Astronaut Jannicke Mikkelsen — Colin Peebles Christensen

The project

A documentary brand film with Jannicke Mikkelsen, Norway’s first astronaut and commander of the first crewed mission to fly a polar orbit. On the space mission, she took a reMarkable paper tablet to space with her. The film was shot at 78° north in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, the world’s northernmost town, where she lives and works as a cinematographer.

The project was a collaboration between PR, Brand and Demand Generation, which meant designing one film around all three sets of needs: organic, authentic storytelling with Jannicke as a genuine reMarkable user, the product featuring naturally throughout, and conversion-oriented cutdowns that needed to be sharp and targeted.

Shot around the clock in and around Longyearbyen, on the longest day of the year, under a sun that never set.

The idea

The film was researched, written and shot as a documentary. That method kept the storytelling authentic while still meeting the project’s commercial needs.

I conducted an initial pre-interview with Jannicke Mikkelsen, establishing which storylines and themes would be worth pursuing later on camera. From those came a question list. The unscripted two-hour on-camera interview followed, in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. I wrote additional scripted hooks designed for the conversion cutdowns, but none were used, as the unprompted soundbites turned out to be stronger.

My role

Led the narrative development end to end, from initial research through to final cuts
Ran background research and pre-interview
Designed the story outline and narrative plan and wrote the interview guide
Conducted the on-screen interview on location in Longyearbyen
Wrote editing brief and full longform editing script
Conducted archival research, finding public-domain NASA footage that fulfilled both story and budget needs
Collaborated with the external post-production agency throughout the edit, on structure, soundbites, shot choice and music
Designed cutdowns for 30, 15 and 6-second conversion ads

The script

Opening

EXT. SVALBARD — VAST OPEN WILDERNESS — DAY

SVALBARD IN SUMMER: Wide open, windswept, rocky, and barren. No trees, and scarcely any plant life. Carpets of Arctic tundra over permafrost. Sporadic dustings of snow cap distant mountains.

JANNICKE MIKKELSEN (V.O.)

...Svalbard looks like a different planet. ...Specifically when you leave town and you are in a complete untouched nature.

JANNICKE MIKKELSEN, Norway's first astronaut, walks through this alien landscape. It's an otherworldly place that she calls home.

JANNICKE MIKKELSEN (V.O.)

...I discovered that living here is kind of like living on the Moon. I feel like when I go out on my snowmobile and I put on my snowsuit and my helmet, I'm sort of in my little astronaut suit...

The accident

INSERT: ARCHIVAL — PHOTO OF JANNICKE AS A CHILD AFTER THE ACCIDENT

JANNICKE MIKKELSEN (V.O.)

And the accident rendered me first quadriplegic and then paraplegic. So I remember waking up from the coma... and... one of the immediate messages being, “...You’ve been in a horse riding accident. You’ve been in a coma. You just woke up and you don’t have the ability to walk and will probably never walk again.” And I remember those messages like clearest day still.

(beat)

I remember it because my parents keep telling me what I replied... I was like, “I don’t have time for this. I need to go back to the stable and feed my horse.” And I regained my ability to walk again, luckily. But this took five years.

Excerpted from the editing script. Her words are verbatim from the interview; the ellipses mark the cuts.

Cutdowns

6 seconds

“I rely on writing notes a lot. So I did bring reMarkable to space with me.”

15 seconds

“When I was studying to become an astronaut, there was so much I had to learn. Anything that would give me a notification would be shut away in the next room. I would have my reMarkable and my curriculum and work from that.”

30 seconds

“As soon as you leave town there is no signal. And I can work offline and off grid. I can work without being distracted. That’s where I really found the advantage of working on reMarkable. When I was studying to become an astronaut, I would have my reMarkable and my curriculum and work from that. It’s almost a luxury today to not be connected. And that’s when I do my best thinking.”

Each cutdown opens on a different line and a different shot, all built from real soundbites that came up naturally during the two-hour interview.