Notion's ask was specific: one shoot day in Healdsburg, a three-camera interview with two co-founders, b-roll of the village, a hero film and a social cutdown. A three-person crew.
Edge Esmeralda is a month-long pop-up village in Sonoma County. Around a thousand people show up, build things, run sessions, cook dinner for each other, and leave. It is not a set and it is not a conference. Nothing repeats, and nothing waits for a camera.
The harder problem was tonal. Customer stories have a shape: two and a half minutes, formatted like "here is how a company uses the product". That shape is fine. It just could not carry this one. A thousand people building a temporary town is not a workflow improvement.
We shot the whole thing on a Friday similar to how we'd shoot a documentary. It was an early start captureing the town at golden hour, then a handful of scenes with the team. By midday, we had three cameras on Devon Zuegel and Timour Kosters, both on one couch. They had such good rapport from working togther, and the two person interview format was designed to highlight that. Then back out into the village: the community dinner, demo day at the Loft, people playing volleyball at golden hour.
During the edit we slowed the pace slightly, traded the jazz track for something more atmospheric to set the tone, and cut it like a short documentary about what Edge and Esmeralda are actually building. Less here is how a company uses Notion, more here are two people who built a town and here is what they lean on to do it.
The film anchors Notion's published customer story for Edge Esmeralda, sitting alongside the written piece about how the village actually runs: a calendar that updates every fifteen minutes, agents that translate across languages, permissions that let a thousand people share one source of truth without stepping on each other.
From the Notion team, on the cut that landed: "Overall, the team is loving this more docu-approach and slower pace. I feel the atmosphere and the aspiration of what Edge x Esmeralda is building."
Production Company: Graphite Productions
Director, Director of Photography, Producer: Colt Bradley
Gaffer and Camera: Andy Haney
Production Sound: Yuki Asahina
Editor and Colorist: Rob Gourley
Sound Design and Mix: PJ Shulsky
Featuring: Devon Zuegel and Timour Kosters, co-founders, Edge Esmeralda
