Inside the Final Days of the Doctor China Tried to Silence

2022 | New York Times
Producer, Animator/Motion Designer
Creative Direction

A New York Times video investigation reveals new details about Dr. Li Wenliang’s illness and death from Covid-19 based on medical records and an exclusive interview with a key witness.

Due to the nature of working on journalistic stories about China, assets were limited. Developing a story about events behind very very closed doors meant getting creative with the approach. We needed to walk the viewer through the scene and recount the events that led to Dr. Li’s death without having access the hospital or its staff. An animatic style of animated tableaus was developed to immerse the viewer in hospital scenes. This style was a starting point for how we worked with the document animations as well, making sure they conjoined seamlessly with one another in appearance and functionality. A text package was developed to work with originally shot ground and drone footage.

These text treatments, document reconstructions, scene animations, and an interview with Dr. Li’s colleague all act as narrative devices working in tandem to create a dark poetic recounting of a story with close to no original assets.