Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sarah Nelson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Sarah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
The most meaningful project that I’ve worked on in my film career is the one I’m currently in the midst of, a documentary called, “MISS Conception”. This is a project that I started 5 years ago, when the larger world and my own personal world looked very different; before the pandemic and before I had my first (and last) child.
“MISS Conception” is about 12 regular women who, through their personal stories, shatter the narrative prison of misconceptions at the center of women’s reproductive lives. This project is meaningful and personal to me because it came out of my own experience as a woman in this world. I became increasingly frustrated and pissed off at the path I was told I was supposed to follow, simply because I was born a woman. One day I decided to take my anger and turn it into something creative, transform it and let it go by telling the truth. I quickly realized that I wasn’t the only one that felt this way and I wasn’t the only one ready to tell their truth.
Once I reached a certain age (honestly, if you want to go deep it starts at birth but we’ll skip that rabbit hole) the questions, assumptions and judgements came rolling in: “How many children do you want?”, “Oh you’ll be a great Mom”, “When you have children you’ll know…”, “Do you have children?”, “How many children do you have?”, “It’s easy to get pregnant”, “Pregnancy is amazing”, “Motherhood is the sole purpose of being a woman”, “You’re not complete until you have a child”, “When will you have a second child?”, “You’re breastfeeding right?”, “Every second of motherhood is magical” on and on and on went the relative, the stranger, the co-worker and even friends sometimes. Never mind that I was in school and passionate about what I was studying, nope. No questions about my career ambitions or my love of travel, music, philosophy or art, nope. Just want to ask about the thing that women are here on this earth for: to birth and raise children, nothing else to see or say.
The assumptions start young and don’t stop, ever. As women, we live in a narrative prison that is directly connected to our uterus. We are judged and valued based on where we fall on the timeline of womanhood, which in society is synonymous with motherhood. “MISS Conception” came about as a reaction to these assumptions. The purpose of this project is to shatter these limiting beliefs and to bring clarity to the misconceptions that surround so many topics related to women and our reproductive lives.
The assumptions and timeline are as follows:
1. Little girl dreams of being a mother
2. Girl meets boy (lots to say here but will skip for brevity), gets married and immediately and easily gets pregnant
3. Woman has no complications during pregnancy or labor, loves the experience and has natural, drug free, perfect delivery resulting in a perfect baby.
4. Woman loves every single second of motherhood and can’t wait for her next child
5. Woman has second child and repeats steps 3 and 4
6. Woman’s purpose has been fulfilled, her value has been set and she is done. Nothing left to do in life, please exit the ride.
The story we’re bringing to the screen is an intimate and revealing glimpse into the lives of 12 regular women who don’t fit the ideal box of what it means to be a woman. Each person lets us into their lives and shares stories that they’ve told very few, if anyone at all. We hear the truth and unravel the misconceptions surrounding the decision to become or not become a mother, struggles with infertility, egg freezing, miscarriage, IVF, IUI, surrogacy, abortion, adoption and many other seemingly taboo subjects that get covered up with judgements, false assumptions and a striking lack of truth and reality.
This project is the most meaningful story I have been a part of to date and I need to finish it before it burns a hole right through my soul. We’ve completed 80% of principal photography and have begun the initial post-production phase. Our aim is to have a finished film by the end of 2023.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Sarah Nelson is a Director, Writer and Editor at Stitch House Studios, a film production company focused on storytelling through digital marketing, content creation, and commercial/film production. With professional backgrounds in television and film, co-founders and wife and husband, Sarah Nelson and Thomas Huggins join their expertise to bring each client’s unique brand identity and story to life. At our core we are visual thinkers who believe in the power of planning, process and collaboration. With our dedicated team, we create powerful narratives elevated by striking visuals that together evoke a strong emotional connection.
What We Do:
Commercials
Promos and Branded Entertainment
Documentaries
Narrative Storytelling
Post-Production Services
Sarah received her BA in Philosophy from Salisbury University and her MA in Film and Video from American University in Washington, D.C.. She began her film career at the National Geographic Channel where she worked as an Associate Producer on multi platform promotional campaigns for shows like Brain Games, The Incredible Dr. Pol, Taboo, Doomsday Preppers, Border Wars and Drugs Inc.. She then explored documentary filmmaking working for a production company that took her around the country shooting award winning documentaries, including, Life in Synchro and Everyone But Two. After experiencing the freelance world of filmmaking she decided to start her own production company along with her then partner and now husband Thomas Huggins.
As a Director at Stitch House Studios, she now leads a team of creatives producing original content that grabs viewer’s attention, minds and hearts. She’s also Fiona’s mother, Thomas’ wife, a daughter, a sister, an Aunt, a farm raised, travel and bicycling enthusiast, neat freak, horror movie loving, foodie (except for bananas) that is always searching and never finding a nap.
How’d you meet your business partner?
My cofounder/business partner/husband and I met on a film set in Washington D.C. in 2013. I was finishing my graduate degree in film from American University and a fellow classmate of mine asked me to come on to his thesis project as a camera assistant. His thesis was a feature length narrative film that was being produced by an experienced production company (not your typical thesis film situation) and I was a bit nervous because I was still a newbie and hadn’t been on very many “real” movie sets.
Since I’m a neurotic planner I did my research and found out everything I could about the production company and the Director of Photography (DP) that I’d be working under, Thomas Huggins. I remember watching the short intro video they had on their website and when I saw the DP I was immediately intimidated because he clearly knew so much and had way more experience in the industry than I did. But I swallowed my fear and showed up on set and got to work. I worked side by side for three months with Thomas, each day learning something new about filmmaking and about him.
That project ended and we continued to work together on various small projects until we eventually started dating. Fast forward a few years, lots of travel and dozens of projects, we got married and combined our respective businesses into one production company creating Stitch House Studios. We have a whole team of talented creatives that work with us, and while we both enjoy various roles within our production company, Thomas is primarily fills the role of Director of Photography and I primarily am the Director/Producer. Thomas is the more technically minded one and I lean more towards the creative side and so we balance each other out quite nicely.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
The resource I wish I had known about earlier in my career was…ME. I spent far too long waiting for someone to tell me what to do, to give me permission to create, to prompt me, to hire me, to instruct me. It wasn’t until I really got into the industry that I realized, no one is going to hire you based on your potential. People will only hire you based on what you can show that you’ve already done.
You have to not only take the lead and create for yourself first, you also have to be extremely intentional about what you create. It’s so easy to get hired to do one kind of thing and to get stuck doing that thing. I was hired in the beginning of my career to produce a bunch of boring, talking head, corporate videos. One corporate video lead to the next and the next. One company would see what I did for another company and they’d hire me to do the same. I was stuck in a cycle of a certain type of project and client and I wanted more, I wanted to make something more creative and meaningful but no one was hiring me to do that. Why? Because they hadn’t seen what I could do, they hadn’t heard my voice, my artistic style and they didn’t know what I could do because I hadn’t done it yet. Sure I had my film school projects but those don’t always translate to the outside world. So, I decided to make the kinds of commercials and tell the stories that I wanted to get hired to do. I wanted to make creative high end commercials, so I started making spec commercials. I would choose a product that I believed in, I’d come up with a storyline and visuals and we’d go out and make it. Once we started producing content that spoke to who we were as filmmakers, that’s when we started getting approached to produce similar projects. What I learned is that you are your best resource, create with your own voice and say what’s true and authentic to you and you will get noticed.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.stitchhousestudios.com
- Other: https://vimeo.com/stitchhousestudios
Image Credits
N/A