stories & pictures
anatomy of a scene
Excerpt from Episode 5 of The Lincoln Project series on Showtime that showcases my approach to storytelling.
This is a prime example of how we help filmmakers shape sprawling material into gripping narrative.
The Lincoln Project series started as a celebratory chronicle. We embedded with a rogue group of Republican operatives fighting to unseat Trump in 2020. We had a mountain of material: vérité footage, interviews, ads, live streams, podcasts, social posts—hundreds of hours spanning months. The story was big, bold, and full of characters.
But then came the twist.
One of the founders, John Weaver, had allegedly offered internships to young men in exchange for sex—at least 21, including one who was 14. Some leadership knew. And we had the documentation to prove it.
Suddenly, our film had a second act. And a moral reckoning.
We used a vérité spine to keep things grounded. In this case, it was Conor Rogers—a young staffer who’d once been targeted by Weaver himself. He had warned the founders. His interview became a linchpin. As the New York Times story broke in January 2021, we framed the fallout through real-time scenes of Conor and his colleague Lily walking the streets of D.C., absorbing the news. That gave the exposition narrative propulsion and emotional texture.
The result: the scandal unfolds not through a headline dump but through lived experience. Testimony, receipts, and confrontation build momentum. We called the leadership to account. Founders turned on each other. The press descended. The film's tone shifted from idealism to tragic irony.
This wasn’t the story we set out to tell—but it became the story we had to tell.
It’s a case of staying embedded, keeping the camera rolling, and finding structure not just in events, but in character, contradiction, and consequence. That’s the kind of narrative work we do.
Kudos to directors Fisher Stevens, Karim Amer, editor Chris White, and the team.
