Filmed in early March, and released just days after WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, this video features Rebecca Messbarger, a professor of Italian, and founding director of WashU’s Medical Humanities program, comparing the response to COVID-19 with the response to previous pandemics in medical history. Video was the ideal platform to showcase both her depth of expertise and easy, media-savvy manner. The production also leaned into our new reality by making the remote Zoom interviews part of the editing and motion graphics—literally and artfully putting our expert on a Zoom call with Giovanni Boccaccio and Shakespeare. In other words, they made this video work from her home and theirs.
From the Judges
Taking a unique and informed approach to understanding the COVID-19 pandemic by having a faculty expert put it into historical context, Washington University in St. Louis’s video provides an immersive examination of pandemic terminology and treatments that’s both relevant and rewarding. This exceptionally well-paced video feels like it captures an entire lecture’s worth of material in less than four minutes. What makes this more astounding is that it was produced by a four-person team with limited resources. Clearly this video resonated, as it was picked up by news networks and had thousands of views on YouTube.
A history of social distancing | Washington University
