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Fall of The Phoenix
Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Fall of the Phoenix is a magical realism documentary told through the intimate, dreamlike lens of filmmaker Lauren Lindberg.
What begins as a yearning to understand her sister’s sports-related concussions,
spirals into something deeper: a reckoning with her own misdiagnosed
brain injuries—and an awakening to a hidden epidemic.
Lauren’s unfolding awareness becomes a portal into the minds and experiences of
survivors. Together, they reveal how traumatic brain injury (TBI) hides in plain
sight—entwined with misdiagnoses, mental health crises, gender-based violence,
incarceration, homelessness, addiction, and suicide.
Most importantly, the film celebrates human resilience—and what becomes possible
when brain injury survivors tap into creativity, community, and inner strength to
transform their pain and rise into their fullest potential.
What begins as a yearning to understand her sister’s sports-related concussions,
spirals into something deeper: a reckoning with her own misdiagnosed
brain injuries—and an awakening to a hidden epidemic.
Lauren’s unfolding awareness becomes a portal into the minds and experiences of
survivors. Together, they reveal how traumatic brain injury (TBI) hides in plain
sight—entwined with misdiagnoses, mental health crises, gender-based violence,
incarceration, homelessness, addiction, and suicide.
Most importantly, the film celebrates human resilience—and what becomes possible
when brain injury survivors tap into creativity, community, and inner strength to
transform their pain and rise into their fullest potential.
The Theory of Spice
Enchant yourself in the spirit of ginger and cinnamon, in these first-of-a-kind dazzling brand pieces for the Yogi Foundation.
Chasing Time
Chasing Time follows one man who reached the version of success he once dreamed of, only to realize something was missing. A childhood passion begins calling him back.
This series is about what it means to chase your dreams—and what it means to get time back.
The creative challenge
Spencer approached us wanting to document a new chapter: entering competitive racing.
When we met him, he was at the back of the pack. He had just hired coach Alec Udell. There were many ways we could have filmed this—but we weren’t interested in a traditional sports profile.
Not everyone sells a company and goes racing.
But everyone understands postponing a dream.
The universal tension here wasn’t racing.
It was the question of now vs. later.
Of delaying fulfillment in the name of achievement—versus choosing to live fully in the present.
Our approach
Racing is a fast, fiery sport. We wanted to counterbalance that energy with philosophy, intimacy, and access.
We played with space and time—using pacing, quiet moments, and proximity to let the internal journey unfold alongside the external one.
We were given rare access:
inside the pit
inside the car
inside the moments most people never see
That access allowed us to humanize a high-adrenaline world and ground it in something deeply relatable.
Why it works
Because it takes a high-interest subject—race car driving—and makes it human.
With the rise of F1, there’s a growing collective fascination with racing culture. But sprint series racing feels more accessible. These are cars people recognize. Cars they dream about. Cars they could imagine themselves driving.
That relatability opens the door for something deeper:
a story about ambition, identity, and the cost of waiting too long to listen to yourself.
Why I ’m sharing this
I’m excited about building more short-form, cinematic series like this—stories that sit at the intersection of culture, philosophy, and lived experience.
If you’re interested in telling a story that goes beyond the surface of success—and into the human questions underneath—I’d love to explore what that could look like together.
Sometimes the most compelling stories aren’t about how far you’ve gone,
but about what you’re finally brave enough to return to.
This series is about what it means to chase your dreams—and what it means to get time back.
The creative challenge
Spencer approached us wanting to document a new chapter: entering competitive racing.
When we met him, he was at the back of the pack. He had just hired coach Alec Udell. There were many ways we could have filmed this—but we weren’t interested in a traditional sports profile.
Not everyone sells a company and goes racing.
But everyone understands postponing a dream.
The universal tension here wasn’t racing.
It was the question of now vs. later.
Of delaying fulfillment in the name of achievement—versus choosing to live fully in the present.
Our approach
Racing is a fast, fiery sport. We wanted to counterbalance that energy with philosophy, intimacy, and access.
We played with space and time—using pacing, quiet moments, and proximity to let the internal journey unfold alongside the external one.
We were given rare access:
inside the pit
inside the car
inside the moments most people never see
That access allowed us to humanize a high-adrenaline world and ground it in something deeply relatable.
Why it works
Because it takes a high-interest subject—race car driving—and makes it human.
With the rise of F1, there’s a growing collective fascination with racing culture. But sprint series racing feels more accessible. These are cars people recognize. Cars they dream about. Cars they could imagine themselves driving.
That relatability opens the door for something deeper:
a story about ambition, identity, and the cost of waiting too long to listen to yourself.
Why I ’m sharing this
I’m excited about building more short-form, cinematic series like this—stories that sit at the intersection of culture, philosophy, and lived experience.
If you’re interested in telling a story that goes beyond the surface of success—and into the human questions underneath—I’d love to explore what that could look like together.
Sometimes the most compelling stories aren’t about how far you’ve gone,
but about what you’re finally brave enough to return to.
American Paycheck
American Paycheck is a six-part documentary series that explores modern work, money, and ambition across different U.S. cities. Each episode spotlights a local industry, the millennials making it work, and the real financial choices behind their paths—risk, sacrifice, creativity, and sustainability.
Produced for A Million Stories, a financial literacy nonprofit using media to educate and inspire younger generations, the series set out to answer a simple but difficult question:
How do people actually make a living doing what they love?
The Creative Challenge
Financial literacy is essential—but often presented in ways that feel dry, intimidating, or disconnected from real life. The challenge was to make money conversations human, modern, and aspirational, without losing rigor or honesty.
Approach
We anchored each episode in character-driven storytelling, using real people as entry points into larger financial conversations. Cities became ecosystems, industries became context, and numbers became lived experience.
As Supervising Producer, I:
Oversaw production from concept to delivery
Pitched and shaped episode concepts with the client
Cast characters whose lives reflected real financial tradeoffs
Managed the creative team across all stages of production
Ensured the series balanced inspiration with education
Why It Worked
By centering curiosity over judgment and story over instruction, American Paycheck reframed financial literacy as something relatable and empowering—not prescriptive.
It also became a personal learning experience. Producing the series deepened my own understanding of money, risk, and sustainability, reinforcing how powerful storytelling can be as a tool for education and self-reflection.
Impact
American Paycheck demonstrates how nonfiction storytelling can:
Make complex topics accessible
Reflect generational realities around work and money
Create educational content that people actually want to watch
Produced for A Million Stories, a financial literacy nonprofit using media to educate and inspire younger generations, the series set out to answer a simple but difficult question:
How do people actually make a living doing what they love?
The Creative Challenge
Financial literacy is essential—but often presented in ways that feel dry, intimidating, or disconnected from real life. The challenge was to make money conversations human, modern, and aspirational, without losing rigor or honesty.
Approach
We anchored each episode in character-driven storytelling, using real people as entry points into larger financial conversations. Cities became ecosystems, industries became context, and numbers became lived experience.
As Supervising Producer, I:
Oversaw production from concept to delivery
Pitched and shaped episode concepts with the client
Cast characters whose lives reflected real financial tradeoffs
Managed the creative team across all stages of production
Ensured the series balanced inspiration with education
Why It Worked
By centering curiosity over judgment and story over instruction, American Paycheck reframed financial literacy as something relatable and empowering—not prescriptive.
It also became a personal learning experience. Producing the series deepened my own understanding of money, risk, and sustainability, reinforcing how powerful storytelling can be as a tool for education and self-reflection.
Impact
American Paycheck demonstrates how nonfiction storytelling can:
Make complex topics accessible
Reflect generational realities around work and money
Create educational content that people actually want to watch
Ashes of The Mountain
Ashes of the Mountain is a psychological and philosophical expedition:
A funeral procession to the roof of Africa, where four friends confront mortality and search for meaning at the edge of the world.
Role: Producer
Scope: Story Development, Post-Production Strategy, Team assembly and management
Overview
Ashes of the Mountain was the first feature film I produced—and, unexpectedly, the beginning of a love story.
I met the director, Joseph Lindley, in a park before we ever worked together. What began as an. off-screen relationship slowly evolved into something deeper as we navigated the emotional, philosophical, and logistical intensity of finishing this film together. By the time the project wrapped, we had not only shaped a feature-length documentary, but were engaged to get married!
The Challenge
When I joined the project, principal photography had already taken place. The team returned from Mount Kilimanjaro with hours of breathtaking but overwhelming footage—visually epic, emotionally raw, and philosophically dense.
How do you translate extreme physical endurance into an internal reckoning?
How do you communicate grief, awe, fear, and transcendence without flattening them into exposition?
Creative Strategy
Our approach was to build inward, treating post-production as a form of excavation.
Rather than forcing the footage into a conventional documentary arc, we leaned into the psychological terrain beneath the climb and created a layered storytelling language that included:
Dream & Psychedelic Sequences
We designed surreal, psychedelic dream sequences—rich with hidden symbolism—to visualize subconscious states the climbers couldn’t articulate aloud. These moments operate beneath logic, inviting the audience to feel rather than interpret, and rewarding repeat viewings with deeper meaning.
Animated World-Building
Animation became a bridge between reality and interiority, allowing us to externalize memory, grief, and liminal states where vérité footage alone fell short.
Pickup Interviews
Post-expedition interviews gave the climbers space to reflect with emotional distance, transforming physical feats into philosophical insight.
Voiceover as Reflection
Carefully sculpted voiceover served as connective tissue—less narration, more inquiry—guiding the audience through questions of mortality, friendship, and presence.
Immersive Sound Design
In collaboration with Dallas Audio Post, sound became a psychological force: breath, silence, altitude, and inner echo working together to mirror the mind under extreme conditions.
Editorial & Creative Collaboration
This film was shaped through deep collaboration in post, with essential contributions from:
Howard Wimshurst (art director/animator)
Max Shirlo (assistant editor)
Jake Gum (editor)
Sound Design (Dallas Audio Post)
The Result
We completed the film and premiered it at Anchorage International Film Festival, a deeply sentimental moment given our strong creative community in Alaska—and especially meaningful as this is where I am now developing my first feature film as a director.
But one of the most exciting phases of this project is still unfolding.
Ongoing Impact & Distribution
The film’s life has extended beyond the festival circuit through an experimental, viral digital marketing campaign led by director Joseph Lindley, pushing the boundaries of what independent film distribution can look like as the industry itself undergoes transformation.
Rather than waiting for permission, the campaign treats the internet as a living exhibition space—testing new models of reach, intimacy, and audience engagement in real time.
Why This Project Matters
Ashes of the Mountain reinforced a core belief in my work:
Post-production is where the footage comes alive and the story finds its form. It's make it or break it.
As the producer, I got to helo translate Joseph's vision into cinematic language through partnerships and workflow.
A funeral procession to the roof of Africa, where four friends confront mortality and search for meaning at the edge of the world.
Role: Producer
Scope: Story Development, Post-Production Strategy, Team assembly and management
Overview
Ashes of the Mountain was the first feature film I produced—and, unexpectedly, the beginning of a love story.
I met the director, Joseph Lindley, in a park before we ever worked together. What began as an. off-screen relationship slowly evolved into something deeper as we navigated the emotional, philosophical, and logistical intensity of finishing this film together. By the time the project wrapped, we had not only shaped a feature-length documentary, but were engaged to get married!
The Challenge
When I joined the project, principal photography had already taken place. The team returned from Mount Kilimanjaro with hours of breathtaking but overwhelming footage—visually epic, emotionally raw, and philosophically dense.
How do you translate extreme physical endurance into an internal reckoning?
How do you communicate grief, awe, fear, and transcendence without flattening them into exposition?
Creative Strategy
Our approach was to build inward, treating post-production as a form of excavation.
Rather than forcing the footage into a conventional documentary arc, we leaned into the psychological terrain beneath the climb and created a layered storytelling language that included:
Dream & Psychedelic Sequences
We designed surreal, psychedelic dream sequences—rich with hidden symbolism—to visualize subconscious states the climbers couldn’t articulate aloud. These moments operate beneath logic, inviting the audience to feel rather than interpret, and rewarding repeat viewings with deeper meaning.
Animated World-Building
Animation became a bridge between reality and interiority, allowing us to externalize memory, grief, and liminal states where vérité footage alone fell short.
Pickup Interviews
Post-expedition interviews gave the climbers space to reflect with emotional distance, transforming physical feats into philosophical insight.
Voiceover as Reflection
Carefully sculpted voiceover served as connective tissue—less narration, more inquiry—guiding the audience through questions of mortality, friendship, and presence.
Immersive Sound Design
In collaboration with Dallas Audio Post, sound became a psychological force: breath, silence, altitude, and inner echo working together to mirror the mind under extreme conditions.
Editorial & Creative Collaboration
This film was shaped through deep collaboration in post, with essential contributions from:
Howard Wimshurst (art director/animator)
Max Shirlo (assistant editor)
Jake Gum (editor)
Sound Design (Dallas Audio Post)
The Result
We completed the film and premiered it at Anchorage International Film Festival, a deeply sentimental moment given our strong creative community in Alaska—and especially meaningful as this is where I am now developing my first feature film as a director.
But one of the most exciting phases of this project is still unfolding.
Ongoing Impact & Distribution
The film’s life has extended beyond the festival circuit through an experimental, viral digital marketing campaign led by director Joseph Lindley, pushing the boundaries of what independent film distribution can look like as the industry itself undergoes transformation.
Rather than waiting for permission, the campaign treats the internet as a living exhibition space—testing new models of reach, intimacy, and audience engagement in real time.
Why This Project Matters
Ashes of the Mountain reinforced a core belief in my work:
Post-production is where the footage comes alive and the story finds its form. It's make it or break it.
As the producer, I got to helo translate Joseph's vision into cinematic language through partnerships and workflow.
She Was Water
When a young woman discovers a siren bathing in the river near her home, she’s drawn into a haunting dance of attraction, blurring the line between fantasy and identity
Andrea Gibson: Mortality
How often do you think about death? Spoken word artist Andrea Gibson is teaching us that facing mortality can shift our perspective for the better.
Heretics
heretic /ˈherəˌtik/ noun - A person holding an opinion at odds with what is generally accepted.
Apostate, radical, heretic. Call them what you want, but... what if they’re right? Introducing Heretics, our brand new original series featuring the thought leaders who aren’t afraid to color outside the lines.
You might not agree with them, but you can’t afford to ignore them. Because heretics have the power to change the world.
Apostate, radical, heretic. Call them what you want, but... what if they’re right? Introducing Heretics, our brand new original series featuring the thought leaders who aren’t afraid to color outside the lines.
You might not agree with them, but you can’t afford to ignore them. Because heretics have the power to change the world.
Commercial Work
Interested in seeing the broader scope of my work? Click here for more!
Spec: Awe Inspired
Beauty as the invitation.
Story as the connection.
Speculative Brand Concept / Unproduced
The Premise
Awe Inspired already sells symbols of power.
This concept explored what it could look like if the brand helped women step into them.
Developed as a speculative creative partnership, this pitch imagined Awe Inspired not just as a jewelry brand—but as a mythic storytelling ecosystem, where symbols become lived experiences and story becomes the connective tissue between product, identity, and community.
The Idea
The proposal centered on cinematic, story-led “hero stories”—short films and social-first narratives featuring real women embodying archetypal transformation. Rather than campaigns optimized for a single moment of conversion, the concept proposed a repeatable mythic system: stories designed to be returned to, shared, and felt.
Why This Matters
As brands increasingly act as cultural builders, there is an opportunity to move beyond spectacle and toward meaning—creating work that resonates across time, not just timelines.
This case study reflects how I approach brand partnerships:
Narrative before deliverables
World-building over one-off campaigns
Emotional resonance as a driver of long-term brand equity
Status
Unproduced / Conceptual
Shared as a creative case study to illustrate approach and possibility.
Interested in exploring story-led brand worlds together? Let’s talk.
Story as the connection.
Speculative Brand Concept / Unproduced
The Premise
Awe Inspired already sells symbols of power.
This concept explored what it could look like if the brand helped women step into them.
Developed as a speculative creative partnership, this pitch imagined Awe Inspired not just as a jewelry brand—but as a mythic storytelling ecosystem, where symbols become lived experiences and story becomes the connective tissue between product, identity, and community.
The Idea
The proposal centered on cinematic, story-led “hero stories”—short films and social-first narratives featuring real women embodying archetypal transformation. Rather than campaigns optimized for a single moment of conversion, the concept proposed a repeatable mythic system: stories designed to be returned to, shared, and felt.
Why This Matters
As brands increasingly act as cultural builders, there is an opportunity to move beyond spectacle and toward meaning—creating work that resonates across time, not just timelines.
This case study reflects how I approach brand partnerships:
Narrative before deliverables
World-building over one-off campaigns
Emotional resonance as a driver of long-term brand equity
Status
Unproduced / Conceptual
Shared as a creative case study to illustrate approach and possibility.
Interested in exploring story-led brand worlds together? Let’s talk.
Hard Reset
Change is hard - people have been trying and failing to reform society for generations. But what if we had to? This is a show about rebuilding the world from scratch and reimagining everything from first principles. How should we design cities? What about schools? Power grids? Prisons? Money? Or the Internet? If we were starting over, what would we do differently? Because in the aftermath of 2020, we are. This is HARD RESET.
Your Brain on Money
Money makes us do things we wish we didn’t, but why is that? Behavioral economists and neuroscientists decode psychological dynamics resulting from 25 million years of human evolution — all so you can make smarter financial decisions.
Contact Me
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