The woman behind the operation, Chelsea Courtney

Chelsea started her career as an actor many (many) years ago. While acting is her first love and she'll continue to pursue it til the end, she started itching for something bigger.

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She started producing short films in 2021. Call it luck or unexamined intuition, but she often surrounded herself with other women- from department heads to assistants, women were staples in her early work.

 

In the years since, she's produced close to 20 films with budgets ranging from $5k to $100k.  She's built budgets for features ranging from $300k to $1.5m. She's also been on the production team for clients like L'Oreal, HomeGoods, Lego, Amika, Saucony and many more.

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As her career grew, she found herself working on bigger productions with a question nagging in the back of her mind: "Why am I the only woman on set? Where did they all go?" She knew dozens of talented, collaborative, FUN women who made all of her early set experiences easy and magical- but so few of them were around. 

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She launched Honeybee Productions in 2025 with one goal: more women! More women writers writing real, complex roles for women. More women directors, camera ops, grips. More women from top to bottom, in front of and behind the camera. 

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In its first full year of production, Chelsea produced 5 films under the Honeybee banner. All five were written and directed by women, including two first-time directors. Women and nonbinary filmmakers made up 51 of the 78 cast and crew members on set. 

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Honeybees are matriarchal and essential for life. It's truly the Honeybee philosophy that women are essential to good filmmaking, and Chelsea is hungry for more more more women in film in the years to come.