You roast the best story in Maine.
I'd like to help tell it.
A proposal from a Maine production studio to a Maine coffee company: put the stories you are already living on film, and let them carry the bag as far as the beans go. The idea, the proof, and a small way to start are all below.
Coffee By Design has been a community coffee company for over thirty years, and it shows in everything but the marketing. The farm partnerships, the Rebel Blend Fund, the community support work, the coffeehouse itself: that is a deep catalog of real stories, and right now most of it lives in a paragraph on a page instead of on film, where it would do the most work.
The lane that deserves it most is the one growing under your feet. Bagged coffee, wholesale, and online orders travel farther than any storefront can, and they carry the brand into homes and cafes where nobody has met a CBD barista. Story-first content is how the bag earns the same warmth as the counter.
That is the work I do. I direct and produce, but I also build the strategy around the film: audience, channels, media buy, and the measurement that tells you whether it moved anything. Below is the proof, then the proposal.
Eleven years, one eye.
VMG Productions is the photography and film studio I have run for eleven years. I direct the shoots and run the crews, pairing newer shooters with people I trust and developing them on real work, the same way a roastery trains a bar.
A campaign built around a story, not a media plan.
Auto refinance for Maine State Credit Union. It started from a narrative, not a buy. I researched the market, built the personas, cast the talent, hired a director and DP, shot on location in Rockland, then carried it through edit to a full multi-channel release across Google, Meta, OTT, radio, and print.
Tell their story first. The brand follows.
A community highlight series for the partners MSCU works with. The premise is simple: the subject's voice leads, and the institution shows up through association, not narration. It is the same instinct your farm partner and Rebel Blend pages run on. There is a piece of it below.
Fraud Friday, made vertical for the feed. Recurring, fast-turn, on a standing weekly cadence. The same discipline keeps a coffee brand's feed alive between the bigger films.
The full showcase has the rest: more community films, the full employee story series, and the complete Fraud Friday run.
A content engine for the CBD retail and ecommerce brand, in two parts: the stories, and how they travel. Everything gets shot once and reused everywhere: the site, the feed, wholesale conversations, the inbox, and paid.
Origin & partner films
Short documentary pieces on the farm partnerships behind the beans and the people behind the roast. The subject's voice leads; the brand shows up through association. These become the backbone of the bagged coffee's identity online.
Community & Rebel Blend stories
The Rebel Blend Fund and the community support work are the most differentiated things CBD does, and the least filmed. Artist features and grantee stories, produced on a recurring cadence, turn values into content people share.
Product short-form, weekly
Fast-turn vertical pieces for the bagged lineup and new releases, on a standing schedule. The recurring cadence that keeps the feed alive between the bigger films, and the raw material the next two lanes run on.
Media with intent
I do not throw ads at everyone. Paid goes to the people already leaning toward you: the ones searching for Maine coffee, restocking the kitchen, or shopping for an aunt who needs a mug and a bag under the tree. When targeting follows intent, the ad reads like a welcome reminder instead of an interruption. Nobody is mad to see coffee right when they wanted more coffee.
Email that celebrates the brand
The same stories, sized for the inbox. Not blast promotions: a steady rhythm of origin notes, release stories, and gift-season sends that give people a reason to open, built and automated on whatever platform you already run. Story does the selling; the button just makes it easy.
The way to start is small: one story, produced end to end at a contract rate, so you can judge the fit on the work itself rather than a deck. If it earns more, we scale from there.
Thanks for the time it takes to read all of this. I would welcome a conversation, over your coffee, naturally.
Matthew J. Valcancick