How did a young girl with cinematic dreams end up starting her own company?
Why start your own business when the world has plenty? Why not join the ranks of another established brand?
Creating a film is a big enough challenge for most Producers, starting an entire business is another thing entirely. It takes courage, brains, and a lot of gumption. Luckily, Drea has them all!
“I pride myself in supporting talented teams of creatives, helping make space for them to create their best work in a environment where it feels more like family than a job.”
Andrea Bessey
BORN CREATIVE
Andrea “Drea” Bessey carved her career out of a passion for beauty. Creating and expressing powerful stories became her impetus for filmmaking. By making films, she found a way to share stories that she felt needed more attention. Her focus was not only developing new voices and elevating unique storytellers, but also new techniques to build efficient, modern productions. The process itself was invigorating! Production is a team sport, but dealing with pressure and the delicate art of threading the needle has always come natural to her.
COLOR THE WORLD RED
After graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a BFA in Film Production in 2011, she started working at the camera company RED Digital Cinema. Drea began in customer service, before quickly becoming the company’s first Video Marketing Content Producer. In this position she created the company’s first in-house production team, traveling around the world making documentaries about some of the most successful filmmakers in the world. With Drea leading the charge, this creative group was crucial in developing award-winning content such as the RED Collective Series, which went on to win a Webby Award in 2018.
During her time as part of RED’s in-house team, the department continued to grow, adding more employees to their ranks and branching out into more ambitious content. Drea cut her teeth producing international documentaries, learning some of her trademark producing qualities: bringing big projects in on small budgets, traveling with tight-knit crews and minimal gear while still delivering a big look, and making people feel more like family than crew.
MOVING INTO FEATURES
It wasn’t long before Andrea’s producing skills caught the eye of Director Eric Demeusy, which started a journey that brought her into the realm of feature films. During this time she balanced her work created branded content with producing a full-length narrative film. The 2 year process of creating Proximity introduced her to an entirely new skill set and network built around production at scale and achieving a cohesive vision. By mentoring under more experienced producers, Andrea honed her abilities to navigate development situations and managing larger crews on set. Her debut feature film, Proximity, is currently streaming on Apple TV, Hulu, and Amazon.
TAKING BOLD STEPS
After 5 years of producing for RED, it was time to move forward on to the next adventure. Instead of joining one of several companies courting her attention, Drea and her partners made the bold choice to form their own boutique creative agency, designed to provide top quality service to broader audiences: Origin Point.
From the beginning, Drea wanted to create a space for filmmakers to flourish, and that dream takes a lot of knowledge to become a reality, and a lot of business acumen that only comes with industry experience. After years of producing films, it was finally time for the next challenge, producing a business.
CREATING A COMMUNITY
While she supervises a multitude of Origin Point projects simultaneously, she also manages to do all of the tasks that Creatives aren’t usually masters of. The things we never see on-screen: insurance calls, payroll, company overhead, contracts, these are the building blocks of every business, and Drea took the challenge head on for one reason: freedom. She wanted to understand every element of the business in order to provide the best service possible.
Today, Origin Point has 8 employees, and works with partners from all over the world like Netflix, National Geographic, Amazon, and many others. Drea continues to stand out from the crowd with her unending compassion for others, highly engaged leadership style, and the creative space she cultivates for her community.
Starting any business is a massive undertaking, and most of the long hours and extra effort never sees the public’s view. Like an underwater mountain, we only see the beautiful island on top. She doesn’t do it for the glory, she does it for the feeling that happens when we see content that connects with us, reflecting our stories back at us, and sharing our collective experience onscreen.
