Industrial light &
corporate magic

When GM’s Factory ZERO needed a Skilled Trades Day spotlight, I took on the creative direction for a feature on one of their standout engineering team leads, the one and only Jeffrey Thompson.

I started with over an hour of interview footage and a few short reels of B-roll…but the interview had technical issues (think soft focus and camera wobble).

To work around it, I leaned into stylized editing with Adobe Premiere Pro: sharp, clean B-roll and an ‘80s-style montage edit complete with motivational soundtrack. It had personality, momentum, and a clear narrative arc. I call it the “Miami Vice Cut”, which you can watch here.

That first version? A hit with my direct team. But corporate comms asked for something more tech-forward. So I rescored it with a grittier, industrial tone – what I call the “Trent Reznor Cut,” viewable here. This included a new title screen sequence and an actionable end sequence to wrap it up.

The third and final cut was delivered after further feedback from Comms, which suggested using a more corporate-friendly music track, fine-tuned color correction, and adjusted lower-thirds titling animation.

This project spanned creative direction, editorial triage, and stakeholder alignment across three very different tones. The result? A corporate video that manages to feel cinematic, grounded, and aligned with GM’s evolving brand voice.

Special thanks to Ryan Schreiber, Laryssa Hulcio, and Jeffrey Thompson for making this happen!

P.S. – We also came up with an article version of this interview to post on Skilled Trades Day with the GM News team.

Software used: Adobe Premiere Pro & Adobe After Effects

Scroll down to watch the final cut of the GM Skilled Trades video below, and check out screencaps in the photo gallery.