Blood, Sweat, & Years

Portraits of people who’ve spent a decade building a business — and have no plans to stop.

If you’re reading this…

Here’s the whole thing:

I’m a filmmaker and photographer in Nashville. I want to spend a day at your business, hear how it started and what it took, and document it properly.

It costs you nothing. There’s nothing for sale at the end of it.

That’s an odd offer, I get it.

Let me explain.

Most business stories that get told are about people who sold. Raised money, scaled fast, cashed out, wrote a book about it.

This is about the other kind.

Owners ten, twenty, forty years in who are still there, building something they intend to still be running in a decade, or hand to someone who will.

First-generation founders whose personality is still visibly the company’s personality.

Second and third generations carrying a culture the founder isn’t around to enforce anymore.

Nobody makes films about these businesses.

But they’re the ones with the best stories to tell.

You don’t have to be good at this

The most common thing I hear before a shoot is some version of I’m not good on camera.

Almost nobody is. It doesn’t matter, for a few reasons →

01

It’s a conversation.

We sit down and I ask about your business. You’ll forget the camera is there in about four minutes. Everyone does.

02

Nothing is live.

If you fumble a sentence, you can say it again. If you want to start over, we start over. None of this will air unedited.

03

My job is making you sound like yourself.

Editing out the stumbles and the false starts is roughly the entire craft. You’ll watch it back and be impressed with yourself.