Elenita Makani Media
Meet the team
Elenita Makani Media is a two-person team, made up of wife-and-wife duo Elenita and Caitlin O’Malley. Both are full-time communicators – Elenita works as a video producer / filmmaker by day and Caitlin is a brand strategist – so naturally they’ve always been drawn towards creative collaborations. Their early dates included figuring out the auto-timer on Elenita’s camera to get photos of their coordinated fits and crashing a drone while taking video footage of Caitlin riding her motorcycle.
Capturing photos and videos became a shared love language for Elenita and Caitlin, so they soon turned their lenses towards the people in their community. Over the years, they’ve created images for many of their friends and family. Together, they collaborated on Elenita’s short film, Oakland Ilokana, with Elenita directing, producing, and editing the film, and Caitlin illustrating the film poster, producing the marketing materials, and always serving as the first viewer of the seemingly endless drafts. They’re a natural team who loves to collaborate on projects spanning from love to culture to the natural world.
Meet Elenita
Lead photographer, videographer, primary communicator
Hiii! I’m Elenita Makani O’Malley (she/her). The first time I picked up a camera, I still thought I’d become a professional anthropologist. I was learning to tell stories about human culture and it seemed natural to me to transmit those stories through video, rather than just text.
Many years later, I still bring my anthropology background to every project I do. Whether I am photographing a wedding, producing a documentary film, or editing videos for a science museum exhibit, I’m always thinking about how to integrate cultural details into my storytelling and framing images with the environment in mind.
I recently completed my first short documentary, Oakland Ilokana, which focuses on the life of my grandma, one of the first Filipina American children ever born in Oakland, California. The process affirmed my passion for cultural storytelling, respect for elders, and the importance of documenting our stories for future generations. I want to capture moments as they unfold while creating visual stories that become community heirlooms.
I love working with my wife Caitlin! We bring complementary skills to the table for our business. We are always finding new ways to tell stories for our BIPOC and LGBTQ community in California and beyond, so please reach out if that’s you. Most importantly, we are a good hang and will keep you laughing throughout our work :)
Meet Caitlin
Production assistant, content creator, marketer, illustrator
Hi, I’m Caitlin O’Malley (she/her)! I starting making art from a young age — with encouragement from a creative mom, I always had a crayon in hand. As an adult, I love to draw portraits, attend live figure drawing sessions, and experiment across visual media. Being from the Bay Area, nature has always been a big part of my life: I love going for walks in the redwoods, growing food in my garden, and recently started raising quail for eggs.
When I met Elenita, our creative energy was immediately synchronous: we started taking photos of ourselves as we traveled, documenting our journey, and then taking photos of our friends and family. Being creative collaborators is a huge part of our relationship, and we love finding new ways to connect with our community’s stories.
For our business, I bring creative support across every stage of the process. By day, I work as a professional marketing and brand strategist, with experience in grant writing, campaign development, and audience engagement. By night, I draw portraits (and film posters) by hand, bringing a strong visual sensibility that carries into my work as Elenita’s assistant—capturing social video and vintage camcorder footage that extend each story beyond the moment.