ESCAPADE | Mission Milestone Rocket Lab — Solo Documentary Production

A documentary short capturing one of the quietest but most consequential moments in any space mission — the day the hardware leaves the building. This piece follows the twin ESCAPADE spacecraft from their final assembly and ship-out at Rocket Lab's Long Beach facility to their arrival at the Florida integration facility, where final checkouts were performed before the spacecraft were integrated into the launch vehicle.

Shot solo across both coasts, the piece moves between the meticulous physical reality of preparing two interplanetary spacecraft for transport and the human weight of the milestone — engineers and technicians who have spent years on these vehicles watching them leave their hands for the last time before flight.

Interviews with the program manager and lead engineer provide an inside look at what this moment means technically and personally — the systems that had to be verified, the decisions made under pressure, and what it feels like to hand off hardware destined for Mars.

Produced end-to-end as a one-man operation across multiple locations, capturing authentic moments in real time with no staging and no second takes. My role included connecting out the piece end-to-end, shooting/directing the interviews and b roll and editing it all together.