CARPENTER GROWTH / ABOUT

The producer behind Carpenter Growth.

Last updated: September 9, 2026

Carpenter Growth is a one-person growth practice in Fort Worth. I pair two decades of professional video production with evidence-led local SEO. This is the longer version of how those two things ended up in the same business.

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Michael Carpenter, in the denim jacket, directing a shot at a Chewy facility in Dallas
On set at a Chewy facility in Dallas.
THE THROUGHLINE

The common thread has always been the same: make the work clear enough that the right person can understand it, trust it, and act on it.

2007–2009

Trial by infomercial

I graduated from UT Arlington in May 2007 and was behind a professional camera by that fall. MDR Television made automotive infomercials — half-hour dealership commercials, shot on location across the country. Some weeks meant three shoots in three different cities. It was a crash course in working fast, traveling light, and delivering no matter what.

UTA taught me the mindset before MDR taught me the pace. We never had the most expensive gear in school, so the story had to do the work. That is still how I operate.

2009–2012

Going independent the hard way

The housing crisis took the dealership work down, and my job with it. So I went all-in on Haywire Studios, the corporate production company I was building with former colleagues. For months, nothing worked. Then Hillwood Properties called in 2010: they were building one of DFW’s first Amazon warehouses in Coppell and needed contractor training filmed. We negotiated a fair rate for the week, delivered, and the referrals started — more corporate work, then city government work.

That same year I joined Fox’s The Good Guys as a locations PA for ten episodes. I arrived at 4am to set cones before the trucks, and stayed until the last one left. After some day-play on TNT’s Dallas reboot the next year, I had learned what I needed. TV was a grind I respected and did not want.

Blue cyc studio lighting setup prepared for production
A studio set prepared for production.
2012–2017

Eight days a week

MDR hired me back in 2012, and Haywire kept booking. Then Kevin Slayter of DFW Video brought me into municipal production — council meetings, planning and zoning, and events for Coppell, Carrollton, and Farmers Branch. Some days I would shoot one job in the morning and race to another that afternoon. The phone did not stop ringing, and I said yes more than I should have. It is a lifestyle you can only sustain for so long. I sustained it for five years.

One call in those years put me on a Super Bowl commercial: I served as an office PA on a Fuel Up to Play 60 spot for the NFL and National Dairy Council. It was a small role in a big machine, and a close look at how the largest productions stay organized.

2017–2022

The Chewy years

In 2017, Winston Barber called about a studio Chewy was building beside a million-square-foot Dallas facility. I came on as video production manager with a team of ten videographers. The directive sounded simple: a product video for every product Chewy sells.

Making that happen was not a shooting problem — it was a systems problem. I built a production factory that protected the creatives inside it. We rotated who worked with whom each week, and rotated project types, so nobody burned out on repetition. My team shot over 10,000 product videos, more than 100 social and blog videos, plus training and recruitment pieces. When the department was phased out, I saw it coming and left proud of what we built. That studio does not shoot video anymore. The system we ran is the thing I still teach.

Chewy warehouse video production shoot in Dallas
A Chewy production day at a Dallas facility.
2022–NOW

Higginbotham, and what came next

In summer 2022, a recruiter connected me with Higginbotham, the Fort Worth insurance firm. They had goals and wanted storytelling that served them — the same thing that made Chewy work.

Somewhere in all those years, I kept seeing the same problem. The businesses I filmed did great work that nobody could find. Video builds trust once people arrive — but search decides whether they arrive at all. So I learned search the way I learned production: by doing it, measuring it, and keeping what works.

That is Carpenter Growth. Evidence first, then the right work, scoped to your situation — whether that is local SEO, video, or both.

The practical versions of all this are in two guides: video marketing for small businesses and contractor SEO from the ground up.

Where the work has been

Production credits (2007–2022) · MDR Television · Haywire Studios · Hillwood Properties · Fox's The Good Guys (locations PA) · TNT's Dallas (day-play) · DFW Video — municipal production for Coppell, Carrollton and Farmers Branch · Fuel Up to Play 60 Super Bowl spot (office PA, produced 2012) · Chewy, Dallas studio (video production manager, 2017–2022) · Higginbotham (2022)

Current search work · Dark Rainbow, a DFW video production company — web, search and measurement foundation, then Business Profile · Taxero — indexing recovery, 8 to 97 indexed pages in twelve weeks (Search Console, June to September 2026)

How this site is written: editorial standards.

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Chewy Studios production set and crew preparing a pet-product shoot
Production infrastructure is part of the work.