Lucas and Meigan Bell

November 2019 Filmmaker of the Month

Team Bio:

Lucas and Meigan Bell are the directors, producers, writers, cinematographers and editors of Live The Stream: The Story of Joe Humphreys, which won several awards including Best Adventure Film and an Audience Award at the 2018 Breckenridge Film Festival and is now available to buy on iTunes and livethestreamfilm.com (blu-ray, dvd, digital downloads). The husband-and-wife team are owners of Nomadic Studio, a Washington DC based design-driven production company specializing in motion design, live-action and branded content for film, television, social media, and marketing across all platforms. Their clients include Amazon, House of Marley, NFL, ESPN, Discovery Networks, National Geographic Channel and many more.

Filmmaker Interview with Lucas and Meigen Bell

Tell us your backstory. How and why did you get into the filmmaking?

Lucas is the Creative Director of Nomadic and specializes in design, animation, compositing and live-action shoots. With a background in film, he wanted a chance to shoot again. Meigan is the EP of Nomadic and has been in the field and post overseeing a variety of reality television series across all major networks. So, as a team, we’re well experienced in creating content across all platforms and were craving complete control of a project of our own. As outdoor enthusiasts who love watching documentaries, we were inspired by a few like 180 Degrees South, DamNation, and View From A Blue Moon. After a fly fishing trip in New Zealand, we decided to search for a documentary subject that would expose the power of living a life outside while also advocating for greater conservation efforts, too. Joe’s life story checked all of the boxes and soon we were shooting our first feature film.

What’s harder? Getting started or being able to keep going? And what drives you to continue making films?

Nomadic was able to quickly begin production on Live The Stream because we’re capable of doing every aspect of production ourselves. Aside from a successful Indiegogo campaign at the start of production, this was our passion project and we self-funded every other aspect of production and post, filming with Joe for over 3 years. It was more difficult to keep going in the distribution and marketing phases without one national sponsor attached. We believe independent filmmaking is extremely important and would absolutely love to make another film as long as that next project either has a grant or sponsorship/funding in place from the start.

How do you know when your story’s over, when to walk away?

We initially thought we’d follow Joe Humphreys for 6 months and the production turned into 3.5 years. It was our job to accurately tell Joe’s life story so we had to extend production to cover important events that would eventually edit into the perfect description of Joe. You walk away when you’re confident you have the footage you need to tell an engaging story.

Why did you submit to Breckenridge Film Festival? - What do you look for in a festival where you hope to show your film.

We submitted to BFF because we wanted to premiere in a town with a great outdoor culture and audiences who would appreciate a fly fishing doc with a conservation storyline. Since Live The Stream is an outdoor/adventure film with epic nature cinematography, we looked for festivals that had adventure/sports categories, had excellent communication with filmmakers, played DCPs, and had local fly fishing outfitters in town that would help to attract audiences to our screenings and promote the film. BFF surpassed our expectations and is still one of our favorite festivals!

What are the next project or projects you are beginning work on?

After Live The Stream had its festival circuit and also a small theatrical run (thanks to some incredible local sponsors), we were acquired by Gravitas Ventures and are currently working with them for a November 5th worldwide digital release (starting with iTunes). We've been busy on many client-based projects at Nomadic and we're also considering a few documentary ideas and that could be the next perfect fit for our team.