Marvin Sandoval
Creative Producer · Director · Photographer
Riverside, California
I make films, photographs and creative work built around people, place and story.
I didn't come to this through a traditional production path.
I came to it by building things.
Running a business meant constantly figuring out how to communicate an idea—how something should look, sound and feel, how to tell people why it mattered, and how to make the work with whatever resources were available.
Somewhere along the way, the camera stopped being only a tool for the business.
Filmmaking, photography, editing, color and creative direction became the part of the work I kept wanting to go deeper into.
Building a brand taught me how creative actually has to work.
As a co-owner of Vixen & Beard, I've spent years working on both sides of the creative process.
I know what it's like to have an idea for a campaign and also be responsible for whether it connects with the audience, fits the brand, works across the website and social channels, and ultimately helps the business move forward.
That experience changed the way I approach production.
I'm not interested in making something beautiful in isolation. I want to understand what we're trying to say, who we're saying it to, and why the work deserves to exist in the first place.
I like being close to the work.
My projects usually start before the camera comes out.
I like developing the idea, finding the story, thinking through the visual language, and then carrying that thinking into production and post.
Depending on the project, that can mean directing a larger idea or working with a very small footprint and doing much of the filmmaking myself.
The scale can change. The attention shouldn't.
Creative Direction — concept development, story, visual direction
Direction + Production — brand films, documentary, commercial and athlete storytelling
Photography — portraiture, lifestyle, editorial and film
Post — editing, color grading and final delivery
Observed, not overworked.
I'm drawn to images that feel like they were found rather than manufactured.
Real environments. Natural performances. Details that tell us where we are. Enough direction to make the frame intentional without polishing all of the personality out of it.
That's true whether I'm making a commercial video or walking around with a film camera.
Carrying a camera keeps me looking.
Film photography is where I work without a brief.
It gives me a reason to slow down and pay attention to people, cars, buildings, light and ordinary scenes I probably would have walked past otherwise.
That practice has shaped the way I shoot everything else.
Riverside is home.
I live and work in Riverside, California, and a lot of the way I see comes from this part of Southern California.
It's a mix of old neighborhoods, small businesses, car culture, community events, palms, desert, mountains and cities all sitting within driving distance of one another.
That variety keeps showing up in the work, whether I'm trying to put it there or not.
Good stories. Good people. Work worth caring about.
I'm interested in working with brands, organizations and people who care about how the work feels—not only how polished it looks.
Brand stories, community projects, portraits, documentary work, sports, automotive, lifestyle—I'm less concerned with fitting everything into one category than I am with whether there's something real there to make.
Let's make something worth watching twice.
Have a project, story or idea in mind?
Riverside, California
Available throughout Southern California + select travel