Boulder-based LD Productions showcases environmental changemakers and sprouted from Santa Barbara roots in regenerative farming.
As the atmosphere fills with greenhouse gas emissions and our soil grows more depleted of vital nutrients, there are people out there who are looking to halt and reverse these destructive processes. Farmers, fishermen, energy companies, conservation organizations, and many more businesses are working to become more sustainable. There is always a fresh story to tell about a new composting facility or a ranch pivoting to regenerative agriculture.
A new production company based out of Boulder, Colorado, is assembling advertising campaign content, short documentaries, and other digital media that put these kinds of sustainable companies on the map. LD Productions consists of a two-person team, Layne Chamberlin and Dylan Epstein. Together, they create content that is both informative and inspiring.
Taking Shape
Layne grew up in Los Olivos in Northern California on his family’s historic ranch, but he never really took to the farm life when he was young. “I was kind of a city kid — I wasn’t too interested in getting up really early to go out on a horse and work in the hot sun all day,” Layne says with a laugh. At Montana State University, Layne became passionate about filmmaking. That’s when he started going out to his father’s ranch and saw how the family business was shifting away from long-held conservative practices.
“By the time I was a little way through college, I discovered how amazing this regenerative agriculture stuff was. I got to see it all firsthand, and I did get into the ranching lifestyle a bit,” Layne explains. At that point, he had identified two central passions — sustainability and filmmaking — and knew he wanted to make a career out of combining them.
Layne met Dylan in college, “during a group project on literally the first day of class,” Dylan says. The two instantly became best friends, started dating a year later, and have now been together for two-and-a-half years. Both with film degrees, they started their new business venture, LD Productions, in January 2022. Dylan is equally passionate about the environment and sustainability. She grew up on California ranches as a child, and worked on a documentary called Kiss the Ground while in college, about regenerative agriculture, featuring the Chamberlin family ranch.
“By the time I was a little way through college I discovered how amazing this regenerative agriculture stuff was. I got to see it all firsthand, and I did get into the ranching lifestyle a bit.”
– Layne Chamberin
For the couple, making a media production company centered around sustainable businesses was an organic and practical move. “We both knew we had this love for filmmaking and photography, and we both wanted to do our part to save the planet. Let’s just merge those two,” Layne explains. Now that they’re both out of school, Dylan and Layne are working full time on amplifying stories about sustainable farming, renewable energy, and land and water conservation efforts.
The Day-to-Day
When green businesses hire LD Productions, Layne says, the clients usually have a vision of the final product. But they also rely on Layne and Dylan’s creative skills to come up with an engaging narrative for a documentary, or some powerful still shots for social media or publicity projects. “We edit the piece so we think it looks good, but of course, it’s the client’s video, so we work very closely with them,” Layne notes. “We send them lots of revisions. Does this look good? What should we change?”
While the two-member team can more or less alternate roles in their day-to-day work, Dylan is considered the cinematographer, and is an FAA-certified drone operator. She also heads up the web production for the company, and says she loves to find the most compelling ways to present their work online.
The duo tag-team on pretty much all aspects of production and post-production, from planning a shoot day or meeting a new client to writing interview questions and more. “We really go in-depth with the client. Fast-forward to the day of the shoot, Dylan is on camera and I will do whatever I need to do to fill in: I’ll move lights around, I’ll record sound, and I will often do the talking head interviews for the documentaries,” Layne says.
“I’ve heard so many amazing stories about people growing regenerative crops and eating organic. They’ll say it helps with immune problems and all sorts of other disease symptoms.”
– Dylan Epstein
Dylan describes a recent project where they highlighted the work of a composting company and a recycling company, squeezing both clients’ projects into one day of shooting. “We interviewed the head of Full-Circle Recycling in southwest Montana. He outlined … how they want the video to educate people about what is recyclable and what isn’t, what is too much contamination for a product to be recycled, and how a recycling plant functions,” Dylan describes. After the interview, Dylan and Layne ventured out to get footage of the plant. Then headed over to the Yes Compost yard to interview the head operator and get footage of him turning the compost.
In post-production, Layne says, “I am the one who is doing the editing … but I don’t go far before I go to Dylan and ask her input on every step. We both dabble in sound design and color grading. We also took the same courses in film school, so we understand where we are both coming from in terms of how to approach a project.”
Anytime the duo is shooting a short documentary film, they try their best to focus on a few core aspects of the business they’re highlighting, always shooting for accessibility and digestibility in their promotional or educational pieces. “There is so much information everywhere. If we can focus on some of the work people are doing, that will hopefully incentivize farmers, ranchers, and others to work toward that same end goal,” Layne says.
Regenerative Agriculture
With the connection to Layne’s family ranch, LD Productions’ focus on regenerative agriculture and similar practices that benefit the land and water is natural. Dylan notes that human health is not distinct or separate from the health of our Earth. “I’ve heard so many amazing stories about people growing regenerative crops and eating organic. They’ll say it helps with immune problems and all sorts of other disease symptoms,” Dylan says. “This goes right along with not just tilling up the soil and using polyculture; we want cover crops, we want healthy soil, and we want people to be able to farm their land for many years.”
In addition to regenerative farmers and ranchers, the LD Productions pair are always looking for folks taking new and noteworthy approaches to running their businesses while also safeguarding nature for future generations, and for water, land, and animal conservationists. “It’s really all about telling people’s stories — people who are doing good for the planet and are looking to inspire others to get on the same path,” Dylan says. “We are proud to get the word out about all this incredible work.”
To learn more, visit LD Productions.
