David Long ’98

With Trapped Bee Productions, filmmaking alum David Long ’98 takes flight

By Melinda Vajdic

In an opening shot, a white-haired man with a shotgun stands before an oversized American flag, shotgun pointed directly at the viewer. What happens next is both thought provoking and amusing, and provides a glimpse of the absurdity that can simmer in the American melting pot, especially when preconceptions lead to serious misinterpretations. This short film, titled “Elizabet,” is the brainchild of David Long, Kellogg School graduate and founder of Trapped Bee Productions.

This Baltimore-based digital production company provides services from initial design to final edit for Long’s own creative ventures as well as for those of a growing client base. The startup’s portfolio to date includes narrative, documentary, online commercial, music video and fundraising films.

Long founded Trapped Bee in August 2007, in a shift from his full-time corporate job in marketing, sales and product development for Laureate Education Inc. His career was “about storytelling for customers and boardrooms,” recalls the former vice president of business development for the firm. “Now, I’m learning how to shift to a different kind of audience.” As Long sees it, his career change is a natural progression that gives him a chance to mix his passion with his professional background. Long says he still does consulting work to support his self-funded production venture.

He admits his path to filmmaking is the “reverse” of the usual. “Usually people start out in the film school and spend years turning it into a business,” he says. Long, by contrast, spent his first decade after earning his Kellogg MBA in 1998 launching new products and business divisions for education markets. At Laureate, a leading network of national universities, he launched Education Station, an after-school tutoring business for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Education Station grew into a $25-million business in 2 ½ years before being sold to a private firm, says Long, adding that the lessons he learned by steering businesses into profitability will serve him well as he transitions more fully to his film career.

At the Kellogg School, Long focused on marketing and entrepreneurship, and he remembers one professor as particularly influential to his business approach. Barry Merkin, a clinical professor of entrepreneurship, created a “wholly unique” set of entrepreneurship courses, according to Long. The real-life cases employed dramatic and unexpected turns to upset formulaic approaches to business analysis. For example, a customer would die on a showroom floor, or else an organized crime gang would try to extort funds from a business.

“Merkin knew how to create an ‘ah-ha’ moment, and that’s exactly my challenge,” Long says. “Filmmaking is about having people in one frame of mind, then purposefully shifting to another way of looking at the world.” Even the name of his company lends itself to multiple interpretations: One day while checking sound ahead of filming, Long saw a bee trapped in his studio window. He put it in a jar to test the noise level. A friend, however, suggested to Long that the name has a connection with his newfound artistic freedom.

“I think there’s something to that,” Long admits. “Maybe the creative unconscious at work.”

Initially, though, jumping into filmmaking mid-career “seemed like a big risk” says the Kellogg graduate, but he recalls “transitioning purposefully” over 18 months, letting those around him know just what he intended to do. “My family and former colleagues have been a huge source of support,” Long says. Among those supporters has been his wife Liz, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The couple welcomed son Benjamin into the family in February.

For now, the startup demands a hands-on approach from Long. The business plan for Trapped Bee, an LLC, includes Long “doing everything” in the initial stages. “I purposefully wanted to learn from the beginning to the end, including cinematography, writing the script, directing and producing,” he explains.

Long believes the business climate for short-form film is receptive; specifically, he notes the splintering of broadcast television, creating cable channels that in some cases are dedicated to short movies and documentaries. The Internet also provides a “vast market” for video with new distribution channels, he says. Amid this favorable backdrop, the cost of production has plummeted with the rise of powerful but relatively inexpensive technology: Long says he set up his production studio for around $15,000. During even the company’s first year, low initial expenditures allowed Trapped Bee to generate a modest profit in the first quarter of 2008, Long says.

In addition to his proprietary short-film and commercial projects, Long is also working on a feature film. The mystery’s plot remains under wraps. But examples of Long’s work, including the first episode of “Elizabet,” produced in association with Beariver Productions, are available by visiting trappedbee.com. Three more episodes of “Elizabet” are slated for release in 2008. His music video “Graffiti,” featuring Mecca Bodega, a percussion group that plays regularly at Manhattan’s 34th St. and 6th Ave. subway station, is available by visiting Rhapsody.com.

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Posted September 2008