Which is a very simple way of describing a thing that, at this point, I’ve probably overthought from every possible angle.
I shoot. I direct. I edit. I help figure out the story before we ever pick up a camera.
And most of the time, I work with people who have built something that is a little difficult to translate online.
Maybe it’s a retreat.
Maybe it’s a company.
A program. A body of work. A philosophy. A weird, beautiful thing you’ve been developing for ten years that makes total sense once somebody experiences it — and is somehow impossible to describe in three sentences on a website.
That’s usually where I get interested.
I care a lot about what we're actually making.
Obviously, I want it to be beautiful.
I'm a filmmaker. I care an unreasonable amount about light and lenses and music and whether an edit is three frames too long.
But before any of that, I want to understand the thing.
Why do you care about it?
What's interesting about it?
What's underneath the obvious story?
What do people only understand once they've spent time with you?
That's usually where the film is hiding.
I’m interested in the real stuff.
There’s a version of brand filmmaking where everything is very polished and everyone says exactly the right thing and there’s a beautiful slow-motion shot of somebody walking through a doorway.
And, I mean, sure. Sometimes the doorway shot is great.
But usually the moments I care about are smaller.
The thing somebody says after they’ve forgotten they’re being interviewed.
The weird detail in the background.
The client who starts answering a question and then realizes halfway through that they’re talking about something much bigger.
The way a room actually feels when the work is happening.
That’s the stuff that makes a film feel alive to me.
And I have this theory — which is maybe slightly woo-woo — that people can feel when something was made with presence.
You can use all the hooks and strategy in the world, but if there’s nothing real underneath it, I think people feel that too.
So yes, I want the film to work.
I also want it to have a pulse.
This has become worth clarifying because I do think strategically about the films I make.
If you have a launch coming up, I want to know how the launch works.
If you’re making a brand film, I want to understand the business.
If the film needs to live across your website, email, social, an event, whatever — I want to know that too.
Because all of that changes what we should make.
But I’m not going to come in and redesign your funnel or tell you how to run Meta ads or write 14 launch emails.
That’s not my thing.
My thing is story.
What do we need to capture?
Who should we talk to?
What’s the point of view?
What’s the film actually about?
And how do we make it feel like you, instead of some generic version of a brand?
That’s my zone of genius.
And yes, I just used the phrase “zone of genius” on my website.
Apparently this is who I am now.
I had made videos for years. So I decided to make her one to try to win her back.
And it worked. A few months later she told me, "you seem to really love film-making. Have you ever considered making it a job?"
I hadn't. And I told her she was crazy. Now I see that I was the crazy one.
And I've realized something: the part I loved most isn't really the camera.
It's paying attention.
To people. To stories. To the weird little things that make one person completely different from another.
I’m still basically doing that.
I just have better cameras now.
Usually, you already have the thing.
You’ve done the work.
You’ve got clients. Or students. Or customers. Or a body of work. Or people who have worked with you and are like, yes, this is the real deal.
And now something is happening.
You’re launching something.
The business is changing.
There’s a new program.
A new chapter.
A rebrand.
Or maybe you’ve just reached that slightly annoying point where the work has gotten a lot better and the way you’re presenting it hasn’t caught up yet.
That’s a very good time to make a film.
Especially if you care about doing it in a way that still feels like you.
Because I think there’s a really interesting balance here.
Yes, we want people to watch.
Yes, we want the thing to sell.
Yes, we should be smart about it.
But I don’t think any of that requires flattening the work into whatever happens to be trending this week.
We can be strategic without selling our souls.
I’m pretty interested in figuring out that balance.
If you’ve got something coming up and you have a feeling there’s a story in it, send me a note.
You do not need to know what the film is yet.
That’s part of what I’m here for.
LET'S TALK