Ep. 1 with Evan Bourcie - Action Begets Luck, Pt. 1

In this conversation, Seth Lowe and Evan Bourcier discuss the ups and downs of freelancing in the creative industry. They share their experiences with slow seasons and the importance of creating financial buffers. They also discuss the challenges of balancing overhead and flexibility in their businesses. The conversation touches on the impact of social media on their careers and the value of learning about the business side of freelancing. They reflect on the joy of setting others up for success and the challenges of navigating multiple roles and identities. They also discuss the difficulties of managing client expectations. The conversation explores topics such as trusting intuition and process, the approach to landing new clients, resistance to pitching and RFPs, the value of not dancing for jobs, the importance of having the right people, the value of advocates and relationships, breaking the rules and challenging the process, financial success and goals, effective communication and feedback, income streams in the film industry, balancing gratitude and ambition, playing bigger games and expanding opportunities, navigating the industry and finding value, creating a transparent and supportive community, and navigating budgets and expectations.

Takeaways

• Freelancing in the creative industry is like riding waves, with periods of high demand and slow seasons.
• Creating financial buffers and managing overhead is crucial for surviving slow seasons.
• Balancing flexibility and low overhead allows freelancers to have more control over their work and take on projects they enjoy.
• Learning about the business side of freelancing is essential for long-term success.
• Setting others up for success can be a rewarding part of freelancing, but it can also be challenging to navigate multiple roles and identities. Trust your intuition and process, and don't be swayed by how others do things.
• Focus on building relationships and advocates who can help remove obstacles and break the rules.
• Avoid wasting time on pitching and RFPs, and instead focus on understanding the client's needs and providing solutions.
• Value transparency and open conversations about rates, budgets, and creative approaches.
• Diversify income streams and explore opportunities for teaching and sharing knowledge within the creative community.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Background

01:28
The Freelancing Waves

05:23
Creating Financial Buffers

07:08
Balancing Overhead and Flexibility

08:31
Learning from Slow Seasons

10:20
Transitioning to Freelancing

12:12
Riding the Waves of Freelancing

14:31
Managing Financial Buffers

20:09
Navigating the Freelance Journey

23:26
The Impact of Social Media

26:48
Shifting Focus to Business Learning

28:13
Finding Joy in Setting Others Up for Success

30:27
Navigating Multiple Roles and Identities

34:09
Challenges in Client Expectations

36:03
Trusting Intuition and Process

36:28
Approach to Landing New Clients

37:24
Resistance to Pitching and RFPs

38:18
Value of Not Dancing for Jobs

39:10
The Importance of Having the Right People

40:08
The Value of Advocates and Relationships

41:06
Breaking the Rules and Challenging the Process

42:00
Financial Success and Goals

44:19
Effective Communication and Feedback

46:48
Income Streams in the Film Industry

49:40
Balancing Gratitude and Ambition

50:04
Playing Bigger Games and Expanding Opportunities

52:16

Interested in coming on the show, or know someone who would be a good fit? Email us here - seth@sethlowephoto.com

Follow the show on Instagram - @thesolocreativepod

Transcript

Seth Lowe (00:00.286)
Old people call me Zeth, like with a Z. Oh, that's fun. You should just change it to Zeth. It might be more memorable. Zeth Lowy is like a sick artist name. Dude, that is actually pretty great. That's really funny. Hey, welcome to The Solo Creative, a podcast for freelance filmmakers and photographers who want to become more successful at the business of freelancing. I'm your host, Seth Wohme.

Seth Lowe (00:29.354)
Hey, welcome to episode one. Our guest this week is Evan Bourcier. Evan and I have been friends on Facebook for years, but this was actually the first time we had any sort of real conversation or talked. It was really fun. Evan is an open book, and we covered a lot of ground, and I think it really sets up all the various topics that we will cover in the coming episodes. My plan is to keep episodes around an hour apiece, but Evan and I ended up talking for over two hours, so I decided to split this episode into two parts, as I didn't want to cut anything out. Thanks for listening, and stay tuned for part two next week.

Welcome to the Solo Creative Podcast. Our guest today is Evan Borshear. He is a freelance filmmaker and photographer based on the East Coast. How's it going, Evan? It's going well, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited. So what's going on in your world currently? What's new? It's January. What's happening? Dude, it's one of those, it's funny timing with this conversation because for me right now, on the work side, like, you know, life is, holidays are crazy, family stuff, events, but it's been...

The back half of 2023 was slow for me. And in general, that seems to be a theme for a lot of people, not everyone, but a lot of people. But, you know, it's like the waves come and go. And in the last week, I've got like six inquiries all of a sudden for like fun, cool stuff. And so it's just been a little crazy how quickly it can go from like, there's nothing going on in January to like.

looking at Las Vegas, looking at getting this commercial piece done, looking at a sort of like group portrait, not group portrait, individual portraits, but like 50 people, I got an inquiry about like, hey, could we do portraits of 50 different people? And so just like all of these things, one of those when it rains it pours moments, which is encouraging after a lot of the last year, to be honest. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I think...

freelancing can be sort of like surfing, you know, you're like, you gotta just take the waves that come and maximize them. And sometimes it's just like epic wave after epic wave. And sometimes it's just choppy and sometimes it's flat and figuring out how to enjoy the flat, enjoy, you know, ride out the choppy and hit the big ones well is such a interesting never ending learning curve, you know? Yeah, totally. And it's something that like, I feel like for my career, you know, my existence in this world, like I...

Seth Lowe (02:54.47)
I used to get nervous about it when I first started out and then I pretty quickly just got comfortable with the waves. So it was like, okay, stuff's always gonna come. I'm not really worried about it. But to be totally honest, like this last year was the first year where I was like, do I gotta go start like knocking on doors again? Like I feel like I've been doing this since I was 18. So it's like 12 years now and there's always just been an orbit of things. And from like August through December of 2023, it was just like dead, dead in a way that I haven't seen in my whole time in this world.

And I don't know how much of that is anecdotal and personal to me again, but yeah, it's been interesting to see the waves get, in some ways it feels like the waves get bigger and the troughs get deeper these days than they have been. Yeah, I can relate to that. Last year was like crazy for me. I had a season though, like 2019, where I don't think I like had a single job from like January to like May. And it was like, you know, the first couple of months of the year

I've been in for 12 years as well. And the first couple of months of the year, always like kind of a throwaway, you know, that's normal for me. And it's great. Like I kind of use it as a time to like set my goals for the year and think through what I'm, you know, just relax, whatever, you know, recharge the batteries a little bit. And that year by like into March, I was like, huh, I don't know what's like going on. This is kind of weird. And then like April came around and I was like, geez, like, what am I gonna, this is a little stressful, you know, like, and then May hit, it just exploded. But yeah, I mean that, that Valley, you know, or the flats.

the flatness before the waves there was tough to kind of float out. Yeah, so for you having been in this for that long, are you someone who carries a pretty big buffer or what sort of systems do you have to ride those waves? Because that's something I'm always curious because I meet some people who don't and they go three weeks without a phone call and they start panicking. And then I know some people who sort of, I don't even know. I'm

overbearing the point, but how do you deal with the waves? Yeah, that was actually gonna be one of my questions for you as well. I think it's kind of an ongoing learning process. Right now, and I would say a rule I've had for the past couple of years has been to have about six months cash flow, which is always in the bank. And that's both what I wanna pay myself monthly, I pay myself like a monthly salary, and then whatever I kind of

Seth Lowe (05:23.986)
allocate for monthly business expenses if I'm not buying new gear, you know, just like what are my like, all my subscriptions and you know, buying a few hard drives, some marketing, you know, just that kind of stuff. So I add all that up, pay some taxes, what six months look like for me and that's, I don't like to get below that in the coffers, so to speak. Yeah. How about you? I'm similar. I'm not quite so structured about it. I feel like for me,

Like it was a very quick eye-opener as I got into this world. Like I was coming right out of having a minimum wage job and having no money in my bank account ever, you know, cause I'm just like a high school kid. And so getting into a world very quickly where it's like, okay, we're hiring other, you know, subcontractors. We have to have cashflow. There's net thirties on things. I feel like I very quickly learned that I was like, you just have to have cash in the bank to make jobs happen.

And at the time, you know, the personal and business was much less delineated. It was just sort of like, okay, we need to have cash. Um, but from that, I've definitely come towards this attitude of like, I want to have a personal buffer, um, I want to have a business buffer and then, you know, really the way that I think about it, to be honest, is it's like, sometimes I feel like I've.

played too safe, because I see people taking big shots, I see people investing in spaces and people, and there's definitely opportunity in that, but I've always been someone who's been like, I wanna be low overhead, I wanna be high flexibility to leverage myself into things I wanna do, I don't wanna put myself in a position where I have to take everything that shows up, and so I'm just gonna structure myself on this sort of low overhead, high flexibility system, and then as I've also started.

accumulating gear and that sort of thing. It's like, I try to be very intentional with those asset allocations to where it's like, okay, if, if all the phones start ringing, first, we've got to get through like the business cash buffer with relatively low overhead, which basically like the major overhead is just becomes my salary. And at some point you can even just pause the salary. Um, beyond that you've got gear.

Seth Lowe (07:32.862)
you can start dumping, you know, it's like, okay, then I start selling the FX9. I sell the FX6. I sell my O'Connor, yada, yada. And then beyond that, you get to like the personal buffer level. That's like, okay, we've probably got, if we were to just be stuck, you, you could roll this out for nine to 12 months at any given moment and be fine. And I have found that series of buffers to be very valuable just in the ability to make.

uh, make free decisions is the way I would say it. Cause that was just something that I learned really quickly was like, I don't want to be panicking when my phone doesn't ring for four weeks. I don't want to have to go schlep myself on stuff I don't want to do. Um, and so there's lots of little decisions that all sort of set that up, but I find it very valuable to have that buffer. And then I've found too, that like during these slow seasons, the last few years where we've had deeper troughs, like, um,

Seth Lowe (08:31.166)
the ability to be flexible and to take on other things from a work perspective has been like, okay, I've learned talking to other people that I'm like, I have more buffer than people and I actually have had more throughput than people who are stuck in these sort of like small things because like some of the guys doing bigger commercial stuff, I went to an event in New York and guys were like, I haven't shot anything in nine months. And now I'm like. That's crazy.

but like nothing, nothing. Where I was like, oh, I've done some like small direct to client agency, whatever, you know, but it's like, that stuff still clears payroll, that stuff you're not eating away your buffer. And you talk to guys who are like doing bigger work, but they're like, I'm $90,000 in credit card debt right now. Woof, that's wild. But it's again, like sometimes I feel like I'm too gun shy about that. And I'm like, man, I probably could take bigger shots. And like even I was listening to a Rick Rubin podcast with this guy, Kenny Beats,

producer and DJ and stuff. And he was talking about not that long ago. He's like, you know, I was like, making a pivot out of DJing and had a thousand bucks to my name. I'm like, oh, this is crazy. Like these dudes who are big known entities, you know, and like, I assume everyone's got all of this insurance, but not everyone does. Yeah. I mean, I think it's funny too. Like I think there's a lot of people that are sort of like kind of big names, you know, or well known in our sort of freelance.

film photo world that looks like they're killing it. And they still work at churches, you know, which is totally fine. It's just hilarious, you know, like it's sort of the game we play, you know, and how we present ourselves and, you know, it's zero judgment. I worked at a church for a while, you know, it's just funny. So when you said you've been freelancing for 12 years, when you started freelancing, did you have like sort of a hybrid thing where you kept up a regular job while you transitioned, you know, were you married? Did your partner have some...

income there that helped mitigate that risk? What did that look like and how did you sort of think through the risk analysis there? Yeah. So when I started out, I moved to Cape Cod, which is the army part of Massachusetts, the arm, not the army part. But it was like two hours from where I had grown up. I had wanted to go to college for like digital art or graphic design. I never really saw myself being like a film person, to be honest.

Seth Lowe (10:49.398)
decided I didn't want the college debt, so I moved down to the Cape. I was interning at a church and had two part-time minimum wage jobs at a hardware store and a Marshall's there. And basically, through the church, I got invited to edit some stuff. We edited some stuff for the Christmas program. My mom bought me a DSLR for Christmas.

And I was sort of just off to the races from there. Like the first video I ever shot and edited was a thing that I just like stole at this passion conference down in Atlanta, put it up on my YouTube channel off a, off a trial of Adobe premiere. Um, and it got like 16,000 views and picked up by CNN. And that was for me, the moment that I was just like, screw the hardware store. Like I'm, I'm not doing this anymore. Um, but my overhead was pretty much zero. Like I was living in a.

in a connected apartment with the worship pastor at the church, who I think was charging me 50 bucks a month for rent. That's awesome. Like I had my car. The biggest random expenses I had at that point were my cars kept breaking down. Like I had this Toyota Celica that the engine exploded on my way home from a music video one day. And so that was a whole project. But yeah, so I was just sort of like immediately I quit both of those jobs and I was just like, I'm going to figure this out.

And I didn't know what figuring this out meant. Like I said, I had no connections to the film industry. I didn't know anything about photography. I liked making visual things and telling stories. And I came from this sort of music and digital art background. But I just started picking up whatever I could, like engagement photos, senior photos. And then you sort of just quickly roll through the world, right, where it's like a few people are like, oh, you could do weddings because there's money in weddings. And then you fall into weddings. And then weddings are what led me to corporate stuff.

But so early on it was like making money was not really a big concern, I would say. But my eyes were very quickly opened where like the first wedding that I did was through a photographer friend. I did it for 200 bucks and spent 200 bucks on gear rentals. But that video got tossed around at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, which was a college right near us. And so I get an email.

Seth Lowe (13:08.394)
as a like 18 year old kid that's like from the marketing director and like, Hey, we want you to come in. And I'm like, I don't know anything about anything. Like I just quit my job at Marshall's a few weeks ago. And I had this meeting and they're like, we really like what you're doing. We want you to do this stuff of our school. And I'm, you know, shaking inside cause I'm just like, someone's going to realize that I don't have any clue what I'm doing. And I pretty much straight up told the lady. I was like, I like, cause she was like, what would you charge us? And I was like, I gotta be honest. Like I don't know anything.

And thankfully she was on my, she was very like on my side. She was a great advocate to have at that moment, but she was like, well, the last company we hired charged us a hundred bucks an hour and you're better than them. So why don't we just start at that? And that for me was the like coming from working a $9 an hour Marshall's job. I was just sort of like, okay, we're not doing that anymore. Like we're just gonna figure out whatever the leverage is, you know, to make this a thing, whether it's a one day a month thing or whatever else.

But yeah, so that early setup was just like doing tons of free stuff, not needing to make any money because life didn't cost me that much. So I went to Haiti for free and did documentary stuff there. I did a bunch of music videos for free or we would do things for 200 bucks, but spend the 200 bucks on what it costs to get it done. Yeah, sure. And then, yeah, when I initially got married, my wife was a full-time teacher. And so she sort of had the bases covered there. She pretty quickly.

after we got married decided that she wanted to quit. And that was right around the time that I sort of ramped into actual DP work and started making some semblance of actual money. And so the handoff timing wise worked out. And then it's sort of just been full speed ahead ever since then. Yeah, that's awesome. Our stories are fairly similar there. I mean, I had no idea that this world even existed. You know, I came from like a

really tiny town in the middle of nowhere, you know, rural internet, just, you know, it was like pre Instagram and pre YouTube and like, I knew that there were photographers, but I had no idea like how money worked or how they made money or, you know, literally anything like, I like originally I played a lot of music and I wanted to, I thought it'd be sweet to be a tour photographer. That's what got me into it. I like, I had a few guitars and I sold a guitar on eBay and bought like a Nikon SLR, like one of the first.

Seth Lowe (15:29.902)
I don't even know what it was, like 2006 or something. And I was like, oh man, I could just like shoot MySpace promo pics for bands or something and go on tour. And I met this photographer who had, I don't even remember what band he was touring with. It was all like indie music, you know, and they were paying him like 50 bucks a day to like go on tour with them. And I was like, that sounds great, you know? Like, it's just hilarious to think back on.

I know, but I feel like that was the dream back then. Like I still think about that. Like for me, I mean, coming from similar backgrounds, it's like, like the old like Hillsong United stuff was very influential to me. There was a lot of old like internet video, like Rooster Teeth, Red versus Blue. Like I just remember seeing a lot of things that to me were compelling. And so it wasn't really like this professional.

career drive that was like, oh, this is how I'm gonna make a bunch of money, which is like, that just sounds fun. Like traveling to South Africa with a band sounds awesome. Yep. You know, making funny stuff with friends and video games. Like this is a world that I would like to be in. And then, you know, I find it, it seems to be very common that a lot of people end up in some version of this industry because it is an easier way to make money doing something art adjacent than a lot of the other art.

fields. And so whether it's music or whatever else going like, okay, there's more like time for money leverage here. But yeah, it's sort of a funny space to fall into. And I feel like for me there's been that continual attempt to balance the navigation of like, I want to be creative. I want to have fun. I also want to be intentional about moving in a place where like there is value exchange, you know, like, and so it's like I quickly decided

that I was like, I don't want to go travel the world for $50 a day forever. I mean, it would be, it's funny because at some point it starts to sound good again. I know it actually sounds great right now. I'm like, I would do that for a couple of months, you know? Yeah, exactly. But, uh, that's why I never really got, I'm, I'm derailing you again and I apologize, but that's part of why, like, I never really went down the narrative rabbit hole that hard, um, was just like the lifestyle of it all. That's like, oh, you're going to go live in London for eight months.

Seth Lowe (17:44.922)
And like, it's a solid eight months. Like you're booking, you know, five days a week, if not more during that. But seeing my buddies who were like doing bigger things, working way harder hours and getting paid half as much money, which is like, eh, I don't know if that's like, I would do it for two months and have a blast, but I don't know that I want that to be like my whole existence. Yeah, no, I'm in the same boat. I mean, I think a lot of it too, like with music, I, I wanted to be able to like travel and create.

but I think I felt like tied to a band and with film and photo it was like, oh, well sometimes I can create with other people and sometimes I can create on my own. And it didn't feel as restrictive as trying to get four band members in alignment with a creative vision or agenda or schedule. You know what I mean? It was just when the project needs more people, you get more people that are aligned with it and when it doesn't, you can just work on your own thing and that's way more rewarding and practical to me. So.

So you came in pretty green though to freelancing. I mean, you know, no experience. Did you have like any family members or friends that at least ran a business or were self-employed in some other arena? So you could at least kind of see like, oh, people can make money on their own without a traditional job or like, you know, you could at least observe something or ingest some sort of, here's what it looks like to work for yourself in some capacity. Yes and no. So my dad, my dad's a dentist.

And growing up, my mom was really involved in like the business side of his dental practice. And so I had a connection to that sort of like entrepreneurial spirit, I guess. The other side of that coin is like, especially as I was going through like high school, my parents went through this really messy divorce and in the middle of it, somehow there was this recurring theme of my dad being like, if you don't go to college and get a real job, you're going to be homeless. And like

My dad honestly is a super talented artist and drummer himself. And I think his life path was sort of, I'm gonna forgo that to go get a dental degree and make guaranteed money and that's totally fine. But for me, mine was almost a little more like, I'll show you. It was less like I've got someone showing me the way and it's more like, I'm convinced the way exists and I will not allow you to tell me that the way does not exist. Totally.

Seth Lowe (20:09.186)
But yeah, I had done a little bit of like prior to that, I had done a little bit of just like church graphic design freelancing, just like making posters for 50 bucks or whatever it was. But yeah, I didn't really know anything about anything. Like I didn't know how invoicing worked. I didn't know how payroll worked. I didn't know how hiring people worked. I didn't know anything about W9. I didn't know anything about anything. And so it was very just like neck deep sorting it out very quickly.

And a lot of just like intuiting things, right? Where it's like, there was no big system. I was sort of just walking into places and selling things. It's like, this is what I need. These are the people I want to get involved. But like, I wasn't running spreadsheets on margins. I didn't even know what a margin was at that point. You're just making stuff happen. And it was happening shockingly, you know? I think that's one of the most wild things to look back on is like, as a 19 and 20 year old kid, like I was selling stuff and making stuff.

with no clue what I was doing, but it was working. Yeah, like very DIY kind of punk rock culture, I think. Yeah, definitely. You know, it infiltrates this industry. Is like 100% of your income freelance, like freelance work? Yeah, I mean, I've never, I have not yet had a significant other stream of income. The closest thing would be, you know, there was a stint in my career where I was doing more like YouTube, film community, educational stuff, and I was running a Patreon.

But honestly, I think that thing was like a net loss still overall just between the like overhead of getting it all done that at its peak I think I was clearing like three grand a month off of patreon, but it was so much work that yeah That was part of why I ended up Killing it honestly was it felt like I the way that it had gone and the way that

I had set up my life and again, sort of just waded into things without ever thinking it out. Like I never was designing, was designing an educational business. I was just like, oh, I like doing content. I like having community. I'm just going to make this stuff. And then very quickly it was like, okay, I'm either going to have to like shut down the like pro work to figure this thing out, or I'm going to shut this thing down because it's draining a lot of energy and I'm just going to focus on the pro work. And at the end of the day, I was like, okay, I guess I'm going to kill this thing.

Seth Lowe (22:27.218)
Um, so I've never really had another meaningful form of income in my adult life. Yeah. I was going to ask, you know, you, you really kind of, I think blew up sort of in the social world for this industry early on, you know, with like a pretty decent Instagram following and then, you know, you started the video village Facebook group that was wildly popular and then you kind of killed it. You know, do you think that sort of, I guess, social success or social, you know, people being aware of you, do you think that, um,

helped your career, did it put you in front of more clients? Was that a net positive, net negative, like in hindsight? Yeah, I mean, yes and no. I think overall it was a critical part of my journey. And so from the whole thing of like starting out making stuff for free and just like going to Haiti, like pulling the thread of whatever's in front of me, that definitely, those things led to opportunities. And putting myself out there, like when I did that first $200,

wedding video, I was already doing gear reviews of the crappiest slider lens Pro2Go had. Because that was just something that again, was in me that I found compelling. There was no strategy, there was no, oh I'm gonna go do this. It was more like I was someone who didn't know anything and I was learning from the people who were sharing. And it felt like a space that we were all figuring out at the same time, because no one knew how any of this stuff worked. And so I would just start talking about it. But so that quickly led to.

lens pro to go reaching out to me and being like, hey, would you want to do content for us? And basically the way that deal worked was I didn't get paid, which I think was partially my fault. At one point they were like, oh, we'll pay you hourly, but I hated tracking hours. And so I was like, whatever, just screw it. Like, I don't care. But I had access to their gear library basically all the time. So I could just go check stuff out. And so that next few years of stuff for me was like,

I still wasn't making any money. I didn't have any capital to invest in anything. Like I remember still being there and being like, I would love to buy a C100 someday, but I got to figure out where to actually have six grand sitting around at the end of all of this. And then started doing stuff with Lens Pro and I was like, oh, I can just take C300s out whenever I want. I can just steal CinePrimes. And so I would just go make stuff off of that, which again, kept the snowball rolling. Sure. As far as like the, you know, for me, the like big inflection point,

Seth Lowe (24:53.358)
publicly was when I went on Matt Workman's podcast, back when he was doing cinematography database stuff. And that was sort of the initial big bump, I would say, where I remember like going from 300 Instagram followers to a thousand Instagram followers in a day. And then it sort of like just started ramping. But yeah, I mean, I think being known, being known is never a bad thing. I do think it can be a overrated thing.

on two levels, one being that who knows about you is an important distinction. And so like being the coolest DP amongst all the DPs is actually not necessarily that helpful from like a client acquisition perspective. And I find, I believe there's some truth to the idea that the people who you learn from and look up to are for many people not the people that you actually wanna work with.

Um, yeah, I can see that. And that's not, that's not to say anything other than that's a fact. And like, so there are tons of guys who like, I really look up to, uh, Patrick O'Sullivan is a great example, like killer DP, amazing teacher. I'm not going to call Patrick to shoot something for me. That's just not how that relationship works. Maybe in some world it would. Um, but so I, I felt like very quickly, there were probably a few opportunities that came out of that. But for the most part, it was more like.

I would get recognized at rental houses checking out gear, but those people weren't hiring me for things. So like the actual work network felt like it was in parallel to the like social media network, but they didn't overlap as much as I think people might think. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, none of that surprised me when you say it all like that. How do you find yourself learning now? I mean, I think, you know, I put way more time into learning the business side of things now. You know, I read, there's some,

different blogs I read, business books, more of the podcasts I listen to are more business focused than creative focused. I put a lot more of my time into that. What does that look like for you? So for me, COVID really instantiated that research because it was probably like 2017, 2018 was when I shut down a lot of stuff, decided to get my life back on track, went to therapy.

Seth Lowe (27:17.27)
got my fitness back, shut down all the influencer stuff. And then I was like, okay, I'm just gonna go back to being a DP. And was on a pretty good run of travel, more like branded content documentary DP stuff, and then the world shut down. And then that was sort of when I was sitting there, first it was the best thing ever, honestly. Everyone else was panicking and I was like, dude, I have not had a month of.

not thinking about anything since I was 18. And so I loved it. It was the greatest month for me initially of quarantine. It was awesome. Yeah, dude, it's so funny because I feel like people who had normal jobs hated it and people who had hard jobs were like, finally, my phone's not ringing, I'm not a chicken with my head cut off, I don't have to go anywhere. Yeah, man, first three months of COVID for me were just the best three months I'd had in years. Yeah, 100%. I was shredded too. I would just get up, watch podcasts, bike. I was dialed.

There's nothing swerving you. Yeah, dude, like the week of shutdown, I think I spent like a ton of money. I went to the bike shop and bought like this gravel bike I'd always wanted. I went and bought a PS4 or whatever, and I was like, man, I'm gonna start gaming, I'm gonna start biking, I'm just gonna like hang out. Man, it was fantastic. Yeah, dude, same experience, same experience. But so that's where like after the initial wave, it was like, okay.

I don't know how long this is gonna last. I am gonna have to figure out how to make money. And the fallback was sort of like, okay, I'm just gonna go back to doing what I was 20 and 21, which is direct to client. I can basically like direct produce creative agency, you know, that little like, I'm playing production company, even though I'm functionally one person. Absolutely. And that was when...

For me, the big reflection was like, I've seen so many things on the DP side, even on bigger jobs that just don't make sense to me, that feel messed up, the process is stupid, people aren't set up to succeed, the money doesn't make sense. And so I was like, I'm just gonna stick my head in books for two years and become actually literate in how all this stuff works. And so I really shifted, that was when the big shift for me started of like, I'm basically gonna focus on playing EP more too and bring in my friends, but set my friends up to succeed.

Seth Lowe (29:29.05)
And so it's the period though where like my identity got very murky publicly again, where like I find that some people still call me to do DP things and if it's cool, I'm into that. Some people call me to do direct to client things. A lot of people say I have no clue what you do anymore. And so I feel like that's the paradox of this space is like it's fun to get to plan a lot of spaces and do everything from like commercial photo campaigns to commercials to doc series to whatever else. I feel like what I have

done poorly the last few years is talking publicly about what I do. Um, and I've always been lucky enough to have that, like the work leads to more work and there's referrals and threads. Um, but anecdotally, I feel like in that process of going down the business rabbit hole and learning a lot of things and opening a lot of doors, there's been a little sense of like, okay, so what do I say I do now and what I'm actually going after because it's a little less.

it's less clear of a war path than like when you're just on the freelance DP or freelance commercial photographer like It's easy to sell it's easy to whatever and I feel like I've had my fingers in eight different ponds since COVID and going Like okay Do I have to just pick a pond because I could or do it like what do we do from here? It's been the big question. Yeah, I absolutely relate to that. I mean, I was really focused on You know, I'm a commercial photographer and I was kind of functioned as like a micro

creative production company for direct to client stuff pre COVID. And then, you know, post COVID like, yeah, sometimes I was like producing something, sometimes I was directing something, sometimes I was just a photographer, sometimes I was like, Hey, you're the photographer, but can you put together a crew to shoot some B roll and like, can you run some interviews? You know, just all these things. And it's fun. Like I love it. And it's nice to just be able to try different things and be trusted by clients, but you kind of hit this point where you're like, Hmm, do I need to like.

do I need to like dial it back in a little bit more? And then I'm like, well, I like all these things. Where do I wanna dial it in? Because if I dial it in, it means saying no to other things and just figuring that out. I don't know what the answer is. For me, it's like the killing your darlings part is the hardest part. That it's like, I feel like I sit in the world where I'm like, okay, I could reposition myself as a commercial photographer and I could do.

Seth Lowe (31:48.002)
Like there are people I could target. I have a portfolio, I could do that. I could position myself as a director and I could do well. I could go back out as a DP and I could do well. That, the seeing the opportunity and having the body of work isn't the hard part. It's going, okay, so in that world, I kill all the video stuff and I go, Evan Boris, you're a commercial photographer. And I go, ugh, I don't like it. Yeah, dude. I know, it's like, I don't like that either because I'm like, I feel like I'm more than that inside. And it's not because I think I'm great or special, but it's just,

I don't want to like throw myself into that box. But you also, okay, so I'll challenge that. You are great or special. And I'll say this at the risk of tooting my own horn. Something that I have learned in the 12 years of this industry is that people from our limited interactions, I've seen it in you and I know it in me, people who can actually do all of those things and do them well, who understand producing, who understand money, who understand the creative side, who understand integrating all of those things.

who can play in all of those planes, who can do the work themselves, who can hand off the work when necessary, who can understand asset allocation for any given project are super valuable and super rare. And there are tons of people operating in very high level spaces who suck at a ton of those things. And that's been one of the most shocking things in my journey was like working with bigger agencies and getting like a deck and a budget and being like, who cleared this as being possible? This is not.

This is not even like a stretch. This is impossible. You've sold a million dollar commercial for 20 grand. You've pitched someone on a robot arm concept and you have a two person crew. Like just any of this stuff that you walk in rooms where, again, to what led me towards the challenger stuff was like, people aren't being set up to succeed. And for me, that's the biggest thing that I find myself holding onto is like, yes, I could go be a viable commercial photographer.

but where I find the most joy is actually setting people up to succeed and getting end products that feel really solid. And in many ways it feels like that requires me leveraging this greater value of integrated skills that I have than to just show up, pop off headshots, like, yeah, I can light that and make it look good. Yeah. But like the, the skillset that you have is rare and valuable. Well, thanks. I appreciate that. You made me think of a client experience I had last year.

Seth Lowe (34:09.85)
major agency, major brand. We're shooting, it was agriculture and we were supposed to go travel in, shoot photos and I brought a DP with me, I think, to shoot some video for this brand. And I don't know if it's like someone at the agency, the client rep or accountant, whatever it is, you know, they're like, hey, yeah, we're going to be filming them harvesting on like, I don't know, like September 9th. And this was like a month in advance. And I was like, well, maybe like what...

it could rain and then we could not. She's like, no, I already told, we already confirmed it. He's, it's October 9th or whatever the day is. And I was like, well, that doesn't mean anything. Like the rain. She's like, no, it's on the, I confirmed it with him. And I was like, well, like, okay, cool. I guess I'll see you there. And sure enough, it rained and we didn't get anything. And I'm like, like literally the day before I'm like, do you want to move this? She's like, no, it's on the calendar. And I'm like, yeah. Okay. Dude, that stuff blows my mind. It still does. Like, and it's one of those things that like, I feel saucy saying, but.

I used to, when I was doing things by myself and I was just bringing in other freelancers, we were making stuff for mass maritime and whatever, I had this sense of like, oh, agency work is legit work and I have to go learn how to do legit work. And I was like, I'm gonna go be a DP, I'm gonna go figure it out, I'm gonna learn their processes. And the biggest thing I learned is that the way I was doing it was way better. That it was actually in tune with figuring out schedules, it was actually in tune with allocating things and that there's so much.

rigidity and just ignorance. That's not a dig to anyone, but it's like you have people like that person potentially who just don't know what they're talking about, who are put in a position to make a decision, put something on a calendar, write a shot list, whatever else. And it's like, you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. And you feel like an ass and you're not trying to be, you know, you're just trying to like, you know, you're trying to make them successful and you know, go above and beyond. And it's just hard figuring out how to do that and handle that.

Yeah, so that's totally, I mean, that's one of the things that I've found the last few years has been like just reestablishing confidence in my own intuition and process and not getting pushed often into the game of like, oh, well, this is how other people do it because the way lots of other people do it is just goofy, to be honest. For one reason or another, it's just a waste of time. Yeah. Do you...

Seth Lowe (36:28.842)
Do you put a lot of effort into landing new clients or do you just, if something comes on board, you take it or like what does that look like for you? I don't. I probably could do a much better job of that. It's one of those things that I think to be honest, for me the biggest, the question behind that question has been like, what are we really selling?

because if I, the reality is that like, if I wanted to go door to door and sell branded content-y stuff in New England and just like have a team, like I know I could do that, I could fill a pipeline, I just don't feel like I care to do that and fill that pipeline. And so that's where I've been more in this like, continuing to figure it out space, continuing to dip my toes in different buckets. But I have generally always been also resistant to like, I don't pitch.

I don't do RFPs. I don't really do decks before things are sold. Like I've always been that way. But then back in 2020, I read the Win Without Pitching Manifesto and it was sort of like the flag in the ground that I was like, I'm not doing this whole, we're doing a week of creative to try and get a gig. Like I'm either in or I'm out. And if I'm in, I'm all in, but like I'm not dancing and wasting time and overhead and all this stuff beforehand. So.

I don't really dance for jobs. Yeah, I'm the exact same way. Like you've seen my portfolio. I'm a competent adult. You know, if you're already putting in the call to me, you think I'm capable of doing the job. I'm totally down. Like every now and then, if it's something I really like, I'm totally down. I'll put together like a basic treatment of like, hey, here's how I would maybe approach this or here's some ways I think we could do that. And

here's some of my own work that supports that idea, and maybe here's some other ideas that I've seen that I wanna try to bring to the table here, but yeah, same, I'm not giving you, I mean, a week of my time for you to like, look at 10 people and just, you already called me, like, just take it or move on, I don't care. Yeah, I feel like as time goes on, that becomes more and more valuable because there's just so many companies using those systems to...

Seth Lowe (38:45.45)
really turn everything into a bloodbath, right? Like you get people to over leverage themselves. Now you've got people counter bidding each other. They've got sunk costs and you've got people counter bidding each other. And so now you're like, oh, well, what if you did it for 20% less? You're like, well, I already spent a week on this deck. So yeah, I guess I'll do it. Like it's just, it's a lose situation. Which is why I just sort of like on principle don't like engaging with it. To your point, there's been a few times that like.

we'll have a bigger thing and we have to go talk to some important people at the company. It's like, okay, we'll make a little three-page slide deck, but I'm not doing a 30-page treatment before you allocate a job. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think sometimes too, it's like the higher-ups just sort of defending their own job and value too. They're like, well, we've added 10 people and these are the treatments we got. And it's like, just pick someone. They're almost making their own job and creating their own value in the chain through just

being the gatekeeper. You know, it's silly. Well, I feel like that's something that I learned early on in my career too, back to this lady Angela at Mass Maritime Academy, who was very much like an advocate for me. She was the kind of person who was like, I'm gonna help get your stuff through AP, like I'm gonna help, like we're just gonna smooth all this out, we're gonna ride the waves together and we're gonna help remove obstacles. And that throughout my career, I've always found people who have sort of been that way.

Like one of the first bigger projects that I did solo or through myself, it was bringing more of a team in, but where we got like actually like a $40,000 budget was for another college or university. I don't know what the difference is, but basically I had a contact who knew my stuff, who had reached out to me years ago and forgotten about me. He had asked me to do an RFP that I wasn't interested in.

But he saw my stuff again, he was like, hey, I really want you to do this thing. And he was like, we're technically bidding it out to three people, but he's like, but you're gonna win. Like, basically don't dance, like we're gonna do the minimal amount of dancing here and just slide it through. And that, you know, I think it's one of those things that if I were on the audience side of it, it probably sounds unfair, and it is often unfair, and that's part of why I would say don't dance. Because a lot of times you're dancing and they've already picked the winner too.

Seth Lowe (41:06.238)
And so it's like, if you don't know you're the winner, don't get involved in the dumb dance. But like, I very quickly learned the value of having someone on your side who can also do things like go to accounts payable and go, hey, yeah, I know we told them we'd cut net 15, we're not doing net 60 on this, you know, whatever else it is. That like, I very quickly learned that a lot of the rules aren't really rules and you just need the right people to break them. And I feel like my experience

especially on like the corporate side has been that is, it's more of the game than anything. It's like, are you gonna let us actually break the rules? Are you gonna let us go where we need to go? Are you gonna let us not follow your stupid shot list? Are you gonna let us not get babysit by client and agency people all day? Because if that can all happen, the odds of this working are very high. But if you're gonna make us dance this whole hyper structured process, I've done it for tons of people.

with lots of money getting spent with big crews and it usually comes out way worse than just cutting three people on your campus for three days would, you know, like. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm like really, I'm like when a new client comes on or a potential new client comes on, I'm like pretty strict about what that looks like and the questions I ask because, you know, bringing on a new client is kind of a risk, way more of a risk for me than it is for them because what if bringing on this new client.

takes me out of the workflow of like an ongoing regular client and they have to go look for somebody else, or I can't solve their problems, or what if this new client becomes like a net 90 and things get dragged out and it's a total difficult pain to work with them. I always ask, hey, what's your budget? I want to know your budget upfront because if you don't have a budget, then either you don't really know what it takes to do this or it's really not that important to you because then you just don't have a budget. You're just trying to...

see what's going on out there, you know, or see you get some ideas from people. And then I always ask like, Hey, how many people are you triple bidding this? Or are you, do you have a regular and you're just looking for a different option? Did your boss tell, I ask people that because I'm like, I want to know, you know, it's, I'm not going to invest a bunch of time into something if you're just validating cost, you know, with the current vendor you already like or something. That's I get it. People get those requests. That's part of it. But I at least want the transparency, you know. Well, I always find another helpful conversation or question in there.

Seth Lowe (43:25.53)
is who makes the decision. Because if you're getting brought in four degrees south of like, it's this person's decision and they sent their assistant's assistant to go collect bids, it's like, I wanna talk to that person. And if I can have a conversation with that person, for me, I found that 99% of the time I close. Like, I was shocked to hear, talk to other agencies and production companies about how low their close rates were.

Cause I was like, dude, I, as again, as a 22 year old, I could walk into one meeting and get an executive to sign me a $40,000 check with no contract because I would take the time to understand what they were looking for. Like they would see that I know what I'm talking about. I don't really, I honestly have never been someone to really pitch creative much at all. As far as like, this is what I think we should do. I spend almost all my time going, I wanna understand what this is, whether that's understanding your business, the event, like I wanna understand.

And I'm going to ask a lot of questions to understand everything from the mechanics of your recycling facility to how this school works, to whatever else it is. And that I found that process will lead people to go, oh yeah, like obviously your work's good. Like if you understand the thing, we'll just let you go. Um, but that, that also engenders a lot more trust because I'm not making a whole conversation about the logistics of what I'm doing and then letting you stick your fingers into it.

So I've been very like, I'm not, I'm not, we're not going to talk about what I do. We're going to talk about what you need and then I'm just going to do it. And it's going to be great. And it usually is, which was another thing that like, when I went to agency world was like, I would watch things get destroyed in revisions and it was mind blowing because I had never run into this at all, like, and I realized a lot of things about communication pipeline differences and expectations and having the right people in the room and how you structure all of that, you know, like the, the one.

Biggest quick thing I'll just say to anyone listening is like, there is no dumber game than to send someone something and to tell them to find things wrong with it. And that's the way so many of those emails get structured is here's an edit, tell me what you don't like. And it's like you go to the doctor and you like, you know when you like maybe, maybe we're in the room with someone who had COVID and now all of a sudden your ears are ringing and your eyes are itchy or whatever else. It's like, there's no.

Seth Lowe (45:39.554)
dumber thing than to send someone a bunch of hard work and to go, please find problems because people will find problems. But like when you go like, hey, here's the edit. Here's how it executes on this thing that's important to you. Here's how it dodges this problem that we ran into. Here's how it communicates all the things that are great. We're wondering if this call to action URL is correct. Let us know if you have any thoughts. It's like, yeah, that's all you got to do. Yeah.

I love how this came together. I'm really excited about this part. I'm not sure what you think of this part. And usually it's an area where I already have a pretty good idea of where it could be steered, but I wanna invite some feedback. And it's like, what do you think of this? We could maybe do this or we could maybe do that. And I want, you want your client to be involved, but it needs to be on things that are actually practical and manageable and changeable, not some sort of tangent thing that doesn't mean anything. Right. Do you...

Do you make more or less money than you want to or thought you would?

Seth Lowe (46:48.202)
I would say that I've always made more money than I had previously realized was possible.

Seth Lowe (47:00.722)
from a objective sense of the world, to be totally honest Seth, I've never made a ton of money. I've always been someone who's reinvested in projects, reinvested in gear, done whatever else. I've never really been a business mogul. But in my career, since I was 18, I've never really worried about money.

That's awesome. And I think that's the best place to be. I see guys who tell me about how they did 300 grand last year in profit or whatever. And I'm like, Oh, that sounds sick. Like I've never done that. Personally. Um, but like I can take four months off and I don't worry about it. Like I can, everything in my life is so such a blessing. And like when the wave comes in, you know, I mean,

to be just candid for you and the listeners, because this is the kind of stuff I didn't hear when I was growing up. It's like, when your overhead's not that low, it's like, I can get four phone calls and all of a sudden there's $50,000 in my bank. And then I do nothing for the next four months. I go train, I go hang out with my friends, and then I wait for the next five phone calls. And it's like, it feels a little bit like whale hunting or treasure hunting or something else like that. And there's a part of me that sometimes goes like, oh, if I did that every month, I'd be rich.

Maybe there's a period in my career where I'll do that, but that hasn't really been the focus. But yeah, I mean, I think the opportunity to be creative and to not worry about money is a massive blessing. But the other side of that, I would say, is that for me, the main reason that I would like to make more money from a revenue perspective over the next few years is just that I wanna do more stuff with teams again.

And the post-COVID world, I've personally done a lot more stuff where it's like, I'm wearing 17 hats to get this done. Um, and I can do that and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to do that. But like, I'm being much more intentional about pulling in post-partners, pulling in other DPs, pulling in, you know, whatever else it is. Um, so like, I, I find myself fighting for budgets again, in a way I haven't gotten to in the last few years, um, but.

Seth Lowe (49:11.67)
from a personal perspective, I've always had more money than I've known what to do with on some level. Yeah, I mean, I'm profoundly more successful than I ever thought I would be. I'm far cry from rich, but I just came in not knowing that people could make money at this. So making any semblance of money was success for me, but I've worked really hard and it's cool to see it scale.

and grow and so I'm very grateful. And it's pretty cool how just kind of grinding can kind of, you know, like you're saying, you know, you hit those big wins and you can relax for a little bit and it's really rewarding to have those moments, I think. Really, yeah, I can be slow for a couple months and not lose my mind. Yeah, and I think for me, like, something that I've always found valuable is

is being able to hold that like there are bigger things out there. I can play bigger games. I see I see the quotes that come through of guys doing one hundred and fifty thousand dollar commercial photo shoots. And I'm like, I know I can play that game. I have to figure out how to get to that room. I've not been in that room yet, but I know I can play that room. But at the same time, I can still also have one foot in the lake as a 20 year old kid who was like working at.

you know, whatever, like trying to get paid 100 bucks to go to Haiti for five weeks. Like there are so many phone calls that I have that are such a wild blessing from like the way you're compensated, the way you get treated, the experiences you get to have, and I find that being able to stand in both of those things at the same time, because it's easy to sit here and look at like, Oh, I'm not doing $4 million a year, like this small agency is, you know, or I'm not.

shooting for this really big brand or whatever else. And that like, I feel bad about that. But you so rarely know the whole story. And even to what we were saying before, like I saw these guys who on some level I would envy like, oh, your recent DP portfolio stuff looks way better than mine does. Like you're working on a higher level. And then find out like these guys haven't done anything in nine months. Like there's guys who are literally considering like quitting the business altogether. Yeah.

Seth Lowe (51:22.334)
And so it's all just like that being a long-winded way to say that reference points are such a valuable thing. Cause there are people who you think are killing it, who, if they don't get a job in the next two weeks, they're in trouble. There's people who are $150,000 in gear debt and have a lease and this, that, and the other thing, and they're just trying to get ahead. And so like every day that I look at the reality that's like, I'm not, I'm not worried about anything.

I have a buffer if the world shuts down for the next six months, I'm fine. That's such a blessing. I get to do creative things. And like, do I drive a G-Wagon right now? No. Do I have a house in Malibu? No, but like, I don't, that was never really the goal. Yeah, same. So just like staying centered on the, the love of what you do have while being able to see that there's still more worth hunting, I guess I would say.

And I feel like that was the biggest thing early in my career too, was just like going into weddings. I mean, like, okay, I see this, I can do this. This is not the end goal. There's more on the other side of this. And I was always very intentional about steering towards like, I'm gonna aim towards the creative things. I'm gonna aim towards the bigger things. While being super grateful that someone wants to give me a thousand bucks to film a wedding right now or whatever it is. But it was just always like being able to stay grounded in gratitude in the moment while also being able to see the other thing and not letting it make you feel bad about yourself. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think.

Those big projects are awesome, but there's also a sense of just being grounded and realistic too. You know, like last year, I honestly like I got like the biggest job of my life. Like it was like I made like 25 grand in like a week. And literally the day before I flew out for that job, I shot a little local event that I shoot every year. And I'm like doing event coverage, you know, and it's like it's a local client that I want to take care of. And you never know when that

that local client's gonna be a game changer, or a butt saver one month, you know? And like, it's like an ego check. Like, I'm not some like, you know, I'm super grateful I got the big job. I'm not better than the small local thing, you know? Oh, 100%. And I've found that the, you never know where it's gonna come from. Yeah. Like, I've had so many meetings. I went into Hasbro Studios and got a tour and filled out vendor paperwork. I've been on, you know, I've gone to,

Seth Lowe (53:43.222)
big agencies in Boston, because a friend of mine from church was a guy who was, he was the VP of marketing for Dunkin and he wanted me to meet agency people. Like I've had all these calls where I'm like, this is gonna be my big break and nothing's come out of it. And like during COVID, I was doing videos for our gym, just like home workout videos, helping them keep stuff going. It was me and my Ursa mini. And that was where I met the president of this company, who over the next,

two and a half, three years, basically from being like, hey, you're a video guy nearby and you know what you're doing. I'd have to do the math, but if I have to guess, they probably like, overall revenue wise, were like a $350,000, $450,000 client over the next three years from random crappy gym videos. It wasn't the stuff that was going viral on Instagram. It wasn't like, you just never know.

where the actual door is going to open and who's going to be the payoff relationship, who's going to know someone. So yeah, I'm totally with you on that. Yeah, that's great. What other sort of income streams do you have related to the film industry? Obviously you have your day rate, but then there's rentals, there's relicensing or stock footage. Are you taking editing jobs and then just outsourcing it, taking a markup fee? What does that look like for you? Yeah.

I have very rarely done things where I've like totally passed, just like passed through work. I usually end up having my hands on it on some level. There have been a few projects in the last year that we've gotten to do that. And for me, honestly, like the paradox of that is that the hardest point is usually just getting the resources to actually do it well. That it's like, if someone, just to give an example of like this last few years of like smaller

you know, corporate branded content things is like, if it's a 10 grand thing, like I can probably do it in a few days, make it good and make it worth my time. But the minute that I go like hire a DP, hire or whatever else, hire an editor, it quickly becomes just like not really worth the micromanaging of it. So we've only really ever gotten to hand off bigger things where it's like, okay, now we have the resource to actually bring in like editors that we trust and.

Seth Lowe (56:04.422)
So like when I was doing this big training project, that was one of the few things in the last few years that I've gotten to like just direct because there were actually resources to just let everyone do everything else. I've never gotten into the licensing game. We have LUTs up for sale, but I've done a really poor job of promoting them. Yeah, I've not really ever super diversified.

To be totally candid with you, the most likely thing that I see myself doing is coming back into some form of like community and teaching role here, which I've wanted to do for a long time, back to being 19 and making YouTube videos. Like I just enjoy it. And the biggest thing that stops me from doing it is that I hate how, I hate how that whole space feels. And like I just don't even wanna be associated with it. I know man, it's like, it feels so slimy and you're like.

That's kind of why I decided to start this podcast because I'm like, I don't want to be some slimy salesman. It's going to be like, learn how to land a $50,000 budget because there is no formula to landing the $50,000 budget as much as they want you to think there is. But I do want to share what I've learned and what other people are learning. But it's such a, I don't know, it just feels weird to enter into that place. Yeah. I think for me where I'm at with it is like, I agree. I think part of my mission in it would be to...

really remove a lot of the stigmas and lies and narratives that get told about a lot of this stuff. Cause I think that's one of the big problems right now, especially in the like advice meta of social media is everyone going like, this is how you should do it. And it's like, I not necessarily at all, you know, unveiling a little more of the black box of like, here, like let's have actual conversations about rates, about budgets, about margins, about quoting things, about creative approaches.

Um, like just wanting to create a more transparent space, but really for me, there is a balance of going like, I want to share, I have a lot of personal experience that I'm happy to share, but the best thing in my mind is to put people in a position to have agency in their own journey. It's not for me to give you my 10 steps to become successful really quick. It's to go, here's a lot of the things that I've learned that people haven't told me, what are you seeing and how can I help you see it more clearly? And then how do we put people.

Seth Lowe (58:27.286)
together into rooms, because a lot of these things, like even to the whole sales and creative process, you just never get to see how anyone else does it, right? It's like, and so you don't know and going like, okay, let's all show our cards and play hands up poker on like, how are you bidding these things? What are you seeing? What's working? What's not working? And for me, part of the value of that, I mean, one, it's valuable. I've invested a ton in education, always found a lot of value in it, which is why I find it funny that I think that it's scammy when I go to do it. But,

I think the other side of it is that there is a value whether or not a lot of the internet wants to admit it in having a closed community and a barrier to entry. And that was something that I learned the hard way with the super secret film group was that like the sweet spot of that community was 400 to 900 people. And that was when people knew each other, when people were connected, when people had some sense of like ownership of their own.

behavior, honestly, even that there's some point where like, once you get past 4,000 people, you just start getting the people who aren't reading threads who are asking the same dumb questions. You get people being mean to each other, you just get all this stuff. And so it's like, it's not even really a cash grab so much as it is like, I'd rather have 80 people who are serious. And for the people who are serious, the value is exponential, you know, I think that's the other thing that I learned very early on was like, I was dealing with a DP

We were at lunch and he was talking about this job and I was like, let me write your reply email. And I got him, I doubled what they paid him on it basically in one email. And I was like, dude, you just went from making three grand to six grand in like two days off an email. And so that's the thing that like when I go, these are super high leverage, high value skills to teach people is like even little simple things.

Some of which, you know, you can learn the concepts from a YouTube video. Chris Doe has shared a lot of stuff, but I think there's a lot of granular applicability that's specific to our space and specific to, you know, it's different direct to client than to an agency. It's different how you're going to present numbers. It's different what the value prop is. And just being in a position where people can have those conversations openly is the thing that I find missing because we're in this weird world where old school film world has an audience.

Seth Lowe (01:00:45.394)
And then the like new school FX3 vlogger world has an audience. And there's a whole bunch of people in the middle who make professional creative things but aren't a part of either world. And to me, that's the group that I would be most interested in pulling together and learning from as much as I'm able to teach anything, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I had a similar experience like about a month ago, a friend got hit up for a job and just like he asked me like what I thought of it. And just through like helping him kind of structure the email and write out an estimate a little bit differently.

I literally got him triple the day rate they originally requested and more restrictive usage to better protect him, you know, and give him some more leverage downstream. And the client was like pumped, you know, he got the job and they loved the work and it was, it was fantastic. So sometimes just simply like kind of knowing what you're worth and how to, how to write a good email is so valuable, but no one, no one knows that until you fail it like a hundred times, you know, and then, you know, God knows how many opportunities you've lost.

Right. Or people just don't know things outside their own world. Like that was something that I found very quickly was like coming from a DP world where it's like, okay, what am I getting? A thousand to 1500 bucks to DP things a lot of the time, you know, in this sort of like mid-level branded content world. And I'm good at what I do. I get to work with crews. That seems normal. And then getting the crack in the windshield that was like,

uh, talking to other people when I started getting called for photo jobs again, which was another more like post COVID thing. Cause I always found that like when I presented as a DP, I was always a good photographer, but I didn't get called as a photographer and then more and more hybrid jobs started happening. And then as the photo work went out, people started calling me for that more. But like, I find that a lot of people don't realize that like, if you're a DP who's operating at a level where you're getting paid like a thousand bucks as a photographer, you probably get five grand for the same. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Easy, you know, like that's not even like a crazy quote. No, no, there's definitely less work, I think, in the photo world at that rate level, but you're definitely not wrong. It's not impossible. But that was one of those things that I started talking to people and they were like, how much, they were like, you're getting paid more to do stills at the shoot than our whole crew is getting paid to do video at the shoot. And I was like, yeah, dude, I don't make the rules. That's just how it goes, you know? And I feel like those sorts of questions are the kind of thing that I've always.

Seth Lowe (01:02:57.762)
been navigating just again to like, where's the value here? Where's the creatively fun thing? Where can I take advantage of whether it's maximizing gear investments or my time? Like just continuing to ask questions because you don't know what you don't know. And like for me, I didn't know that was possible. And then I still see though, like I see guys clearing like $150,000 photo budgets where they have like a six person.

lighting crew and I don't know how to sell that. Like I've not been in the right room where that's a conversation we can have, but people are doing it, you know, and just like, yeah, it, it for sure happens. I mean, I think the thing though is as much like, I think we consume a lot more video, just, you know, our culture or whatever, but I think photo gets used way heavier, you know, like if you go to any given shoot and there's like.

five good photos and like one 30 second video that comes out of it. That video is gonna get used for like a little bit and those photos are just gonna get used to hell for like three years straight, you know? So that's part of the price swing. Well, yeah, and it's part of the problem now with the economics from the client side is as more and more stuff goes towards short form social, the videos aren't worth that much because it used to be that you'd run a TV commercial for two years. Now it's like you're gonna post on Instagram once for a week.

And so they don't wanna spend 50 grand, they wanna spend a thousand dollars, you know, where it's like the photos. You can't blame them. Yeah, no, like it just makes sense. That's the way the world has gone. But that's part of where I was like, okay, I don't really wanna play this like low, lower value game. Like just continuing to sort of keep your pulse on reality on some level and go like, okay. I mean, there are people, the rumor I've heard, I don't, I've not cited this, but the rumor I heard is that Drive to Survive is a $1.2 million an episode budget.

which like I believe, but it's like, there's people who are getting that in the film world still. It's a really small market. There's people in the photo world, but again, like photographers who, not to be rude, but like aren't good, like that was one of the shocking things to me was going and seeing people that's like, dude, this guy's work isn't good and he's getting eight grand to be here today. That was when I started being like, I don't wanna film interviews for six hours, dude. I wanna go run around and take photos and like, I can dunk on these people. And like, I don't know. But you just, I don't know. I'll just say, you don't know what you don't know.

Seth Lowe (01:05:08.562)
Yeah, there's a lot of photographers out there getting like 800 bucks a day though, shooting amazing stuff, and they don't know that they should be getting $8,000 a day. So it's all over the place. Yeah. I mean, the other side of that very much is there are so many people right now who, I don't know if getting taken advantage of is the right word, but I've definitely walked into meetings with brands and found out what they were paying all of these people to do a lot of crazy work.

And like, I don't know, it makes me feel some kind of way. That's like, I get the come up hustle as someone who did that and didn't make any money doing this for a significant portion of my early career, but I am still surprised when I see big brands doing like relatively professional things and expecting to get things for like $300. And I'm like, this is like,

domestic, you know, family photo shoot, one hour thing rates that you're throwing at, like giving someone a whole day in like a commercial world. I don't know. It just, to me again, more so than like nitpicking anything. It just doesn't feel equitable to me, which is my bigger problem with it. Like at the end of the day, if you want to take that work, fine. But there's definitely a weird sort of like schism in the industry lately. Like I was talking to my buddy.

yesterday who runs a production company and he was like, yeah, we just find more and more that like brands are pulling more and more on like YouTube world on the video side. And so again, what used to be like, hey, let's send a crew and make something is now like, let's hire a content creator and we'll give them 500 bucks and you know, call it a sponsorship. And it's just like, I don't, I feel like there's a little bit of like,

preying on creative people that brands are taking advantage of. It's like, oh, all these dummies don't know that this used to cost us $100,000. Yeah. And they think 500 bucks is a great deal now. Yeah. But yeah, it's a weird time. Yeah. I mean, I have a regular client who I really like. A lot of their content and marketing channel is based around influencers and content creators, which is totally fine. I mean, I don't want to disparage that creative community in any capacity.

Seth Lowe (01:07:32.87)
And clearly it works for their brand. You know, they're becoming very successful through working with that community. But as they start wanting to create higher end content and more curated content, they want to start implementing a production company and me running production on stuff. But then they still want to sometimes treat things like the same, the budgets are bringing people to work in the same roles. And I'm like, no, they're different. You can't have a production company

project and like a YouTube budget or bring in the one, you know, content creator here and just hand them like three crew members that like work production and expect them to get along or makes it just doesn't, it doesn't work. Sorry. It doesn't work like that. It's nothing against anyone. It's just like, it just is what it is. Right. Yeah. I mean, I've been finding that. I had a meeting with a client, it might've been two summers ago now, but it was basically someone who wanted to do a sports doc series. It was a,

governing body for a large sport, you know, like an X and X, USAX and X type of thing. And the conversation was like, we love to drive to survive. We want to do this like cinematic, you know, heartfelt storytelling, yada, yada. And I was like, okay, what's your budget? And they're like, well, what can we do for five grand? And I was like, oh, you have YouTube brain. Yeah. Because like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not so arrogant to say you can't make a video for five grand.

But you can't make Drive to survive for five grand. Yeah, yeah. And like, and that's where- You mean for like the first day of travel? Or like what's the- Yeah, like literally like for me to get a team to race, you know, is gonna cost more money than that. But that is a weird, the weird schism right now is that both are true, that it's like you still have million dollar productions and you have people producing hour long YouTube videos for $3,000 by themselves. And so I find that it's really

funny world now on the client side of just sussing out where people are at, because there used to be, in my experience, there was more of just like a delineation that was like, okay, if we're doing something professional, there's a certain thing that sort of means and you can have some expectation of like budget crew, like there's still a range, but there's a baseline. And I found that in the last few years, the baseline is gone. And it could be anything, you know, and like that's where I'm always shocked when I get those calls. And I'm like, my friends who do

Seth Lowe (01:09:57.286)
Like I can't get someone to edit a 20 minute episode for five grand. Nevermind get the whole thing done. Yeah, for sure. You know, like, but those conversations are really funny. And then you get ping ponged over to the other thing where like I'm doing a photo gig and the ad buy is $3 million and you're just like storing. What is the world we live in? There's so much money going some places. People trying to make movies for $5 on the other end. Like it's a crazy world. Yeah. Hey, thanks so much for tuning into this week's episode of the Soul of Creative.

If you enjoyed it, I hope you share it. And you can connect with us on Instagram at the solo creative pod. Hit us up with any questions or suggestions for show guests. Thanks and have a great week.