro, in particular, was updated to remove fatalistic framing and anchor the story in biological truth, not dramatic fear.

Clients also stepped in with key biological accuracy notes. A major one: remove the idea of a single MSC as a narrative driver. That visual made it seem like one cell was running the show, which isn’t how it works. We revised all MSC-related shots to show group behavior, reframing the biology to feel distributed and system-based.

Script edits came in hard and fast: we added language around long-term inflammation leading to function loss and poor life quality, we revised cellular mechanics to reflect real pathways (“return to native pericyte state” instead of “reattach”), and we dialed up the biological accuracy across all healing and degeneration sequences. These weren’t just text changes—they had visual consequences. Every revision drove layout adjustments, metaphor tweaks, and animation planning down the line.

By the end of the RP phase, we had full approval to push forward on Acts I, II, and III. Importantly, the client locked in the structure as two separate videos—Act III would live on its own. That separation reinforced the narrative break: Acts I & II were about natural healing and failure, Act III would explore external intervention. The split made production cleaner and gave each video room to breathe.

With that go-ahead, we finalized the last rounds of VO, locked metaphor choices, confirmed pacing, and prepared all animation logic for handoff into modeling and camera setup. RP wasn’t just a sketch phase—it acted as a script lock, a layout map, and a structural sign-off. It gave us the confidence to build everything else with accuracy, clarity, and clinical alignment.

Full Production (FP)

Look Development

With RP approved and the visual framework locked, we moved into Full Production inside Cinema 4D—building out the illustrative style using 3D geometry while staying true to the tone established in pre-production. The north star was a 2D medical illustration look executed with 3D control. We approached this through flat-shaded materials, stylized render techniques, and modular scene assembly.

We rendered all environments using Cinema 4D’s Standard Renderer to keep full control over material simplicity, AO passes, and line-render overlays. This gave us the flexibility to merge final geometry with graphic elements in post without adding unwanted realism. Lighting was intentionally ambient and diffuse—no hard specularity, no dramatic shadows. Every material was designed to mimic scientific flatness: highly diffuse color with zero gloss. In the intro, we rendered a dedicated line pass using C4D’s Sketch & Toon system to create clean vector-style outlines for pills and foreground geometry. This let us define edges precisely without redrawing.

The stick figure character received its own ambient occlusion pass to add subtle shape separation. While the figure was visually minimal, AO gave just enough contour to define limbs without making it feel like a 3D render.

Throughout, the design priority was clarity. The goal was a medically grounded, diagrammatic aesthetic that delivered biological precision without visual clutter. Every surface, color, and shadow was evaluated through that lens.

Design & Animation

We opened animation with the pill cascade: a visual flood meant to suggest treatment saturation. One pill was modeled, then cloned using rigid body dynamics to simulate real physical interaction as they scattered across the frame. The prescription sheet behind the pills was animated by hand, with loose, organic motion to offset the mechanical pill sim. The pill bottle and surrounding assets were hand-placed. The reaching hand was not 3D—it was composited later from an image to maintain realism without additional modeling overhead.

Medical environments were modeled next. MSCs and immune cells were built from anatomical references, with stylized simplicity for clarity. Cross-section tissue was constructed in vertical layers—epidermis, vasculature, sub-tissue—giving us a compositional structure that could animate, react, and evolve. The top tissue layer was modular, driven by MoGraph systems that allowed for dynamic rising, dissolving, or spreading behavior without traditional simulation. This gave us control to represent growth, injury, or regeneration through layered motion.

Blood vessels were created using spline geometry, forming organic vascular layouts beneath the tissue plane. Two groups of MSCs were placed: one already present along vasculature and another prepped for future activation. Both were controlled with MoGraph Cloners, letting us animate appearance, movement, and behavioral logic without resorting to full particle systems. This setup was built to match clinical sequences—cells “deploy” after injury and migrate with systemic rhythm.

The stick figure character was modeled, rigged, and animated in-house. It supported walking, falling, limping, and other physical states tied to specific VO beats. Gait cycles were built manually—no procedural walk generators or IK solvers. This let us dial in posture changes that reflected the narrative (fatigue, instability, limping compensation). The limp sequence was revised multiple times to ensure it communicated pain and imbalance without needing detail in the rig itself.

We also created a separate vascular model for the graph-based scene near the end. This scene swapped anatomy for abstraction but held the same stylistic rules—flat color, clean geometry, controlled flow. Blood movement was animated via cells traveling along spline paths, tracked tightly to VO cadence.

Style Choices and Reasoning

All design decisions pointed back to the 2.5D target. We needed dimensional structure, but not dimensional rendering. Every surface was tuned to mimic medical illustrations—no gradients, minimal shading, and flat color palettes. Ambient occlusion was used lightly to separate layers without adding realism.

Cameras were locked for most shots. This locked-camera approach reinforced the infographic tone: the animation didn’t need to “move” in cinematic terms—it needed to explain. Motion came from cell activity, scene swaps, and layered object behavior—not from camera movement.

MoGraph was the engine under the hood. It powered tissue reactions, cell movement, group transitions, and modular layout changes. This made everything flexible: we could adjust motion timing without re-keyframing entire shots, and adapt animation flow based on VO revisions with minimal downstream effort.

Technical Details

The entire animation structure leaned on Cinema 4D’s procedural toolset. MoGraph controlled cell clustering, tissue behavior, and animation sequencing. Splines were used to map blood vessel paths and guide MSC motion. The stick figure rig was custom built—basic bones with direct control handles. Every action was manually animated to match VO pacing and convey medical behavior accurately.

We skipped deformers and soft-body systems for performance reasons and control. Tissue reactions were driven by scale, extrusion, and position animations within MoGraph cloners—no physics needed. For the intro, line rendering was done as a separate pass using C4D’s Sketch & Toon module, so we could composite edges independently and blend them with color passes later.

Another challenge was creating a modular tissue structure that could “react” without complex simulation. We used MoGraph extrusion logic and procedural layer control to animate healing or decay as needed.

Finally, with locked cameras, we had to rely entirely on rhythm and layout to drive engagement. So transitions were choreographed carefully. Every scene handoff, every MSC movement, every title card—all of it was synced with narration pacing to maintain momentum, even inside static compositions.

Post-Production & Delivery

Final Compositing & Color Grading

Once rendering wrapped in Cinema 4D, we moved the project into After Effects for post—handling all compositing, visual polish, and final delivery prep. The core objective remained unchanged: maintain medical clarity while reinforcing the illustrative tone. A key visual layer introduced during look development—the paper texture—was applied here across all scenes. It served as a softening element, breaking the digital precision of 3D geometry and pulling every shot into a unified 2D-inspired visual field. That texture grounded the blend of simulated environments, flat character animation, and callout overlays in one cohesive world.

Color grading was kept restrained on purpose. Rather than dramatize with contrast or saturation, we used subtle adjustments to visually flatten the compositions—bringing them closer to scientific diagrams than stylized animation. Scene-specific curves and levels were used to smooth over specular highlights and preserve color consistency. AO passes, particularly those applied to the stick figure, were tweaked inside AE to add just enough depth to limb overlaps without pushing into realism. The goal was separation and legibility—not drama.

In layered biological scenes like those showing inflammation or blood vessels, we pushed slight exposure shifts to elevate visual hierarchy. Foreground forms were masked and feathered to pull attention when callouts or voiceover pointed there. These techniques helped retain clarity in dense scenes with multiple labeled elements or infographic overlays.

VFX Enhancements

While the animation avoided overt effects work, we brought in subtle enhancements during post to elevate specific moments in the biology. One key addition: a pulsing signal glow that appeared on MSCs when activated. This effect, composited directly in After Effects, gave a soft visual confirmation of cell recruitment and matched the modulation VO segment precisely. The glow was color-matched to existing MSC tones and animated to feel like a clinical but non-literal cue.

In regeneration scenes, we added localized lighting boosts to guide viewer focus and reinforce the “healing” arc—without changing any baked-in C4D lighting. These boosts were subtle, scene-specific, and composited with screen blend passes to preserve the project’s flat aesthetic.

The AO treatment applied to the stick figure in C4D was re-leveled in post, making the character read more clearly across a range of motion. It added subtle structure to limbs and helped the figure stay anchored during full-body actions like falling or limping, especially when animated over flat backdrops.

Infographics, UI Overlays, Data Visualization

A significant portion of the post workflow centered on educational overlays—labels, text callouts, and schematic visuals. Nearly every scene required on-screen callouts to sync with VO terms like “Macrophages,” “Anti-Microbial Bioactive Agents,” or “Blood Vessels.” These were composited and animated in After Effects, using opacity fades, directional easing, and clean entry paths to match the calm, instructive tone of the piece.

Typography followed medical instructional standards—high-contrast, sans-serif type, balanced for readability on mobile and presentation screens. No decorative fonts or motion gimmicks—just clean labeling, staged for clarity. Each text asset was animated manually to align with narration beats, entering only when needed, then fading or sliding out without overstaying.

In the graph sequence, we introduced a schematic vascular diagram built from stylized stroke paths and moving MSC icons. These were composited as procedural layers that conveyed real-time biological flow without jumping into literal simulation. It was about visual metaphor and clarity—anchoring the concept while staying consistent with the established visual system.

Section headers such as “Destroy Pathogens” or “Modulate Inflammation” were staged as mid-scene title cards—designed to break the animation into understandable chapters. Their presence helped reset focus and segment complex biological processes without needing full scene transitions.

Brand Consistency

Visual consistency held across all acts through systems locked in early: color palette, typography, overlay behaviors, and shading language. The design leaned heavily on medical reds, pale blues, and grayscale backgrounds—balancing clinical authority with accessibility. Text treatments followed a strict format: uniform font size, motion behavior, and spacing logic across all shots.

The paper texture that unified scenes during compositing was applied not just globally but also selectively—masked into certain layers where overlays or scene shifts needed soft visual cohesion. This allowed hard cut transitions (e.g., from cells to schematic) to still feel seamless within the same visual framework.

Collaboration & Revisions in Post

Client and internal feedback in post zeroed in on overlay behavior and timing. Once final VO was locked, we went frame-by-frame to re-sync every callout and label. Timing mattered—if a label popped in too early, it diluted the narration; too late, and the message got lost. Every overlay was nudged to match VO phrasing precisely.

Client feedback also prompted some final visual additions. The activation pulse on MSCs, for example, was added after initial renders showed that simple motion alone wasn’t enough to suggest “mobilization.” We also added extra limb labels and immune system references late in the process, after final VO edits clarified the script’s focus.

All AE files were kept modular. Scenes were nested into comps, labels stayed editable, and project structure was built for flexibility. That made it easy to implement late changes without risking misalignment or rework.

Delivery

The final animation was exported as a 1080p H.264 file with full compositing and embedded audio. Everything—text, labels, texture overlays, pulses, callouts—was baked into the video, with no alternate aspect ratios, captions, or language variants requested. The file was intended for screen use—whether internal training, presentations, or client education.

The delivery format focused on visual clarity, narrative pacing, and technical integrity—locked to the structure, tone, and medical accuracy defined during the RP phase. The finished product delivered a clean, self-contained story that checked every box for clarity, tone, and function.

Transcript:
More than 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain.  But why do we feel pain?  What is happening physiologically that we’ve resorted to overusing pharmaceutical drugs to treat our symptoms. On an average day in the United States, more than 650,000 opioid prescriptions are dispensed to treat chronic pain, and 78 people die from an opioid-related overdose.  Is there a solution that is natural, less addictive, and also treats the underlying problem?

ACT I - Stem Cells’ role in the healing process.

Adult stem cells, also known as “mesenchymal stem cells” or MSCs, are also known by the name pericytes because they wrap around the outside of blood vessels.  “Peri” means  “around” like in the word “perimeter” and “cyte” denotes a cell.  When a trama occurs, the MSC pericytes are released from nearby blood vessels and migrate to the site of injury.

The MSCs help clear the wound of any infection by modulating local immune response, recruiting scavenger cells called macrophages to destroy pathogens and release anti-microbial bioactive agents to assist with bacteria removal.

As a response to the injury, Inflammation soon takes hold, and the MSCs control it by regulating various proteins and growth factors, similar to a conductor in a symphony. It’s during this phase where the body feels pain.
By regulating the inflammation process, MSCs ensure the body recruits necessary cells to cease wound inflammation as soon as possible.
After the inflammation subsides, the MSCs secrete growth factors to encourage blood vessel formation, and recruit and nourish specialized cells that rebuild structural tissues.

During this phase, known as proliferation, the MSCs adjust the concentration of released proteins to stimulate collagen production for tissue formation and wound closure.

In the following weeks and months, local cells remodel the fibrous proteins, like fibrin and collagen, based on the biomechanics of the tissue to create a mature tissue. The MSCs continue regulating the healing process until the remodeling phase is complete and then return to vascular bedresting until they are signaled back into action. 

ACT II - The breakdown.

As the body ages after skeletal maturity, its vascular supply of capillaries decreases in many tissues, especially in cartilage of joints and discs in the spine. Without local blood vessels, there are fewer local MSCs to respond to an injury.

When injuries occur in these low blood supply tissues, there are no MSCs to oversee the healing process by modulating the inflammation or recruiting cells in for repair. The result is disrupted communication between the local cells and its other healing mechanisms, like a symphony that’s lost its conductor.

Some wounds may even enter a chronic inflammatory state, where the body is never able to efficiently rebuild new tissues. Chronic inflammation can result in long term pain and loss of function. Often, osteoarthritis and degenerative disc disease can arise from these chronically inflamed injuries.

Another clinical pathology associated with a decreased blood supply is non-healing wounds and ulcers. Blood vessels provide essential nutrient and waste molecules, as well as MSCs to modulate inflammation and signal epithelial and endothelial cells to close the wound. Additionally, MSCs have been discovered to release anti-microbial bioactive agents to fight infectious material. 

Even if these injuries transition beyond the inflammation stage, the lack of MSCs can affect how new tissues form and connect. Without sufficient MSC counts, the new tissues may be heavily fibrous and scarred and may not be appropriately remodeled to withstand everyday wear and tear.  As a result, chronic pain and/or injuries fail to heal.