Our Origin Story
There is so much history between Colin & I that it truly boggles the mind. It is very difficult to know where to start, frankly, but I will take a stab at it.
After graduating with a degree in Film and Video Studies from University of Michigan, I moved back to the frosty hinterlands of northern Michigan where I met Colin who is, frankly, a pretty magical dude. He introduced himself to me, at 15 years old—we were both working at Jimmy Johns—by saying, “hi I’m Colin, you’re going to find that I’m a little…loose.” Classic. What a shining prince of a dude.
We became fast friends, working on various art projects together, including a long, fruitful collaboration in an indie rock band, which continues to this day in various incarnations.
His close friend Brandon Swingle was always around. Brandon was quite the character. Because Colin & Brandon were significantly younger than the rest of my circle, they were the charming greenhorns of the group, always with antics to spare. I’m often reminded that I provided Brandon his first beer. I’m not sure how to feel about that now. What can I say, we were living the rock ’n’ roll life.
Long story short, I ended up giving Brandon a spiritual pep talk right before he walked into his first date with Brooke, the girl he went on to marry. I gave him some very lofty sounding advice in the vein of Zen Buddhism, if I recall, which apparently worked.
Without ever having even considered doing wedding videography, I was approached by Brooke & Brandon to do theirs. It really was not something I was interested in at the time to be honest, but I deigned to the task. I was a deplorably pretentious artist at the time, over 10 years ago, and I kinda thought anything that wasn’t absolutely pure art was below me. Which in retrospect is very embarrassing.
The wedding was an absolutely magical experience that changed the course of my life forever. There is way more to say about this, frankly, but I will have to leave you on a bit of a cliffhanger.
Brooke & Brandon’s wedding was an early loosening turn on a screw which had slowly tightened over time; this experience began a slow process of unwinding my cynicism. I am truly grateful to them for this.