From beach shack to trusted partner

My name is Rowan Franklin. I'm a strategic filmmaker and the founder of Beach Shack Productions.

I partner with visionary founders and leaders to solve their biggest bottleneck: scaling themselves. I don't just make films; I build Narrative Engines, complete story-driven systems that turn your unique expertise into your most powerful asset for trust and growth.

My journey to this work wasn't a straight line. It was forged in the worlds of luxury hospitality, high-stakes government contracts, and the hard-won lessons of a startup failure. This is my story.

“From managing Australia’s most awarded boutique hotel to $160M in defence contracts, I learned one truth: story decides success.”

I began my career in hospitality, spending a decade in the industry. At a young age, I became Front Office Manager at the Henry Jones Art Hotel, then the most awarded boutique hotel in the Southern Hemisphere. That’s where I first saw how story transforms experience. Guests weren’t buying rooms; they were buying the narrative of a jam factory turned art hotel.

From there, I stepped into the corporate world, working my way up to National Contract Manager for Defence Housing Australia. For the next decade, I managed over $160M in contracts across 800 businesses, from small operators to major corporations. That role taught me the power of story at scale; the difference between unity and chaos often came down to the narrative people believed.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. I left the corporate world to join a small procurement software startup. It was there I learned a harsh lesson: we focused too much on the product and failed to tell our story clearly and consistently. When a major government contract was lost, the founder had to let me go.

That failure became my mission. Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to helping businesses and corporations shape their narrative, so their effort and sacrifice don’t go unseen. Because story isn’t just what people hear. It’s what they feel. And when they feel it, they act.

At Beach Shack Productions, I now partner with:

• Founders & business owners who need a story system to scale without burning out.
• Industry leaders who need a strategic narrative to manage risk and earn community trust.

And that brought me here, to a small coastal town of less than 5,000 people. People thought I was crazy to leave the city and start a strategic narrative business from a beach house, a "shack," no less. How could I serve both industry leaders and the local coffee shop from here?

But the move was the mission. It was a deliberate choice to step away from the corporate noise and gain the strategic clarity that only comes from focus. I knew my purpose, I knew my narrative, and I wanted to build a business that proved it.

That's why it's called Beach Shack Productions. It’s a reminder that a powerful story, told with clarity and purpose, can make an impact from anywhere. Whether you're trying to earn the trust of a community or the loyalty of a customer, the principles are the same. My job is to bring that clarity to you.