About Sagebrush

Hello! My name is Joel. Much like myself, sagebrush (artemisia tridentata) is found near the beach, in the desert, and in the mountains.Little more than a humble shrub, it is the sea of green that brings color to rocky landscapes and lifeless sand. And it will stay green through every season of its 100-year-plus life, the same way our films are crafted to be timelessly beautiful for eternity.

Sagebrush Films was created as an antidote to traditional, sterile wedding videos.

I started off making skate videos with friends and making montages from our camping trips, then majored in Film in college. Aside from having great cinematography, my favorite films (and skate videos, for that matter) are raw, natural, and are created to show beautiful images and tell wonderful stories, not to sell franchises. So, when my friends started getting married and knew I had a camera, they asked me to film. I began researching “best wedding video” on YouTube, but they were all… cheesy. Overly dramatic. The music was terrible. There was a formulaic consistency to all of them, and as a skateboarder/terrible student, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to deliver my friends a film that matched the status quo. Thankfully, they trusted my vision and my process, and what resulted were films that they loved and that I was proud of.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with spending time and directing a couple to get something “cinematic”, or having a couple read their most intimate love letters to each other on camera to provide a good soundbite over footage of them frolicking through a meadow. My own personal taste excluded; these videos are objectively good. But more often than not, they’re really just serving the purpose of making the videographer look good for their next client, rather than providing the couple with a film that captures the vibes and the memories of their day. And while many couples see videos like this and are inspired, when their wedding day comes, many realize that they are a little camera shy. And most would rather be spending time with their friends and family than holding a kiss for 10 minutes straight while a drone buzzes inches away from their faces.

That’s why with Sagebrush, you’ll get a film that captures your day as it happened. If your wedding is a raucous bash, your film will be a raucous bash. Mellow and romantic? Your film will reflect that. We capture your moments as a couple, as well as the moments of your friends and family that you may have missed. We won’t treat you like trained actors, and we won’t treat your wedding like it’s our own personal movie set. Sure, we’ll get some great shots of you two kissing in front of beautiful backdrops. We might even ask your friends to cheers the camera. But we look for these moments rather than fabricate them. And of course, they’ll be edited to music that doesn’t suck.

We understand that we’re not for everyone, and that’s ok. But please, check out our films and if you like what you see, drop us a line.