Making video since 2003

I've spent 23 years learning how to make things people watch.

Editor, cinematographer, and systems builder. I started cutting video out of high school, shot everything from weddings to national commercials, built a $1 million creative studio, and now I design the AI production systems that turn one editor into an entire department.

Watch the reel → Get in touch
Sean Duran
Sean DuranSouthern California
23yrs
Making video professionally, since 2003
$1M+
Gross revenue from the studio I founded and ran
3,200+
Ad concepts tested across the brands I've worked on
5→50
Ads per week after the AI pipeline I built
Showreel

The work, uncut.

Explainers, commercials, and studio work. A new cut — performance ads for DTC health brands, UGC, talking heads, and motion graphics — is rendering now.

270
Finished ads catalogued
8
Brands represented
Selected clients

Brands I've made work for.

Fortune 500 explainers, education publishers, SaaS platforms, and a long run of direct-response health brands.

Intuit
Panasonic
Macmillan Learning
FuturHealth
G-Plans
Shift Fitness
Kurtosys
Kareo
QuickSprout
Hightail
Loop11
RESTEK
Enervee
Carbon Copy Cloner
AltRX
TrimRX
GetThin
Novi
Selected work

Ads built to be tested, not admired.

Direct response is a numbers game. These are concepts that survived iteration — some went 18 or 21 versions deep before they earned their spend.

FH · WEGOVY PILL
FUTURHEALTH
Wegovy Pill — Doctor Hook
AI-generated talking head cut against product b-roll. One of 40+ concepts in a GLP-1 pill launch test series.
GT · CLOSET COMEBACK
GETTHIN
UGC — Closet Comeback
Transformation hook with a wardrobe reveal. Seven iterations to find the version that held past three seconds.
ARX · $89 HOOK
ALTRX
$89 Price Hook
Price-led direct response, 18 versions deep. The winner led with the number in the first half-second.
GT · JINGLE
GETTHIN
The Jingle Ad
Original song, written and produced for the brand. A format nobody else in the category was running.
FH · STUDIO SHOOT
SHOT BY ME
Studio Production — DP
Lit and shot on a full production set. Multi-camera, talent direction, controlled studio lighting.
ALMA · SERUM LAUNCH
SKINCARE
Alma Botanicals — Launch
A 15-second skincare spot produced end-to-end with AI tools. Proof the system works outside telehealth.
Behind the camera

I don't just cut it — I shoot it.

I've been the director of photography on full studio productions at FuturHealth and on live-action explainer shoots going back years. Lighting setups, camera packages, lens choices, blocking, directing on-camera talent. Being both the DP and the editor means I shoot knowing exactly what the edit needs — no wasted setups, no missing coverage, no "we'll fix it in post." It's the same instinct that makes the AI pipeline work: I know what a finished ad requires before a single frame exists.

DP.
Director of photography on studio productions and live-action explainer shoots
4K
Multi-camera studio setups, lighting design, and talent direction
2003→
Weddings, short films, actor reels, documentary, commercial — all of it hands-on
2012 — 2020

Before the AI, I ran a real studio.

Sean Duran Studios was a full-service production company out of a 1,600 square foot warehouse in Southern California. Copywriters, editors, animators, project managers, interns. We wrote, storyboarded, shot, animated and delivered explainer videos and commercials for enterprise clients — and I was the one who had to make the numbers work. Hiring, payroll, pitching, client management, and still shooting and cutting the hard ones myself.

$1M+
Gross revenue generated over the studio's run
1,600ft²
Dedicated warehouse studio and shooting space
10+
Editors, animators, copywriters, PMs and interns managed
What I build now

I build the tools, then I use them.

I'm not an editor who read about AI. I write the specs, build the pipelines with Cursor, debug the ffmpeg, and ship the systems my team runs on every day.

01 / PIPELINE

Studio — AI Ad Production

Script to finished ad, automated. Generates the talking head, transcribes with Whisper, cuts captions, places b-roll, scores it, appends the CTA card, and exports every aspect ratio. Took the team from five ads a week to fifty.

PythonffmpegWhisperArcadsSeedanceElevenLabs
02 / ANALYTICS

Creative Intelligence Dashboard

Pulls Meta and Northbeam performance data, cross-references every ad against the production tracker, and tells the team which creative is actually working instead of which creative they liked making.

Meta APINorthbeamSheets APINode.js
03 / STRATEGY

Compass

Answers the only question that matters on Monday morning: what should we make next? Surfaces untested angles, scaling winners, and competitor activity so nobody's guessing.

Claude APICloud RunCursor
04 / PRODUCT

50adsaweek

The pipeline, turned into a product. Upload a brief, get a finished ad back. Multi-stage worker queue, its own frontend, built solo as a standalone SaaS.

Next.jsVercelDigitalOceanPostgres
The long version

Twenty-three years, one throughline.

Every job has been some version of the same thing: figure out how to make more good work, faster, without it getting worse.

2023 — NOW
FuturHealth
Senior Video Editor / DP → Head of AI
Built an AI creative department from nothing at a fast-scaling GLP-1 telehealth brand — while still shooting the studio productions.
  • Personally produced 400+ ad concepts and 1,300+ deliverables
  • Director of photography on full studio productions
  • Designed and shipped the pipeline that took output from 5 to 50 ads/week
  • Built four internal tools: production pipeline, performance dashboard, strategy engine, compliance review
  • 130 finished video ads shipped from the pipeline in its first 90 days live
2020 — 2023
G-Plans / Shift Fitness
Senior Video Editor & Creative Lead
Lead editor across two DTC nutrition and fitness brands, running paid creative on nine platforms.
  • 1,600+ ad concepts produced across both brands
  • Creative shipped to Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit, X, Quora and Taboola
  • Built an early AI scripting tool in 2023 — before it was the obvious thing to do
2012 — 2020
Sean Duran Studios
Founder, DP & Executive Producer
Founded, grew and ran a full-service video production studio serving enterprise clients.
  • $1M+ gross revenue across the studio's run
  • DP on live-action explainer and commercial shoots
  • Clients included Intuit, Panasonic, Macmillan Education, Kurtosys, Kareo and Hightail
  • Managed a team of 10+ across editorial, animation, copy and production
2007 — 2012
Take Zer0 / Freelance
Creator, Shooter, Editor
Ran Take Zer0, a YouTube web series producing short films and movie reviews — back when "YouTube creator" wasn't a job title yet. Freelanced across everything that pays a young filmmaker.
  • Weddings, actor reels, corporate video, event coverage
  • Stop-motion animation, motion graphics, 3D modeling
  • Learned the entire pipeline the hard way, on deadline, for real clients
2003
The beginning
Picked up a camera out of high school
Started editing video the year I graduated. Never stopped. Everything since has been an extension of that first timeline.
Craft

What I actually do.

Camera & Edit
  • Cinematography / DP
  • Lighting design
  • Directing on-camera talent
  • Video editing (Premiere, Resolve)
  • Motion graphics & After Effects
  • Stop-motion animation
  • Color grading & sound
Systems & Code
  • AI production pipelines
  • Python, JavaScript, ffmpeg
  • Cursor / AI-assisted development
  • iOS app development (Swift)
  • Game Boy programming (C)
  • Google Cloud Run, Vercel
  • API integration & automation
Strategy & Making
  • Direct-response creative strategy
  • Creative testing at volume
  • Team leadership & hiring
  • 3D modeling & 3D printing
  • Prop fabrication for shoots
  • Electronics & hardware repair
  • Brand & compliance review
Things I build on my own time

I don't really stop.

Games, hardware, apps, videos. Most of it ships. Some of it even makes money.

Live · Growing
esotericsean
A YouTube channel about Game Boy repair and modification — component-level soldering, IPS screen swaps, custom shells. Real hardware, real repairs, a real audience that shows up for it.
youtube.com/@esotericsean →
Live
esotericmods
The Instagram side of the same obsession — mod builds, before-and-afters, and the kind of macro shots that only work when you actually know how to light small objects.
instagram.com/esotericmods →
In development
Nutmeg's Nut Quest
A Game Boy Color platformer written in C, seven years in the making, publishing through Incube8 Games. Real cartridge, real hardware, a composer and pixel artist on the team. This one ships.
esotericgames.com →
In development
Retirement Center
A Unity game about an old man who moves into a retirement home, falls in love, and slowly realizes the staff are hiding something. Part Animal Crossing, part Stardew Valley, part quiet horror.
esotericgames.com →
Live · SaaS
50adsaweek
The AI ad pipeline as a product anyone can use. Brief in, finished ad out. Designed, built and deployed solo — frontend, worker queue, billing, the whole thing.
50adsaweek.com →
Shipped
iScout
An iOS location-scouting app for filmmakers. Drop a pin, attach photos and notes, share the good spots. Built with Cursor and shipped to the App Store.
App Store →
Also, at various levels of seriousness
3D printingRoboticsWoodworking Electronics repairProp fabricationDog training Raising chickensRetro hardwarePixel artChiptune

Let's make something worth watching.

I'm looking for the right role — senior editor, cinematographer, creative director, or the person who builds your AI production system. If any of that sounds like what you need, I'd like to talk.

sean@seanduran.com → LinkedIn