Who Are We?

About

We’re a video production outfit based in the Pacific Northwest that specializes in video production for the outdoor industry. With the mountains in our backyard and the saltwater in our front yard, we’ve spent the last eight years telling stories, and helping brands make meaningful connection to their audience. Our mission is simple: Tell stories and move people.

While every project is unique, here are a few types of projects we’ve helped our clients with in the past: documentaries, commercials, product videos, brand campaigns, and social content.  Take a look at the following Case Studies to see examples of how we’ve helped other brands solve specific problems.

A Note From Our Founder:

For the latter half of my life, I've peered through the viewfinder of a camera, constantly pursuing stories, unique camera angles, and immersing myself in the natural beauty of our world. I prefer to remain behind the camera, which is why I've tried to limit personal mentions on this website, except for this section. However, in the spirit of practicing what I preach, here's my story.

I grew up in Bellingham, Washington, and was fortunate to spend my childhood amidst the San Juan Islands and the mountains of the North Cascades. From a young age, I was the kid who dedicated his summers to building go-carts, treehouses, or tweaking my mountain bike to shave off a few grams. Yet, it wasn't until a friend brought his camera to our local mountain bike hill that I discovered the world of filmmaking. A YouTube channel and a million views later, I realized that filmmaking seamlessly merged my love for creativity into a format that had the power to truly move people emotionally.

Today, Port Side appears drastically different from its early days. We've collaborated with leading outdoor industry brands, started a podcast featuring interviews with 145 marketing industry veterans, and shared impactful stories that have reached across the nation. But, as I think about it more, not much has changed. I still feel like that kid running through trails with a camera in hand. To this day, my drive is fueled by passion, curiosity, and the unwavering goal of captivating and moving people through compelling storytelling.

- Cole Heilborn, Producer and Creative Director



Capabilities

  • Strategy
  • Discovery/Research
  • Concept Development
  • Scripting
  • Shot Listing
  • Storyboarding
  • Moodboarding
  • Pre-Production
  • 4k + RAW Capture
  • Aerial Cinematography
  • CableCam Cinematography
  • Editing
  • Color Grade
  • Sound Design
  • Visual Effects

Our Process

1. Foundation

The beginning of every project starts with a lot of questions. We need to understand your goals, marketing strategy, call to action, audience, timeline, and budget. We’re a results-driven production company which means every project we create should be working to achieve your goals.

2. Creative Development

With our goals in place, now we can begin the creative process. We work with our clients to develop project briefs, treatments, and scripts. Need help to figure out the creative? We can do that too.

3. Pre-Production

Film production is a logistics puzzle. We handle all of the logistics in-house to ensure a streamlined production. In this phase, we manage things like crewing projects, talent, locations, permitting, schedules, call sheets, etc.

4. Production

We design each production to fit the needs of the project. A typical crew size ranges from three to twenty people on set. Much like your crew might change depending on the activity, so does ours. Every project requires a slightly different skill set depending on the activity unfolding in the viewfinder. We have an extensive list of collaborators we hire per-project to ensure the right team for the right job. Need a crew who understands the nuance of mountain biking? Check. How about rock climbing? Yup, we can do that too.

5. Post-Production

With the footage in the can we handle post-production in-house to shape your vision into reality. In this phase, we handle the details like sound design, mixing, and coloring. Our job ends once we’ve handed you the media files.

“I reached out to Port Side Productions for their help in leveraging an already-shot project in a new and exciting way. Pushing content beyond its original intent is never easy, and Cole’s team took on this challenge to find creative solutions and they did so with efficiency. The project had stunning photography, but it was the team at Port Side that pulled together a strong narrative thread. They did a fantastic job of taking a massive and unrelatable athletic feat, and humanized it through personalized storytelling.”

Stephen Matthews

Content Production Manager, SRAM

I’ve worked with Cole and the team at Port Side for over a year now and have been super impressed with them. They are smart, fast, authentic, humble, respectful, resourceful, creative, and highly communicative. They are a thorough group that gets it and does what it takes to get the job done. I’ve literally worked with hundreds of agencies and creative partners throughout my career, and I can honestly say they are awesome. I would highly encourage you to work with them if you have a project in their wheelhouse. When I first met Cole, the roles were reversed. He invited me to be on HIS podcast. I was his guest. He was so pro, and really made me feel comfortable. His approach, mannerisms, communication and respect were amazing. His curiosity was genuine and intelligent. Fast forward a couple years, and when I had an idea for a podcast, and promotions to support it, there was nobody I was going to turn to but Cole and Port Side. He quickly put together an A-team of insiders and partners to execute and they nailed it. I’m so happy, and stoked to be working with this team. They only mistake you might make is NOT hiring them for something!

David Zimberoff - VP of Marketing

SRAM

“From start to finish, Port Side Productions exuded creativity, professionalism, and execution. Cole and his team were easy to work with and adapted quickly to changing variables. They delivered a top-notch video that perfectly captured our vision.”

Ross Roberts - TruckVault

Creative Director

Cole and the team are on their P's and Q's. Organized and efficient. They know how to honor the core narrative at play and have have all the editing tricks in their bag, to boot.

Ryan Shepard

Account Strategist at We Are Unicorns

"We worked with Port Side Productions on a video shoot for our hotel company, highlighting a musical artist who is a brand ambassador for our company. Cole and his team were incredible to work with. They were professional, organized, brought great ideas, and worked within our budget and delivered exactly when they promised. We have received really positive feedback on the video, and we look forward to working with Port Side on future projects."

Gavin Burns

Head of Business Development at LOGE Camps

Cole was an absolute pleasure to work with. He's professional, came to the table with impactful ideas and turned around a finished product ahead of schedule. His capabilities in videography and editing speak for themselves. Needles to say, we’d love to work with Cole again!

Aron Bosworth

Chief Content Officer, Outdoor Project

Cole and his team were fantastic to work with. I would highly recommend Portside Productions to anyone looking for a creative team that really listens to what you want and goes the extra mile to make sure you get it. They were great communicators throughout the process. They not only created an awesome promo video for our event - Bellingham Bay Marathon - they also handled all of our live social media needs on event day in a fun and professional manner that people really responded to. We will definitely be looking for ways to work with Port Side again in the future

Brooke Larrabee

Bellingham Bay Marathon

Clients and Partners

Cascadia Vehicle Tents logoSRAM logoFreehub Magazine logoLOGE logoWestern Washington University Rowing LogoIZIP logoMammut Logo

Ready to create?

Let’s get started.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.