Marc and Melanie Chartrand- known collectively as The Chartrands- are a directing duo that also happen to be married to each other.

When they’re not finishing each other’s sentences outside of work, they’re helping each other finish jobs with a near-telepathic professional dynamic. Their directorial work, which blends their approaches together seamlessly, has included projects for top consumer brands like McDonald’s, the NY Lottery, Starbucks, Nissan and Porsche.

Melanie Chartrand was born in a small town in Texas to a depression era sharecropper father and a British hippie. As a self-proclaimed “tiny female Robert Plant with a clarinet”, She never really fit in, and found her escape in books, film and her mother’s stories of hitchhiking across Europe. This sense of adventure led Mel to a career in photojournalism , and her transition to film was the natural extension of her longing to express the subtle complexity of human experience.

Marc Chartrand was born in Montreal, Canada. Initially destined for professional ice hockey, his father’s Kodachromes of global travel spurned his imagination with images of cultures and customs he’d never imagined. After spending some formative years playing in a post-rock band, Marc found directing through a career in editing and photojournalism, much like his partner in crime.

After many years of collaboration, The Chartrand’s shared toolkit has given them an undeniable hive mind. Together, the two marry a diverse array of perspectives that conjoin their passion for thinking about art as emergent social psychology with their technical backgrounds as photographers, editors and cinematographers. As filmmakers, they thrive to explore the emotional moods, aesthetic tones and metaphysical meanings embedded within personal narratives. With little separation between work and home life, this unstoppable pair continues to be a powerhouse for new ideas.