Founding a culture-driven studio at the intersection of art, dance, and branded storytelling

Overview / The Opportunity

I co-founded Safety Third with my creative partner, Katherine Helen Fisher, to build a production studio that blurred the lines between commercial content and cultural expression. With my background in advertising and hers in contemporary performance and visual art, our studio quickly found its niche creating film and video projects that centered movement—both literally and conceptually.

We developed work for artists like Radiohead, Rufus Wainwright, and Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs, while also producing branded experiences for Hermès, the Biotherm, and more. Whether we were shooting on a shoestring budget or leading a 40-person crew, our goal remained the same: make powerful, high-quality creative that lives between worlds.

What I Built

As Creative Director and Executive Producer of Safety Third, I led the creative and business operations of the studio—developing infrastructure, building client relationships, and overseeing all aspects of production and post.

Key contributions included:

Studio systems – built full-scale pipelines for production and post, including editorial workflows, asset management systems, and scalable client delivery processes
Creative leadership – led creative strategy, developed concepts, and directed interdisciplinary teams across commercial, cultural, and hybrid projects
Team building – staffed and managed creative teams and production crews ranging from 3 to 40+ people
Client and partner relations – maintained key relationships across arts institutions, entertainment companies, and brand clients

Project Highlights

Safety Third’s work has spanned editorial, commercial, and experiential formats—and has been recognized across industries, including an Emmy-Award-Nomination, being featured on HBO’s Westworld, the New York Times, and the Smithsonian museum.

Notable projects include:

Hermès

Klarna x Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs

Popsicle

One + One Make Three

Linear Sympathy

Vortices

CEILING

The Body Dictionary

Outcomes & Legacy

Safety Third helped define a new model for culture-driven production—one where movement, aesthetics, and story carried equal weight.

What I learned building Safety Third is something I bring to every in-house creative role I take on: how to scale quality, how to build systems that work, and how to lead with an entrepreneurial mindset—even inside a corporation.

In-house, I run teams like scrappy studios—fast, flexible, and future-facing.

Safety Third