Born and raised on a fragile sandbar in North Carolina, our work is crafted to steer wedding films away from the traditional, tired videos that everyone is used to by creating high quality, cinematic wedding films that adhere to and uphold artistic integrity, creativity, and beauty.
A few of our favorite films
Pricing for our
2024-2025 seasons
Our NEW 360 photo booth
Who is Swell Productions?
Hi! I'm Chris.
That's me, my wife Janie, and our son Talon. We live on our sailboat (yes, really) on the Outer Banks and together Janie and I have sailed over 6,000 nautical miles along the East Coast and the Bahamas. From late 2023 - early 2024 we sailed with Talon from North Carolina to the Bahamas when he was only a year old. Yeah, he's one badass baby. Now you know where "swell" comes from!
I share this to illustrate my deep love for travel, adventure, and the ocean. It's these things, among others, that caused me to fall in love with photography and filmmaking at a young age as a way to document what I found beautiful in the world. Having grown up on the Outer Banks, this first took shape as surf and travel content across all corners of the globe.
To be honest, I only got into weddings as a way to make some extra money in the summer while I was still a surf bum waiting tables. However, after shooting just a few, I totally fell in love with the art that is wedding filmmaking. It's just like shooting a documentary, but injected with raw, deep emotion, creative design, storytelling, and touching human elements that change with every single wedding.
Now, 12 years later, I can confidently say I still love telling these love stories.
I would love to tell yours.
(even if I'm still kind of a surf bum that lives on a sailboat)
owner / videographer / editor / Sailor
A 360 photo booth is a fun and interactive way to capture all the best angles of you and your guests in a short, instantly shareable video clip.
While I loved all of my wedding vendors, Swell (Chris and Chris) was my absolute favorite! If I had to do without every vendor at my wedding except one, Swell is the vendor I would choose again and again. This was by far the best investment I have EVER made and certainly the best investment we made for our wedding. Chris and Chris were amazing to work with (and I wish we lived in OBX so we could be friends with them), yet I felt like half the time we didn’t know they were there but somehow they captured every moment and were never intrusive. We’ve watched our video and our short so many times I can’t even keep track. It always makes us and our friends and family tear up. Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful!
“Don’t laugh at this statement but…I LITERALLY CAN’T EVEN! The short video and the feature film were so amazing and we are so incredibly thankful we had Chris and “other Chris” as our videographers. We couldn’t have asked for anyone better! You two are so talented and the OBX is lucky to have y’all! I can’t wait to watch this video for years to come. It’s something I will cherish forever. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!
I was left speechless afterwards and I ended up watching it at least 100 times more that day and probably 1,000 times more since then. Swell Productions should be your first vendor selection (after choosing a date and venue of course). They book up quick because they are the best, so don’t wait! They capture the most beautiful and romantic moments of your special day so you can relive it over and over again. You don’t want anyone else for this job. Our wedding film is something I will cherish forever. The detail they put into your wedding film is what makes them stand out from the rest. They truly are the most talented videographers out there. You will not regret hiring these professionals. Thank you guys so much for capturing the most spectacular moments of our wedding.
I wasn’t planning on using a videographer at all for our wedding, however after stumbling across some wedding videos of complete strangers and being a sobbing mess by the end of the film, I knew I had to have them. You will not find a better videographer team than the incredibly talented men of Swell. I joked with my family and said they were the Martin Scorsese of the wedding film world. The quality of your film is a real life movie, it’s priceless. They do an excellent job of staying out of the way for the wedding (I barely saw them), but by looking at our film, they captured everything. Hands down the best decision I made during our wedding process was hiring Swell Productions. Their work speaks for themselves so check them out now!!
Words can’t express the gratefulness my husband and I have for Chris Hannant and the Swell
Productions crew. Our perfect day went by so fast, but now we have the most exceptional video to relive
the most special moments from
that day for the rest of our lives. Their creativity, talent, hard work, and
professionalism went above and beyond our expectations. We could not have imagined a more
amazing masterpiece. Thank you for capturing and being a part of our special day. I could have written
a novel about how great ya’ll are.
Chris Hannant and the Swell Productions team is the ABSOLUTE BEST! If you are considering any other videographer for your wedding, you should think again. The short film and documentary cut that Chris and team produced for us was second to none. After first meeting Chris a few days prior to our wedding, we could immediately see the passion, the vision and the meticulous attention to detail he puts in every aspect of the production. And not to mention he is just an all-around good guy! My Wife and I cannot thank Chris and his team enough for what they created – They captured every single detail of our wedding day better than we could have ever imagined.
Chris gave us outstanding memories of what we were experiencing in our first fleeting moments of marriage. I say ‘gave’ because having him film our wedding truly was a gift. His gorgeous portrayal was seamless and heartfelt, and he was quietly unobtrusive, really capturing the overwhelming emotions present in our day.
After watching the finished short film for the first time, I had absolutely no words. My husband cried. The piece came out so beautifully and took us back to that special day like no photo ever could. It is truly a work of art that we are going to cherish forever and I can’t think of a better memento for our day. Chris has such a talent for putting moments, seemingly ‘random’ moments, together into a finished piece of art. I would not change a thing… thank you Chris!