Virgin Pulse Thrive Summit
Turning a product roadmap into an action comedy — the opening film for Virgin Pulse's flagship summit, written for a cast of real executives.
From beat notes to screenplay
The concept arrived as a page of notes: a Star Wars opening crawl, a Mission: Impossible cold open, and one character for every product pillar, each played by a real Virgin Pulse employee. My job was to turn that sketch into a film — structure, dialogue, and jokes that could survive corporate review while still being jokes.
Features as characters
The script's engine is a content design move: translating product architecture into people. Live coaching became Marin, chatting a member through diabetes management. Partner integrations became a NASCAR covered in partner logos. Analytics became Dr. Kumar, murmuring “8 billion data points a month” from a wingback chair. Every scene had to land verbatim product messaging inside a comic beat — the same discipline as UI copy, at 24 frames per second.
Writing for the room and the budget
The cast were actual executives playing themselves, so every line had to be deliverable by a non-actor and approved by the person saying it. My first question on the project was the audience question — this wasn't an internal gag reel; it was aimed at the HR leaders in the seats, with reuse planned for sales and web. Alongside three script revisions with Virgin Pulse's team, I worked with the creative leads and Virgin Pulse's Director of Design to rescale VFX set pieces to the production's real budget and constraints.