TURNING INTERNAL
TRANSFORMATION
INTO A MUST‑WATCH DOCUMENTARY
A dramatized four‑part documentary series – reality-TV style
4 PART DOCUMENTARY SERIES
INTERNAL AFFAIRS
How Autodesk Broke a Year-Long Stalemate
The Clients
The Challenge
Inside Autodesk, a customer success team had been working through a complex internal initiative for over a year. Progress was real, but tangled. They brought in Prototype Thinking Labs (PTL) to break the stalemate. The engagement was such a success, that Autodesk wanted other teams across the company to adopt PTL’s methodology.
The problem?
No one wanted to read another internal case study.
Autodesk and PTL needed a way to make invisible progress exciting, dramatic, and contagious – through video.
The Idea
Instead of a traditional corporate video, Autodesk took a risk: What if we treated this like a reality TV show?
SolarHour was brought in to do the impossible:
Transform a dense, process‑heavy internal initiative filmed across 40+ Zoom sessions on grainy webcams into a four‑episode documentary series with:
Real characters
Emotional arcs
Narrative tension
Humor and self‑awareness
Style
The goal wasn’t entertainment for entertainment’s sake. It was strategic.
This documentary needed to:
Prove PTL’s methodology works inside a Fortune 500 company
Show the human journey of change – and the payoff
Spark internal demand across Autodesk for the same transformation
SolarHour’s Role
SolarHour led the project end‑to‑end: shaping the story, directing interviews, constructing the narrative, editing and animating four episodes into a cohesive arc.
At the center was SolarHour founder, Karen Lum, whose background spans both filmmaking and more than a decade working inside the tech industry. That dual fluency mattered.
Searching for Connective Tissue Amongst Found Footage
But instead of forcing a superficial narrative, we treated the project like an archaeological dig.
SolarHour conducted 20+ additional in‑depth interviews, this time leading the inquiry and panning for gold. We probed our main characters to uncover the hidden emotional story:
Friction
Doubt
Breakthrough moments
Emotional turning points no one had planned to document
Combining with the new interview and the never-before-seen-footage, we finally had the backbone of the series.
One of the biggest challenges surfaced immediately.
Much of the footage already existed was:
self‑recorded vlogs under 20 seconds
60+ unstructured Zoom meetings
Internal recordings captured long before they knew it would turn into a documentary
Upon SolarHour joining the project, the footage was utterly unusable. There were 100+ hours of Zoom calls with no common thread.
Making Corporate Feel Human
The next challenge was tonal:
How do you explain a complex prototyping methodology accurately – while delivering the pacing and payoff of a reality show?
SolarHour leaned fully into storytelling craft:
Tight, fast‑paced edits inspired by comedic television timing
A tongue‑in‑cheek script that acknowledged the absurdity of corporate process
Carefully curated music to heighten stakes during otherwise mundane Zoom sessions
A British narrator to provide dry, self‑aware storytelling across episodes
We also directed non‑actors – engineers, designers, and program leaders – to move beyond corporate polish and speak candidly. Over time, they did.
By the final episode, the audience wasn’t watching a process.
They were rooting for people.
Visualizing the Invisible
To support the narrative, SolarHour designed characters, aligned with PTL’s branding and integrated motion graphics to clarify Autodesk’s internal systems and workflows.
To achieve the bespoke look for the film, we collaborated with motion designer Elsa Lu to translate abstract organizational concepts into playful, intuitive animations – preserving accuracy without sacrificing momentum.
Plus we threw in a British narrator and some bossa nova for flavor.
Complex ideas finally became graspable in seconds.
The Result
SolarHour delivered a four‑part, 30‑minute documentary series that exceeded expectations.
What began as an internal case study became:
A showcase of PTL’s methodology in action
A cultural artifact inside Autodesk
A tool that helped spread prototyping practices across teams
Most importantly, it effectively spread the word about PTL across Autodesk.
Autodesk and Prototype Thinking Labs didn’t just see validation – they saw engagement, alignment, and momentum. SolarHour was proud to help facilitate this organizational change.
Why This Matters
If your organization has done meaningful work that no one truly understands yet, SolarHour turns that invisible transformation into something people can’t ignore.
SolarHour translates complex, internal work into compelling narratives
We create video that drives adoption – not just awareness.
Apply cinematic storytelling where most teams default to documentation
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Projects
High‑touch, fully managed productions when you need less than 5 videos.
Ideal for:
Campaigns
Product launches
One‑off brand initiatives
On-going partnership
Retainer
A dedicated fractional video team – without the overhead of hiring.
Ideal for:
Ongoing video needs every quarter
Marketing, product, and comms teams
Companies scaling fast
Engagements typically span multi-month partnerships aligned to enterprise timelines.