Simon Eisenbach - Reel Stories, Real Changes

Written by Julian R. Vaca

When you think of your passion for filmmaking, what is your earliest memory? A lot of filmmakers will tell you that they fell in love with the medium at a very early age. Whether it was making short movies on their parents’ camera, experimenting with in-camera editing, or just pointing and shooting, most filmmakers knew their calling since adolescence. Every so often someone flips the script.

Take Simon Eisenbach, the Owner and Executive Producer of Simon Eisenbach Productions, who confesses that he got into filmmaking slightly backward. (More on that in a moment.) His company focuses on “Creating visual content for brands that want to change the world.” That might sound like a rather audacious claim for a photography and video production company, but once you begin to learn about the man behind the camera and his work, his mission statement doesn’t sound all that bold.

In fact, it sounds accurate.

Growing up, Simon spent a great deal of time traveling and always had access to disposable cameras, though he never considered himself anything more than a novice shooter. Watching his father build a hospital in Mali, West Africa, Simon’s desire to travel grew, so he took his first trip to Burkina Faso.

“I quickly fell in love with the food, the culture, and the people,” Simon recalls. Traveling to that country with his father and immersing in the culture was an “adventure,” he says, and the whole experience may very well have been the first seed. Shortly thereafter, Simon enrolled in Intro to Digital Photography in college. His other classes and rigorous soccer schedule proved to be difficult and tricky to balance. So, in a sense, his hand was kind of forced to learn digital photography.

Upon graduating from college, Simon took a job at an engineering firm. However, digital photography was still calling him. So, he took all of his overtime pay and invested it into a Nikon camera and a variety of lenses. Still, Simon just considered this a hobby, at best, and deeply enjoyed shooting and experimenting.

Then, an exciting opportunity materialized. “I got invited to live in Taipei, Taiwan for over six months,” Simon explains. “I was helping to head up marketing, photography, and video for a church plant and coffee shop.” Figuring he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to explore another culture, he packed up his gear and moved to Taipei. The next six months was a needed change of pace, as Simon was finally able to get out of the office and merge his hobby with his work. That spell in Taiwan, while instrumental, was overshadowed by a stark realization. “Big city life just isn’t for me,” Simon says. “I needed a life reset, so I decided to move back home and reassess things.”

It may sound rather anticlimactic. Indeed, Simon had just left his engineering firm in pursuit of this career pivot! Yet something was...off. So he took a few days to reflect. That’s when he got a call that would change the trajectory of his career—and life. “My dad asked if I wanted to go with him to West Africa. Seeing as how I wasn’t working again, I just couldn’t say no. The trip completely changed my future in a way I couldn’t have predicted.”

When he arrived, due to unforeseen circumstances, the job slightly changed. Simon found himself driving around with team members from the organization as they built roofs for churches and inspected well installations, and he photographed their vital work. Through many conversations, Simon slowly began to realize that one of the biggest struggles for non-profit organizations overseas is their lack of access to quality visual marketing resources. If these churches and organizations didn’t have the right equipment, expertise, or time, how could they possibly tell their stories?

Simon knew what he had to do. “I want to support nonprofits working in developing countries,” he says. He realized that everything in his life had been building toward photography and filmmaking. While his path toward visual storytelling didn’t take him through film school or agency work, he was a visual storyteller nonetheless.

“If I wanted to do this, really do this, I knew working a traditional 9 to 5 was all but impossible.”

Simon founded his company, Simon Eisenbach Productions, soon thereafter. He spent the next few years building his business in Utica, NY while also traveling back to Burkina Faso, Mali, and Thailand to work on a variety of projects. This helped him develop his distinct style and voice. One of the things Simon really wanted to avoid, especially in the beginning, was “poverty porn” style content.

“I was meeting all of these amazing people who were so infectiously happy and joyful. I wanted to capture who they are, while also staying true to the very real situations they live in.”

Simon’s voice and style instantly resonated with his clients and audiences. The work continued to flow in at sometimes breakneck speed. “Looking back, I don’t know exactly how I survived the massive blur that was 2017. I opened an office space, delivered 127 videos to clients, completed 2 international projects, and doubled the business’ income. The work took me to Senegal, Uganda and D.R. Congo, and the latter was the furthest remote I have ever been for a project.”

Specifically, it was E4 Project. While it proved to be logistically challenging, it led to enormous success. The organization has been able to fund the protection of water sources for nearly 18,000 people, it built a brand new elementary school (complete with desks and resources) and even developed a robust malnutrition program. Simon’s even in discussion with E4 about the possibility of returning in 2020 to develop more content for the organization’s next phase.

More recently, Simon has begun to sharpen his focus. To do so, he has sold his office space, scaled back his business dramatically to spend more time working on life-changing projects and even launched a YouTube channel with quality, educational content surrounding all aspects of these types of content creation projects.

“As I look back on the progression of my career, I kind of chuckle because I never would’ve fathomed being where I am today. I’m grateful to have been a small part of real change in lives and creating more sustainable communities all over the globe.”

Simon’s story is unique and full of passion and risk. Then again, so are the stories he tells, too.

“If you’re interested in film making on a mission, find a topic you’re passionate about and get started! Check in with local orgs, or reach out to people who are doing what you want to do. You would be surprised how easy it is to get involved and find opportunities to capture otherwise untold stories. Spend time networking and commit to learning as much as you can about your craft and the cause.

“The investment in your passion will always be worth it.”

For Simon, it was worth it—ten times over.