Michelle was halfway through checking a frame when she stopped. “Oh yeah, check this out! There’s a bee emerging from the cell right now.” That’s the moment we went to North Carolina hoping to find, even if we didn’t know it yet.
We spent a day and a half in Sanford, NC with Michelle and Nathan Maust of Homespun Honey.
How it started
Michelle is a doctor and Nathan is a nurse. The bees are their way to slow down, spend time together, and get outside, which they both really like to do. As Michelle puts it in the film, “This is our balance.” We loved what they’d built together, and we wanted to tell their story.
Why we threw out the plan
We showed up prepared. Ahead of the shoot, we spent time chatting with Michelle and Nathan to get a feel for their story, shape strong interview questions, and get comfortable with each other. By the time we arrived, we had a story arc mapped out and a full list of questions.
We love preproduction, and it’s a big part of how we work. It’s also what gave us the freedom to let the plan go. After hanging out with them for a little while, we could see that their pure passion would translate to an audience better than anything we had mapped out. It showed in how much they love the bees and the craft itself, whether Nathan was working a hive or Michelle was leaning in over a frame, and it felt far more real than the story we’d prepped. So we followed our instincts.
A day and a half with the bees
We got in on a Thursday night, got some sleep, and were up early to film the sunrise over the property. Once Michelle and Nathan were up, we followed them through the bee yard while they worked the hives and handled the harvest. The next morning we tagged along to the Sanford Farmers Market.
Some of our favorite moments weren’t on any list, like that bee coming out of its cell. You can hear in Michelle’s voice that it still delights her.
The bee yard is only half of their story. At the market, we got to see the other half: the honey and beeswax candles they make, set out for the people who buy them, and the community the honey has built for Nathan and Michelle. We wanted the film to show both sides, the quiet, careful work in the hives and the joy of sharing what comes out of it.
That’s where one of our favorite little moments happened. Holding up one of their candles, Michelle lit up and said, “It’s a peach!” It’s over in a second, and we still smile every time we watch it because the joy in her voice is infectious.
Letting it be quiet
One of the biggest choices we made in the edit was knowing when to let the music drop away. When Michelle and Nathan talk about being at peace, and again at the very end, the music falls out and you’re left with the sound of the bees and the smoker. Those stretches are very quiet and very peaceful, and that was on purpose. We wanted the audio design to bring you into the moment so you could feel it the way they do.
Natural sound is one of the things we care about most at Cottage Creative. We love bringing an audience into a story with the noises of the moment, the hum, the crackle, the small sounds you’d hear if you were standing right there.
Nathan says it best: “They require you to be fully present and to use your senses and to be calm and slow down.” We tried to make a film that asks the same of the viewer.
The film runs about three minutes, but there’s a lot packed into it. The edit is deep and detailed, and every little moment and breath sits where it does for a reason. We picked the soundbites for emotion more than information, so you hear it in their voices, from Michelle’s excitement over a new bee to Nathan’s calm when he talks about why the hives matter to him.
What this has to do with schools
This film doesn’t look like a school video, and it isn’t meant to. At heart, though, Cottage Creative is a group of storytellers, and the instincts that shaped this film are the same ones we bring to a campus. We take a school’s mission, its goals, and the things that make it unique, and we show that to the world.
A list of numbers can tell a family what a school offers, but what usually stays with people is how a video made them feel. That feeling comes from how the moments are put together and what each one means. We wrote more about that idea in what branded storytelling actually means for marcom teams.
At a school, the bee in the cell might be a student’s first lab, a teacher who lights up talking about a project, or a tradition nobody outside the community has ever seen. Those moments are a lot easier to catch when we plan ahead, which is why we put together a school-year story calendar. You can also see more of our films on our work page.
If there’s a story at your school you’d like to tell, reach out to Alex at alex@cottagecreativehouse.com. We’d love to hear about it.