Organization
Life Align Inc.
A lived-experience film that shows what recovery looks like when people aren’t left to do it alone. Participants, family members, and founders share how community, consistency, and shared experience create real change, without polishing or oversimplifying the reality of recovery.
Used for: About pages · Donor & community outreach · Partner education · Grant support · Awareness campaigns
Organization
Muskegon Innovation Hub
An interview-driven short documentary that follows a cohort of entrepreneurs as they move from early uncertainty toward clearer direction. The video focuses on the experience of learning in community, the value of peer support, and what it looks like to build something alongside others rather than alone.
Used for: Program overview · Website storytelling · Community outreach · Stakeholder communication
Organization
Norton Shores Garden Share
A quiet, personal story about noticing what wants to grow and choosing not to waste it. This video follows Bethany as she turns unexpected garden growth into a small, generous act: sharing plants with others as a way to put something good back into the world. It’s a reflection on care, resilience, and how small actions still matter.
Used for: Community storytelling · Mission-driven campaigns · Social media · About pages · Local outreach
Organization
Talons Out Honor Flight
A trip highlight film that shows what an Honor Flight experience actually feels like, from departure to return. The video follows Veterans through the day as they visit memorials built in their honor, capturing the emotion, camaraderie, and significance of the journey without narration or explanation. It gives viewers a clear, human sense of why these trips matter.
Used for: Awareness campaigns · Veteran outreach · Fundraising & donor engagement · Community events · Website storytelling
Organization
Covenant High School | COVID
A story-driven video created for a school system to address COVID-19 through lived experience rather than directives. Students, staff, and community members share how the virus affected their families, how they navigated fear and misinformation, and what led them to make decisions around vaccination. The focus is on honesty, trust, and personal responsibility within a shared community.
Used for: School district communication · Student & faculty outreach · Public health education · Community awareness · Digital and in-school distribution
Organization
Covenant High School | What We Do
A student-voice video created for an alternative high school to show what a second-chance education can look like. Students share why they came, what they were dealing with before, and how having support, flexibility, and teachers who understood their situations helped them graduate and move forward. The story centers belonging, dignity, and the possibility of breaking cycles.
Used for: Student recruitment · Family outreach · School awareness · Community communication · Enrollment support
Organization
Canopy
A mission-driven explainer that helps nonprofits understand planned giving by framing it around relationships, not wealth. The video introduces the scale of the coming generational wealth transfer, then clearly explains how planned giving works, why it matters, and how organizations can approach it without overwhelming their teams or alienating donors.
Used for: Nonprofit education · Sales & onboarding · Conference presentations · Website storytelling · Donor strategy communication
WHY THESE STORIES MATTER
Story before spectacle
Every person has context, history, and complexity that can't be reduced to a sound bite. When we slow down and give stories room to breathe, we create space for nuance, contradiction, and truth. This work resists the pull of viral moments and performance and values depth over impact metrics and substance over style. The goal is not to impress, but to reflect people as they actually are.
Trust is earned, not captured
Relationships come first. Before cameras, before scripts, before timelines, there must be trust. People are not subjects to be documented; they are collaborators who deserve respect, safety, and agency. This means creating space for people to show up as themselves, without pressure to perform or conform. It means honoring boundaries, checking in often, and holding the work lightly enough that people feel safe to be honest.
Process shapes meaning
The planning phase is not preparation for the "real work," it is the real work. Listening, asking questions, and building shared understanding shape the final story more than any camera or edit. Collaboration matters because stories don't belong to the filmmaker alone. When intention is clear from the beginning, production value becomes secondary. A story told with care will always matter more than one told with spectacle.
Stories live beyond the screen
A good story doesn't just capture a moment, it creates a record, sparks a conversation, or shifts how people understand something. These stories become tools for connection, reflection, and memory. They outlast trends and campaigns. The value isn't measured in views or engagement, but in whether the story helps someone be seen, understood, or remembered the way they hoped to be. That kind of work has a longer timeline and a quieter impact.