CBC Creator Program -- Skylight Caper Video

For years now, I have worked with YouTube content creator Christeah, reviewing her video scripts and providing notes on the video's structure. When she was invited to join the CBC Creator Program, a group within the CBC that works with content creators to create mini-documentaries, she was able to bring me on board as part of her usual video making-process. I was thus hired as a research assistant for the video. The result was this video on the Skylight Caper, a lesser known art heist at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art in 1972. 

Most of my work on this video was script editing. Christeah and I have developed a good working relationship where we can bounce ideas off each other and build upon them. Christeah had previously worked on a video about the Skylight Caper, so she had a number of sources already lined up. Additionally, connections within the CBC allowed for her to speak with a journalist that had previously written about the case. As such, additional sources was not as necessary for this video, although I did help to find an old Montreal police website that included black and white photos of the stolen paintings.

What did I provide was structure. My input helped to shape the video script to emphasize clarity and impact. When there were sections that needed to be rewritten, I would take them into a separate document and break them down according to what each sentence was trying to achieve. I would then rebuild those sections with that in mind, highlighting what worked and what didn't. I never replaced what was written, as I believe Christeah, as the lead writer for the script, should have final say on what is changed. 

The video was a success, according to the internal statistics from the CBC Arts YouTube channel. Metrics indicated that the video had an average view duration of 5:32, the highest that associate producer Tiffany Wice had seen. The video was also featured on the CBC main page, which is very uncommon for CBC Creator Program videos.