n a quiet Atlanta living room, a teenage girl who had never spoken aloud began to tap out her first conversation with her family. Behind the camera, Brock Hanson ’13 helped capture the breakthrough that became the heart of “Makayla’s Voice”, an award-winning documentary acquired by Netflix.

Hanson’s journey to that powerful moment began years earlier as a middle schooler with a camcorder in hand. In high school, he launched a film club and realized filmmaking could be more than a hobby. That discovery led him to Auburn, where family ties ran deep and where the College of Liberal Arts offered a Film & Media Studies program that could turn his passion into a profession.

“I feel very lucky that I always knew which area I wanted to go into,” Hanson said. “It all lined up, and it’s been off to the races since. There were a couple of great professors in the program who were mentors and got me asking questions about my projects that I hadn’t known to ask before.”

A sound design project revealed how silence and ambient noise could heighten emotion. An independent study with Associate Professor Hollie Lavenstein pushed him beyond easy answers and into deeper meaning. The New Media Club gave him a community of peers who sparked ideas, launched projects and built lasting friendships.

That foundation launched him into a thriving career. Hanson currently works as a director at Proper Medium, an Atlanta-based production house specializing in video marketing. His work spans every stage of production, from interviewing clients and scouting locations to spending long days on set and editing projects to completion.

The variety allows him to move fluidly between creative roles and has taken him from factories in Vietnam to communities in Ethiopia. Commercial projects sharpen his craft and keep the business strong, while documentaries fuel his drive to tell human stories.

“They’re real people without an agenda, and just getting to share their stories through our format and our medium can be really powerful,” Hanson said.

Among those stories, “Makayla’s Voice” stands apart. The film follows Makayla, a teenager with a rare form of autism who spent her childhood unable to communicate in traditional ways. When her parents introduced letter board therapy, she gained the ability to share her thoughts for the first time. Hanson helped document the family’s journey as these early breakthroughs unfolded.

The response was extraordinary. The film won Best Documentary Short at the Tribeca Festival, was shortlisted for an Academy Award and reached a global audience on Netflix. But for Hanson, the true impact was measured in the messages from families who felt seen in a way they never had before.

“There were tons of people reaching out, saying how much it meant to them and telling me about other people they knew who were experiencing similar things,” he said.

Looking back, Hanson credits Auburn with giving him the space to experiment, stumble and grow. He encourages students to start creating early, embrace imperfection and recognize that every project adds to the experiences that shape a career.

“Make as much as you can,” Hanson said. “You’re going to make a lot of stuff that is not great, and that’s part of the process. Everything you do is adding to your life experience.”