Dear Offbeat Community,

What a wild and wonderful year! 2025 gave us plenty to celebrate: our first Washington Filmworks incentive project, four Offbeat Originals that allowed space for practice and training, and more than eight community events where we gathered to learn, laugh, and eat leftover crafty. Through it all, you—our clients, collaborators, crew members, and community partners—brought the heart. You’re the reason Offbeat feels less like a company and more like a small, slightly chaotic, deeply creative family.

Looking ahead to 2026, we’re excited to keep growing—together. Not just in projects or production days, but in the quieter ways, too: in trust, courage, and the kind of creativity that comes when people genuinely love being in a room with one another.

It is one of our goals to help bring and keep production in Washington State, and momentum is only growing. We’ll keep on finding ways to bring the community together, we’ll keep on celebrating the wins and learning through the losses, and we’ll keep on trying (and failing) to win our own costume contests. But above all, we’ll keep on saying thank you. For showing up, believing in what we’re building, and reminding us every day why supporting each other in our industry matters.

Here’s to another year of making good things with good people. Keep on keepin’ on!

Offbeat Films is a full service video production company in Seattle, WA.

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Events 📅

Coming Up

December 11 — Offbeat Films Holiday Party, Thursday at The Barrel House! Join us to celebrate an amazing year of creative collaboration. Drinks are on us! RSVP! 🍺

February — Freelancer Speed Dating! The love-fest returns, in collaboration with Seattle Film Society. Come meet your professional soulmate! Stay tuned! 💘

In Our Community

December 10 — Holiday Mingle & Donation Drive with AAF! Help make an impact and enjoy some top-notch company in our advertising community! RSVP! 🎁

December 18 — Holiday Mixer with Seattle Film Society and SeaDoc! Could you, would you, on a train? We’ve heard rumors of train cars, fish tanks, a DJ... RSVP! 🎄

January 18 — 2 Yr Anniversary Workshop: Rigging for Camera. FCT is turning 2! Come celebrate with this hands-on deep dive into creative camera rigging! RSVP! 🎥

Recent Events

Spelling Bee 🐝

To kick us off, Geena gave a show-stealing performance from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. With eight competitors eliminated, the bee came down to a spell-off between Contestants 1 and 5. Eventually, crowd favorite Mallory claimed the win. We’ll revisit the game show concept soon because this was, to quote Contestant 1, f**king fun.

Film Community Kickball Tournament ⚽

Co-hosted by Retro Camera, our kickball tournament brought people together from all corners of the industry. We battled it out on the dirt diamond, but friendship and sportsmanship prevailed, and the youngest among us played an adorable encore game.

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Offbeat Recap

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Call Sheet: What We’re Up To

Offbeat Originals 🎭

We’re excited to share our most recent Offbeat Originals film, Beavers All Day!

Below, writer & director Celia Beasley shares some insights into the film and filmmaking process.

What is the inspiration behind this short film? Beavers All Day is inspired by my experience with my mom’s dementia. It’s a story of loss, grief, and acceptance—and how sometimes what feels like a burden turns out to be a gift.

You’re usually an editor. Is directing new to you? I’ve been a narrative editor for close to 20 years, and have always secretly wanted to direct but was paralyzed by imposter’s syndrome. Last year, with the encouragement of friends and colleagues (and officially entering my late 40s!), I took the leap and directed my first short. Beavers All Day is my second short and I am so grateful to Offbeat and Danny in particular for giving me the opportunity to do it again.

How did you prepare to step into the director’s chair? What were your hopes and fears going into it? Having edited 6 features and 2 TV series, I have learned a lot about how to tell a story with film. But one thing I have almost no experience with is directing actors. A week before the Beavers shoot I downloaded the audiobook of Judith Weston's Directing Actors and listened to it in double time to prepare. One of the big takeaways from that book is to listen to your actors. I had an amazing rehearsal session with Taylor [Pedroza]—he blew my mind with what he brought to the story. My big fear going in was that I wouldn't have all the answers. I had this vision of arriving on set and all the crew would be standing there with their arms crossed like, "what the hell do you think you're doing?" Of course that didn't happen, and it turns out that a director shouldn't have all the answers. As an editor I have learned that what I need from a director is a clear vision, and the trust to execute it. With Beavers, it was actually a huge relief to entrust my vision to my collaborators so that they could use their skill and creativity to bring it to life. It's the best feeling when someone comes up with an idea and it clicks into your vision like a puzzle piece you didn't even know was missing. 

What did you learn in the process? It is really hard to practice filmmaking. It's expensive and time consuming, so it's rare to be given the opportunity to try something when you don't have a lot of experience doing it. Offbeat Originals is a remarkable platform to do just that—practice filmmaking in a low-stakes environment. I love that these productions are centered around building capacity within our community—sharing knowledge and providing experience that's otherwise very hard to get. I was so grateful to have a safe and supportive environment to practice my new craft, and give someone else — an emerging narrative editor — the chance to practice theirs. I love the idea of inviting people to come out and play in the sandbox. It's truly a gift to our filmmaking community. ·

Offbeat Originals is a gathering of aspiring and experienced filmmakers creating short films with the intention of learning.

Stay tuned for our upcoming film, Optimized, written and directed by Justin Jeffers.

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Commercial 🎬

We recently collaborated with Sockeye, a creative agency out of Portland, to bring to life an ambitious spot for Coastal Community Bank, directed by Trevor Fife. After searching far and wide for the right location, we sailed to Whidbey Island for a full day shooting with local businesses—coffee roasters to boat builders—capped off by a seaplane at sunset.

We’ve also been busy creating a quirky, puppet-driven anti-littering campaign with our longtime collaborators at DH, directed by Lael Rogers and Peter Edlund.

Here’s a peek behind-the-scenes…

That’s it! Happiest holidays to all of you. We feel lucky to have you in our circle!

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