Ep. 4 with John Carrington - Becoming a Union DP and career Validation.

John Carrington shares insights from 10+ years as a colorist who transitioned into a DP. We discuss how leveraging relationships built through color work allowed him to transition to DP work, his unique path to joining the Local 600 unions, and how signing with a rep brought legitimacy & confidence. 

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 (00:00.174)
The thing with cinematography that I've tried to do is I always try to be credited as John Carrington III and part of that is my dad is John Carrington and there's another John Carrington out there that is a birthday clown and magician and I would have people search my name and they'd be like...

you don't do magic to you. I'm like, no, I don't. So and what's funny is I don't think he's operating anymore because he used to have johncarrington .com and like last year I got a thing saying, Hey johncarrington .com is available. And I was like, I jumped on it because I've been trying to get it for years. And I had literally just done a new website and all this stuff. So I have it, but it's, you know, now I kind of don't need it. I just think it's funny that like,

There's some dude that was like doing birthday parties. It's like a clown and magic with my name. So I said, you know, I'm a third. So I'll just be John Carrington, the third. That way people don't like find my dad and think it's me or something like that. You know, that's funny, dude. I had a similar, I was trying to get Seth Lowe .com for years and I finally like, it would always get renewed on the same year, but there was no site there. And I got on like the who is and found the email of the person that owned it.

And emailed this lady and she was like, no, you cannot have Seth low .com. That's my son who died. I'm going to make a tribute website to his life. And I was like, Oh geez, like, this is pretty heavy. And so I just, I just, I just put it like a calendar reminder on like the renewal date because I could see when it was getting renewed every year. And so like every year for like, I would just go in and check and to renew it. And then one year she just missed it or forgot or something. And I snatched it. So she probably died. She probably died.

two deaths to get my website. Not that you had anything to do with it. Just a filmmaker, bro. 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 (02:13.134)
Today's guest is John Carrington the third. He is a phenomenal colorist and DP based on the East coast. I've had the pleasure of knowing and working with John a few times over the years and he's just a fantastic dude. And I'm really excited to chat with him. John, let's get going. All right. Excited. Yeah. What's what's going on in your world currently? What's new 2024 2024. It's just kind of getting in the swing of things. Uh, somewhat busy. You know, last year was, uh,

pretty brutal for just about everybody, myself included. So really just kind of starting to prep a few jobs, starting to just kind of get some traction on some things. Just had some new work released today that I'm very excited about. So it's really nice to kind of like start the year early with, you know, being able to show some stuff you're proud of. And yeah, just hopeful at this point. We'll see if that gets crushed later on.

That's yeah, that is, that is interesting and awesome that you get to start the, the year off with like a new project. I usually redo my website like every January and last January I didn't because I was so busy. And I, I think I kind of felt depressed about it all year long. Cause I didn't have like any new workup and then I just never put new work up. Yeah. I try to be pretty, pretty on it. I also, uh, edit my work a good bit. I show very little of what I do just to kind of keep.

keep pushing out the things that I really want to be doing or the things that I'm really proud of. And, you know, some jobs are just not creatively what I want. I still have fun on them. They pay me well, like to work with great people. Like there's no downside to doing them. But, you know, they just don't really hit a mark, whether it's I have a job that's very similar to it, that is better. So I'll keep that one up and just kind of put the other one kind of in the archive. Yeah, that makes sense.

You're still down in Greenville, right? Yep, Greenville, South Carolina based. So has being in a, you know, a pretty small market, small town, has that ever been hard for you? Or do you see that as sort of an advantage to what makes it unique? Have you ever thought about moving to LA or, you know, let's talk about that a little bit. All the time. I, my wife and I love Greenville. Greenville is a great town. It's super fun. It's not too big. It's not too small.

Seth Lowe (04:36.302)
It's close to a lot of places that were dead center between Charlotte and Atlanta. The only real downside to being in Greenville is I never work here. I haven't done a job in Greenville in three or four years. So every job is a travel job. So, you know, I do stay pretty busy. I'm really thankful for that. But I always wonder, could I be busier? Could I be in a place that I could kind of maybe generate?

you know, more conversation about people who would use me because it's, I understand it's hard sometimes because people have to fly me out a lot. And most of my directors I work with are, you know, not in Greenville, they're in New York, LA, Nashville, Dallas, like all these places. So usually it's not a big deal, but there, I'm sure at times that somebody would love to bring me out, but they have to hire local. So, um, you know, you kind of.

pros and cons to everything right now, we really like it, but there's always kind of discussion on what would be a move if we wanted to. And so that's actually something that we've been talking about more seriously the last year or so, but we're not in a rush. And in order to make that move, I feel like I would really want to do a bit of reconnaissance, go out to LA or New York more, stay a month or so. It's just a...

meet people and try to generate things for when we do move, it's there. But at the end of the day, it's really nice to be here and it hasn't been a huge hindrance in what we need and what I enjoy. I just always wonder what could it be? You know, should I put myself out there and what I'll be further along in my career? Would I be able to work on more things that are, you know, maybe bigger budget or more creative that that's, you know,

Definitely something that we talk about a lot. Yeah. I've had that conversation with my spouse plenty of times. It's always easy to really wonder like what could be. Um, but you know, there's a lot of advantages to be in like small towns, small market, and just kind of being able to be yourself and not feel any like outside pressures that you might in a huge, huge market. Yeah. And it's cheap. I mean, honestly, like it's just from a cost of living standpoint, we do really well here. We go to any of those larger cities.

Seth Lowe (06:53.678)
changes the lifestyle. I mean, just being in those cities changes the lifestyle. So, uh, you know, that's something we had to, we have to figure out is, is that really what we want? Yeah, that's it. That's really important to consider too. I know a lot of guys that just keep like a one bedroom apartment or something in LA or New York and go work as local for a couple of weeks at a time, or just, you know, pop up for a week, shake some hands and stuff and hang out. That's a hundred percent what I would like the next step to be. I would love to in the next year or so.

do that. And just, you know, I, my dream has always been live in a place five months, 29 days and live here six months, one day have South Carolina residency as the main place we live, but be as available other places as I am here. Um, that'd be really nice. Um, you, you kind of started life from my perspective, at least as a colorist, you know, and you really blew up, I would say probably like,

You know, 2010, I don't know, 10 or 12 there, you got on some really cool projects and colored some really great stuff for some kind of up and coming DPs and directors. Um, was that intentional or did you just kind of hit the right wave? Um, you know, did you appreciate how you were blowing up or even realize it at the time? Um, I, of course appreciated it. Um, I, between 2011 and 2014, I had a full -time job. And so.

I've always been a DP. I've always wanted to be a DP. That's what I am. But I learned very early in shooting, especially when I was younger, if I learned color, I can make my stuff look better. And so I kind of really got invested into that and really for my own work. And then of course you have friends, they see something you do say, hey, could you grade my project? Or, you know, they told someone else about me. So it just became one of those things where because I had a full -time job, I couldn't go out and shoot.

Um, all the time, because you only have so much time off. I would do color projects. And so when I left my job in 2014, yeah, 2015, 15, 2015, um, that's what people knew me as. And because I left my job with $300 in my bank account, no computer, no camera. You do whatever you got to do to make ends meet. So, you know, I had this color work. It was.

Seth Lowe (09:21.518)
pretty easy to just kind of keep that going and start raising the rate a bit, kind of push yourself a bit more for that. And so that was a way that I could make money and that I could meet people because Greenville, South Carolina doesn't have a very big film community, at least not at the level that I would see myself working or want to be doing. So all my friends all over the country would push people to me or use me for their projects.

and I could be here and do it. I was always shooting, but I was shooting really low budget stuff just kind of like doing anything I could to start building a portfolio. And yeah, so by that way, I just kind of became known more as a colorist. But what I did was I made sure that when I worked with knew I was a DP and I wasn't trying to take anyone's job like I wasn't like,

Oh, this footage is shitty. I, you know, if they had done this, it'd be better, whatever. It was just kind of like being personable and talking to people and making friends basically. Uh, you know, they're like, Oh, you know, what else do you want to do? I was like, I'm actually a DP. Like that's what I want to do. That's where I see myself. Um, I love coloring. It lets me meet people like you so on and so forth, but, uh, yep, that's what I want to do. And then I would just push, you know, DP work online, uh, more so than color.

And about 2017, I had to stop sharing color work. I strictly just said, you know what? I'm only gonna position myself as a DP and I'm going to only show that work. I'm still gonna do color work. I need the income. It is fun. It's a great way to meet people. Let's just kind of put that to bed. So that's what I started doing. And then a lot of my people that I used to color for started going.

Oh, you know, Sean's stuff looking good. Let's give him a shot. And then I still work with a lot of those people today. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, you, you colored a couple of things for me and probably 2017, 2018. And I remember having those conversations with you. And I think what was so cool about you is just, you're just so personable and passionate about everything. And I never felt like, Oh, he's a DP now. He's just.

Seth Lowe (11:34.67)
color in this to be nicer. You know, I mean, you like three yourself at it and just killed it on a lot of projects. And, um, it was just, it was fantastic to work with you and see how you handled yourself and kind of watch that transition unfold. Um, what was your.

What was your exposure like to the industry before you got into it? You know, I mean, to find color is super niche. So what were you doing, you know, your regular job or even, you know, in high school, how did you, did you get on some sets and start PA and really early and stuff or what, you know, what happened? No, no. Um, I am originally from Oklahoma. Went to a Finnish high school there and, uh, I was in a band and, uh, I was in super new music, started playing guitar when I was 12. That was my entire life. And then.

From doing that, I got really into audio engineering, recording, producing, stuff like that. So from 2003 to about 2005, I was in a band and I just kind of did that full time. I did a little bit of college, dropped out after like a year, just really wanted to be in a band. And through that, sort of working in some studios, getting really into recording, teaching myself, didn't go to school for it at the time.

And when kind of the band stopped and I realized I was just a blackjack dealer at a casino. That's what I did for like my day job because in Oklahoma gambling age is 18. So when you're 18, you can be a blackjack dealer and you can gamble and so on and so forth. I started going like, I don't, you know, the money's surprisingly good, but I was just like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to be in my hometown and be a blackjack dealer. Like this isn't.

me. I'm creative. I need to do something. So I moved to Kansas City. One of my best friends from middle school and high school was going to school there for audio engineering, the University of Central Missouri. I'd been up there a bunch of times on tour and knew a lot of people. I liked the program. I liked the town. I was like, this is an easy transition. I know people. I know the program I want to do. It gets me out of Oklahoma like kind of a no -brainer. So I went up to the University of Central Missouri.

Seth Lowe (13:49.134)
which is right near Kansas City. And I was a music major for years. Well, my friend worked at a church there and he was like the youth worship guy and he started saying, oh, we need a youth tech guy, somebody to mix live sound and do lights and stuff like that. I was like, I could totally do that. So I started working at this church being the youth tech guy. I know it wasn't a massive church, but a big church for the town. And one day the youth pastor said, hey, we're going to do a video.

And I was like, oh, that's cool. Who's going to do it? And he was like, well, you are. You're the tech guy. And I was like, oh, cool. I guess that's me. And they had Canon GL2s, I believe they were, these little mini DV cameras. This is right before the XL2 and the DVX100B that did 24p. So everything was to tape. And I kind of started liking it a lot.

And I kind of, you know, we have more video ideas and I do them and I just kind of taught myself how to do it. When I'm, when I'm really passionate about something, I can teach myself how to do it because I throw myself straight into it. I taught myself how to play guitar, I taught myself how to record music. Now I'm teaching myself video basically, and I don't know what a DP is. I don't necessarily know what an editor is. Like in my mind, the director does everything. You know, that's, this is, you know, I'm probably 20 years old, 21.

And, um, but really started getting into it. And then the, the main church needed a videographer. And so I got that job. So now I'm with kind of the main church. We have more resources and I'm producing a lot of videos and stuff. And that was when I realized, Oh, you can like color things and make it better. I remember the old final cut suite had an app called color, you know, and I remember like, Oh, what's that opening it up and like, Oh, this is a lot easier than.

Final Cut Pro 7, whatever it is. And so I just, the internet, you just start searching and reading things. Andrew Kramer with Video Copilot, he'd have little color things sometimes. It's like, oh wow, this looks so much better than what it just looks like straight out of camera. And then obviously like the 7D came out and the Technicolor profile for it came out. So now we're kind of getting into a more professional workflow. And I mean, I...

Seth Lowe (16:07.246)
I was a terrible student. I mean, I barely did any schoolwork. All I cared about was recording music and video and like doing those things. And eventually I just told the school, I was like, Hey, what gets me out of here fastest? They're like, well, you can switch from music to political science. I'm like, sounds good. And I did a semester of political science and then I just dropped out. I think I'm 18 hours short from a degree. But I didn't care. I just, I wanted to do video. And so,

Basically from there, I got a job at another larger church in St. Louis. And so that's when I dropped out of college again. I think that was the second time I dropped out. Go there and now I'm like doing more video stuff and I have a little bit more resource, you know, you just, but I'm, I still don't really know what each thing is, but there, um, met some people.

that would like work together. I was like, that's cool. They worked together. Like there's not just one guy out there with a camera making stuff happen. And so, you know, you just start kind of pulling the curtain back a little bit on what, what does this look like? And I always just loved shooting. And the only reason I loved color was it made the stuff I shot looked better. Um, but when I was a kid, man, I, I loved movies. I probably have always wanted to work in movies. I just being from Oklahoma.

didn't know that was an option, thought you had to go to USC, you had to go to LA, you had to go to USC or I knew of NYU in New York and I'm a terrible student. So I knew I wasn't going to get into those programs. So, you know, it was just kind of being at the right time, right place, right time in the industry for stuff like the 70 and 5D to come out, which made things somewhat accessible. And just being a complete nerd with no life, just shooting all the time, grading.

going back to projects I already shot to re -grade them, which I still do today, not to release, but just to constantly be practicing and doing things and looking at things a different way. That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I'm small town Midwest as well. And when you're 20 in a small town, LA and New York feel like just, they might as well be different planets, let alone something you can go participate in. Do you ever struggle with feeling,

Seth Lowe (18:27.726)
Or did you ever struggle with feeling like really pigeonholed early on when you were doing a lot of color for some really awesome up and coming DPs and. You know, feeling like, you know, the kind of work you do tends to get more of the kind of work you do. And you have to be really intentional to break out of that. Like, like you did, you know, you can't, you don't just suddenly be like, I'm a DP and the next week you start DPing something, you know, it's, it really takes a lot of intentionality and it's hard to break, break a trend.

For some reason I haven't. I feel very strongly that if you do good work, people are going to notice. I don't want to blame my circumstance on why I'm not getting the things I want. I think those things are completely in my control. If I felt like I could not continue a career without moving to LA, I would move to LA.

That doesn't mean it's not hard, it doesn't take logistics or money or whatever, but like you can talk yourself out of anything. So to me, it's just like, I'm shocked at what I've been able to do with where I am, but it just goes to show if you just work really hard and you put out good work and you're a good dude, that's a good hang, that is respectful of people and does right by them, you can build something wherever you are. I mean, my friend Wilson lives in Amarillo, Texas.

Like it's smaller than Greenville and further away from everything else. And I think that dude crushes. He treats people the right way. He does a great job. Sure. If he moved to Dallas or some other place, like he would maybe have more opportunity, but more opportunity does not mean better work. You have to have the work first. Yeah, that's a great point. Uh, do you, do you have like a timeline, you know, when you set like a goal, um, whether it's, you know, from pivoting from.

color work to DP or maybe a type of project, do you like, are you really timeline? Like I want to be able to do this in two years or by this age, or do you just work hard and put it out there and, um, you know, see what happens. Play the long game. You can't, you can't decide when something's going to happen. You can't decide when you're going to get an email or a phone call. Um, so for me, it's always just been like, you know, I'm just going to do what I think is right. Stay the course.

Seth Lowe (20:48.366)
Doesn't mean I had to sit back and do nothing, but I mean, you know, I think, what's the term? You can't be disappointed if you don't set expectations. If you set a timeline and you miss it, you know, that's okay. You know, like that doesn't mean that is not going to happen. It just means it's not happening right now. So I tend to just be very long game. Like I have bigger goals that I think will take longer to accomplish than I'm worried about.

next, this year or next year. You know, I care way more five, six years down the line than I do right now.

Yeah. Similar mindset for me. And I think early on, I really struggled with setting goals that were attached to things I couldn't control. Like I want to get a major agency project within the next year. Well, you can be great at what you do, but if someone, if some brand doesn't put the money behind some campaign or you don't, you know, meet the right person, they don't have the right, but you know what I'm seeing? There's just so many things you can't control in that. Oh yeah. I mean, three years ago I had a couple goals.

that I wanted, but I didn't set a time on it. I said, hey, these are things that I'm working towards, not things that I have to accomplish because they're going to happen. If the career does what I'm hoping it does, those things will happen, but I don't know when. And I hit both of those goals within like four months of each other, about two year and a half, two years ago. And I was like, oh, cool. Like that's awesome. You know, super fun.

Yeah. You have to be really intentional about the steps and the process on your end, but not too hung up on the timeline of things that are beyond your ability to manage. Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of people, they they'll say, I want to shoot a feature film this year. I'm like, that's tough because almost every feature I've done. I've heard about it six, seven months ahead of time. And then it takes so long to get there. It's like,

Seth Lowe (22:53.518)
Maybe if you're having those conversations, you can have that goal. But if you to say this year I'm shooting a feature film, well, they take six, seven, eight months to get off the ground. And then, you know, shooting is, you know, a month and a half to two months or something like that. Like, that's your year, you know, that could not happen. And then at the end of the year, if you're discouraged by that, it's like, no, man, it's OK. It just takes time to say, I want to shoot a feature film. Yeah, completely agree. How?

How pivotal was like, you know, there's saying no is really important in growing your career and yourself. Did you have to start just saying no a lot when you transitioned from colorist to DP or did it just, you know, did you just take work or like what's your? Yeah, I keep taking work and I still do work. I mean, if you were to text me tomorrow and say, Hey, I got a project. It's due at this time. This is about the time I need it done. Are you available?

I'm available. I'm probably going to do it because I still love doing color work. I still love developing those relationships, but it's not the thing that I focus on. And so I always have the mindset. I'd rather be doing something than nothing. And so if that's something to do and I think it's doable, then why not? That's awesome. Hopefully I'm so busy shooting. I can't. That's the goal. I hope I'm so busy shooting that I just have to say no because I don't have the time.

But if I have the time, I'm down for anything. When you started really intentionally making the transition, did you find yourself having to find a lot of new clients or directors to work with because now you are entering a different like sort of a competition realm or were people really open to it and you just kept working with the same people you were coloring for? I just kept working with the same people I was coloring on. I mean, I'm not a fantastic self promoter. I'm very good relationally. And so,

I mean, like I still do color work, it's all through relationships. It's people saying, I need somebody. Well, you can talk to John, he might be available. And it's like, okay, cool. And it still expands the network and so on and so forth. But you know, I just, I was definitely more intentional with letting people know I was a DP and letting people know that that is how I see myself. And that's what I want to put out. And I wasn't necessarily having those conversations. It's just,

Seth Lowe (25:15.758)
what I did with my online presence, social media, as I talked to people, I would tell them more about, hey, what are you working on? Oh, I'm shooting this, I'm shooting this. I wouldn't say I'm grading this. Even if that grade was a really cool job. It was more about what I didn't say than what I did. Yeah, just setting the perception of who you are leads people towards that. Yeah, exactly. How did you first...

you know, coming from like the church world and coming into a very niche role as a colorist, how did you start understanding how to set rates and charge for your time and value yourself? And you know what, how did, how did you find your spot in the marketplace? I think my first rate I ever looked at was like 500 bucks a day. And I think it was based off of, I need X amount to live. I need these many days to make that happen. And I know I can.

that's like manageable, right? So I kind of set the rate based on my own and I knew color was expensive, right? I knew that people could make thousands of dollars a day doing it. I knew I wasn't at that level. So I basically just set the expectation for what I needed to survive because at the time it was survival. And then, you know, as you, a certain clientele kind of dictates the rate. So you would have a conversation with someone they're like, Hey, we have color. It's not much.

We have 800 a day. Is that okay? And you're like, well, I'm 500 a day. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. And in my mind, my new rate is now 800 a day. Yeah, in my mind, now my rate is 800 a day because now I know I can get that. I'm still, you know, at the time I'll still work for five, but knowing that I can do eight, I'm going to start pushing that a bit more. And so you kind of get into this thing where as your clientele kind of dictates the number.

you can flow with that. I did the same thing as a DP, you know, when I first came out, I was like, I think I'd do like 800 a day. Then someone was like, we have a thousand a day. It's okay. Cool. That's almost like we got 1500 and like, yep. And every time that happened, I would now start at that number because I knew that's what I could do. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. Did you grow up around, um, any friends or family members that were like self -employed or anything that, that kind of helps steer your.

Seth Lowe (27:36.532)
desire to work for yourself or maybe kind of kickstart some of the learning process there? Nope. No, I mean, my whole, my dad has worked in finance since he got out of college. My mom was a stay at home mom for a while and then she worked in higher education as a, more on the business side of things like alumni stuff, fundraising, those types of things. She was a

She's retiring this year, but she's an assistant to the president of a university in Oklahoma But she loves being around higher ed and stuff like that my grandparents Well, my grand that's not entirely true. My grandfather on my mom's side was an architect. He started his own firm So he had a big architecture firm in Oklahoma They they worked on tons of resorts and hotels all over the world. Like he was a very successful architect and I knew that that was

granddad's company, right? So I guess I did know that that was possible, but I never had like a crash course. I never had someone I could be like, Hey, so what do you do about this? You know? Yeah. I think for me, yeah. Yeah. But for me, it was definitely more of like, I knew something was possible, right? And you know, as your, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what I say all the time. That's why I'm like,

When younger DPs come to me or people who want to be DPs, I am such an open book with them. You know, I'll run them through finances. I'll run them through how much money I spend on gear. I'll run them through rates, all this stuff just to let them know what's possible because you know, when I started out my own this year would be nine years ago. I had friends who were freelance filmmakers.

and made a good living and got to travel the world. In hindsight, I don't think they were making bank per se, but they were making a living. They were living off of that. So I knew it was possible. And I think that was really encouraging to me. It's just knowing like, oh man, if he can do it, pretty sure I can do it. Like not because I'm better or anything, but just because I know it's possible. So for me, if I know that something is possible, that's almost inspiration enough for me to give it a shot. Yeah.

Seth Lowe (29:57.774)
Yeah, it's amazing once you kind of see the light a little bit and get to witness appear, appear being successful. It's like, all right, it's off to the races. If they can do it, I can do it. Yeah. How do you find yourself learning about the business side now or rates, just trial and error? Are you, you listen to me like business podcasts or do you really need like, you know, I have like some photo business book, somebody gave me like eight years ago, you know, that kind of stuff. I really wish I knew how to read. I'm actually a literate.

I'm just kidding. That's a terrible joke. I don't read books. I don't really listen to business podcasts. I listen to more like either entertainment or craft related podcasts. The business side, you know, I say all the time, if you're going to go to college and you want to be a filmmaker, but you're going to do college, go for business and do the craft side on your own time and know that that's what you want to do.

I think the business side of the thing is that's such a mystery when you first start out. I got some really good advice from one of my best friends. He said, I said, hey, I think I'm quitting my job this week. Really nervous about it. What do you think I can do? It was Aaron. You know, Aaron. Yeah. And he said, get an accountant. I said, oh, okay. I've already just done like H &R blog because I was a W -2 employee and it's like, hey, I want you to

do I get back from the government? He's like, get an accountant, start there. And you know, I knew I needed to start an LLC, which you can do on LegalZoom. Like, you know, I did all those things, but that alone, I think, is the best bit of advice I could give somebody is like, find a good accountant, preferably somebody who works with creatives that are self -employed, whether it's film industry or photographers or something, to start out, you can always move.

along but if you're just starting from scratch, find somebody just to kind of help you manage. Because I think that was the part that I just didn't know anything about. And as I've learned more, like I now know how to work those things better on my own. But if I hadn't had that base, it would have been a lot harder. But yeah, I mean, that's great advice, you know, then you

Seth Lowe (32:16.718)
Yeah, and then you start meeting people, you know, you start working with someone, you become friends, you kind of can open the books for each other. It's like, Hey, what'd you do last year? Okay, how did you, you know, you know, and like, but those are personal relationships that you have to build. And because, you know, like I had a friend who a year ago, he left his job, he was out for a long time, and now he's a freelancer. And he's like, what do I do? And I was like, okay, do this, do the these are all business things. This is how I do my things.

This is what sets me up for success. He's not a cinematographer, he works in film. And I was like, I think these things in like, you are gonna make way more money than you thought you could because you're worried right now, but you're really talented. You're gonna make tons. And like, I remember checking in with him at the end of the year, he was like, dude, this year was so much better than I ever thought it could be. And it's like, yeah, because your job tells you, you need me and you're lucky I pay you this much, but like what you're providing is worth so much more.

You know, oh yeah. Yeah. But yeah, getting an accountant, forming an LLC, figuring out as soon as possible to get into an S corp. Those types of things were things that, uh, you know, I did some of them at the beginning, but it took me a really long time to do other things, you know, with that. And it cost me way more money than it needed to be. But, um, and rates, the market dictates the rates. I would always just look at friends that I felt like we were at the same level, let clients kind of dictate where I was at and start.

building up from there. Now, I have an agent that helps me set the rate. Now, my agent will... Someone comes over for a job, the second money and booking starts talking, it's like, cool, I'm super down to do it. I need you to talk to my agent. He'll handle all that stuff. That way, I'm a bit divorced from it. He's always checking in with me saying, are you good with this? Do you need anything else? So on and so forth. But he's kind of the guy that does it, which is super nice.

So like with an agent, you know, are they taking like 30 % and do they pay for themselves then and that the new rate they're getting you or what does that look like? Uh, my agent takes 10 % in the way that it works is, is that, um, a job will come to me, be interested. I feel like we're at a part where we're talking about like booking and rates and so on and so forth. I will then intro them to my agent. My agent will then handle all the negotiations for travel for per diem for.

Seth Lowe (34:42.638)
you know, my rates to anything that's needed for me to do the job. They don't handle the gear side of things, but they do handle everything pertaining to me. And then production will, they'll send out the DL memo, production will sign it, we'll do the job. They invoice my agent, my agent then takes that money, takes out their cut in direct deposits to me. So I'm very outside of the money aspect of the job. And I can just focus on the creative aspect of the job. I'm still,

I'm aware of what's happening money wise and if it's less rate, then I can absolutely say, yeah, I'll do it for that. My agent's like, okay, cool. Or I can say, I'd really love to try to push them a little more if you think we can do that. It's somebody to bounce ideas off of. And what's really nice is if somebody's not paying me, they're going to go after them. I don't have to. So I always attribute it to being, I'm the good guy there.

Yeah, that's really good. A good spot to be in. Do your does your agent then, you know, are you getting like a W -2 from your agent or are you just like a 1099? Like are they just passing through? How does that how does that work from like a cash flow perspective? It's a it's a it's a pass through. So they take their cut. It all comes to me and it's it's not like I'm on payroll with them or anything. So it's coming to me and I have to do my my taxes around that my.

The 10 to 9 will still come to me. I think it comes to me. So this is actually my first tax season with an agent. So I'm not exactly sure. I'm sure that that 10 % is probably my problem. You know, I don't know if you can deduct agent dues. That's one thing I'm going to talk to my account. It's on my list to talk to my account again about, but at the end of the day, they've raised my rate more than 10%. So on the jobs where I'm getting the full rate,

I'm still making more money than I'm paying out of the 10%. That's good to know. I had an agent for a couple of years and she was fantastic. It just, I might resign. I don't know at this point, I'm just kind of taking a break from working with them. And yeah, my experience was they typically paid for themselves and the, you know, their fee was offset by the newer and better rate they would usually get me. And then for me, I,

Seth Lowe (37:07.342)
I would pay them so I would always write them off as like a subcontractor basically. So I don't know what your situation will be like. Let me know, it'd be interesting to see how that works out. Yeah, I mean, because the check is made out to me, but they have power of attorney to deposit it and direct deposit me. So that's why I'm pretty sure I'm going to be liable for the full amount tax wise. But what I can do with that, I'm not exactly sure because it would be over the $600 why I would.

send them a 1099 or whatever. But good question because I got to figure that out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is randomly get a 1099 from me. They're like, what are you doing? Yeah. Like this isn't how this works. Yeah. But I mean, at the end of the day, like we're at the end of the day, like I said, they are well worth the 10%, you know, and there's no signing fee or anything. And

You know, it's not, they don't only handle just the business side. If I have a question about what should I be doing? Is there no one I need to introduce myself to? They don't necessarily get you jobs, but they are there as a resource to help you figure out what can I do to get more jobs? And they presented a few jobs for me here and there. And you know, I can do them. I can not do them. I have full autonomy on what I want to do. Um, but they're there to protect me and they're there to advocate for.

Um, and the, you know, the one thing that they are pretty clear about when I was talking to them, they're like, you are our client. We work for you. You know, so I don't work for my agent. They work for me. And so that just kind of re recalibrate them as a resource for things. You know what I mean? I mean, luckily we haven't had to be in a situation where someone hasn't paid, but I imagine if someone's not paying their.

going after them and they're not going to be as nice as me because I'm afraid that I'm not going to get another job. I care about that relationship. They're like, we do not care about that. You need to get paid. So we're going to do that.

Seth Lowe (39:13.646)
Yeah, I'm like, I like to be the nice guy in the relationship guy. And sometimes you'll hit like some client hasn't paid you in 60 days and you're like, Hey, if it's not too much issue and could you please check in on, you know, it's, it's always, it's always hard. So it's nice. The last job I did before I got an agent, it was that times like five months and I was, I was, I was on them and it wasn't just for me. They hadn't paid the crew either.

Geez I kept getting promises and I had to be that guy because it's like it's one thing if you're going to screw me over Okay, I'm not gonna let you screw over the people that I brought on like they're the ones that I have to take care of I want to make sure good before myself So I don't mean like I don't care if you haven't paid me right now You pay them as soon as possible and then we will work this out and they yeah, because those are relationships important

I care more about those relationships in that production company. That production company, maybe they're like, oh, he's too hard to work with. And it's like, you didn't pay me for five months. So why do I even want to work with you? But I want to work with my AC and I want to work with my gaffer all the time. So let's focus on that first.

Yeah, the last thing you do is burn a relationship with like an AC or a gaffer you love. Oh, absolutely. So did you, did you join the union before you got an agent or the two go hand in hand or what did that timeline look like? Yeah, I was in the union before I joined Aiden. That's, that was those goals that I was talking about earlier that like I had two goals, didn't know when they were going to happen, but I want, I wanted to join the union and I wanted to get an agent and both those things happened within like four months of each other.

The way I joined the Union is a little unorthodox. So I had done Union jobs, never had a problem. Union knows I'm not 600, but basically production says, hey, we're a Union production, we wanna hire this non -Union cinematographer, can we get a waiver? And Union goes, yep, sounds good, here you go.

Seth Lowe (41:22.126)
And especially in the Southeast, there's not a ton of union cinematographers. I think I'm the only one, me and one other guy in South Carolina. That's it. And in North Carolina, there's like maybe two or three others. There's a bunch in Atlanta, but like it's pretty sparse compared like New York, LA, because otherwise the union would say, no, you have to hire a 600 DP. So I've done a bunch of them, you know, probably five, six, whatever. All the crew I work with are normally union people.

And so it was never a problem to get a waiver. I got a job in Charleston on a union job and they're like, are you in the union? I said, no, but I've never had a problem getting a waiver. They're like, okay, sounds good. So I get the job, I go out to Charleston, it's a tech scout pre -light shoot. We're building this whole stage for this almost live comedy style ad. It was commercial, but the...

Style was like as a live comedy show. So we're building a stage and everything. And about an hour into the pre -light, the producer comes up to me and he goes, hey, do you have a sec to chat? And it seemed kind of serious. I was like, yeah, sounds good. And everything had gone real smooth up until then. So I was curious on what was going on. And he takes me outside and so little hiccup. The union says that you're out of waivers and you have to join. And I said, okay. And I knew what it took to join the union. And it's like,

Huge pain in the ass because I don't do a ton of union jobs. It's either 30 union days in a year or a hundred non -union days over three years and the way you do that is you get all of your Call sheets and pay stubs and Invoices and all that stuff a hundred days over three years and then send it to the union with like Resume and cover letter and there's like this whole thing

And the only reason I hadn't done it is because like to go back over three years, get a hundred days that I think are union eligible, it's just a lot of work. And I'm somewhat organized, but some of that stuff, like finding the call sheets, I don't just call sheet, save it in a folder. I got to go through emails and stuff like that. You also have to the contact for like the producers you've worked with, so on and so forth. And I've heard lots of stories on like you put a hundred in, they reject 10, now you need 10 more. And it's like, so you really got to pull like a...

Seth Lowe (43:46.54)
120 days over three years. And so I was just like, I'm cool joining the union, but if I have to join today, I'm three and a half hours from home. I don't know where everything is. My wife doesn't know where everything is. We're doing the pre -light. I don't think I'm going to be able to do that today. And he's like, okay, well anyway, they're going to call you. Here's some info about the production you need. It's a

try your best to work it out. You know, we'll figure it out. I said, okay, so I'm kind of nervous because I'm like, I will join tomorrow. I you know, the second I get home, I will get all this stuff to you. But like, please don't like make it so I can't do this job because it's bad for production. It's bad for me all that stuff. Get on the phone with the union. And they're like, Hey, you have a resume? I'm like, I don't have a red like, I don't keep like a piece of paper resume, you know, like, I said, Hey, man, I

I'll be honest, like I'm more than happy to join. I'm super like, you know, for it. I'd system on a position to get you all that stuff today. Um, I don't have a resume written. I can get something written up. Like just tell me what we need to do. And he goes, Oh brother, I didn't mean to scare you. You're like, you're approved to join. Everybody needs a resume, but that's all we need. We need you to give us a resume because everyone needs to have one file and, um, then we'll send you your membership packet.

And I was like, oh, so I don't need to get you 100 days, whether you're already pre -approved to join, you're good to go. I said, okay. He said, but I need that membership packet by the end of the day. And I said, no problem. It's 9 a .m. I'll do it at lunch, whatever. It sends the membership package over. It's like 110 pages. So we're at lunch and I don't even remember eating lunch. I'm just on my laptop. It's just like, did I like call my wife? It's like, well, what's your social like, you know, because.

she's the beneficiary of her stuff. And I just, you know, ran through and got all that stuff done and turned it in. And so we were, we were good to go. So, you know, I didn't have to jump through a lot of the hoops to join. And there's a number of reasons why I probably had that situation for me, but it's, it's not like necessarily the norm. So yeah, that's, that's how I joined the union. That's kind of a cool story.

Seth Lowe (46:13.774)
Does it, I think for a lot of us that get into this industry, you know, we feel sort of DIY punk rock come from a music background or church background or something where we've done it all our own. And we love the idea of being this kind of independent person that makes her own rules and everything. Does it, does it feel like funny to join the union now, which is like sort of, I don't know. I don't know if it's like the anti anti freelance, anti antisys or that or whatever, but you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Uh, no.

You know what it did for me in a weird way and I wasn't really expecting this. It made me feel like I had a career. It made me feel legitimate. It made me feel like, okay, like I can do this. Like, and I'm not a big self doubt person. I'm a pretty confident guy. I believe in my abilities, but you know, there's like this barrier. It's like the union, Hollywood, people with agents like.

Like I'm not them, you know? And when I joined, I just honestly like felt really proud of myself. And there's things about the union that are a headache or that maybe I don't love in different ways. But at the end of the day, I think it's good for workers. I think it's good to have an organization that you can go to for help resources that advocates for you, so on and so forth.

But really for me, it was like being a part made me feel like, okay, like I am a DP. Like that is like, I can, I feel like I can officially do that. I think some other people might feel different, but working in a small market on an Island that has really had to kind of like fight to get your name out there. Like if, if a production comes in now and, and the director says, I really want to use this guy and they go, you want to.

bring someone in from South Carolina, like, is he any good? It's like, you can say, well, he's in the union. And there's lots of people in all of IATSE that probably are not that good, to be completely honest. I've worked with some people who are in the union who are so not good compared to my non -union friends. Like that is not necessarily a qualifier of ability, but it is something that you can use and say like, hey,

Seth Lowe (48:39.758)
He is legitimate. He's been vetted. He can do this job.

That's really cool. And that's really powerful. It's sort of like in a much larger way. It's sort of like when you introduce yourself and you're like, Hey, my name's Seth and I'm a photographer versus someone you respect introduces you and they're like, Hey, this is Seth. He's a really great photographer. It just, it just feels completely different. Yeah. No, for me, it was a big confidence boost to be honest. It was something that I like, you know, I had wanted and honestly like,

I didn't need to join the union. Like it's not like I was doing so many union jobs like I had to. I mean, I had to for that job, but it was like from wanting to join, it's really expensive to join. Like the dues aren't bad, but the initiation fee is crazy. So it was definitely like one of those things where is, um, I can't give a specific number, but it's five figures.

Wow. Okay. Good to know. Yeah. Lower five figures, but five figures to that's just the initiation fee. Okay. Okay. Um, did your rates immediately change because of that? Or do you get dictated rates more or are you still getting an offer and it's so great? What is, what happens? Yeah. The union with, with, um, DPs is a little different because we're kind of at the top end of the union. A lot of our rates are, are.

as negotiated. But if you do like a tier one or tier zero movie, which would be, you know, anything under like 5 million, you know, any anything like, you know, one to three, and then three to six or whatever, there is a union minimum that production can pay you. So they're there, they cannot pay you less than that. But they can also pay you more than that if you negotiate, but it really just sets, you know, it's called scale.

Seth Lowe (50:41.102)
It's like if you're getting scale for those types of things on the rate card, it says that you this much per week. Gotcha. So that's how that works. Commercials are a little different because it's almost all negotiated. I don't think there's a union scale for DPs. But and especially as you get higher up on the tiers, if you're doing a big movie, right, I don't necessarily think there's a minimum. I could be wrong about that, but.

I don't think there's a minimum that they can pay you on that, but it's just kind of obvious that if you're in that type of movie, some sort of negotiations going on, that will be fair. Yeah, that makes sense. I have friends that are unions have heard different rates thrown out and on weekly versus, you know, shows versus features versus like a week long union commercial. So it seems like it's all over the place, but a little more standardization. It is. Yeah, it is all over the place. It's actually not the easiest thing to like.

It's not like there's one card and you go, oh, here, this is it. All sorts of different shows fall under different contracts. And so as you go through, you have to figure out what contract is the show on? What is the tier? Where is it in there? And then you can see what those rates are. And then to be completely honest, unless it's like a tier zero, tier one, or something like that, I think it'd be pretty hard to negotiate above scale. I think...

you would kind of look at it and go like, I mean, it's that small of a budget. There's no way I'm going to make, you know, commercial rate on it at all. And like any movie I've done, there's no nowhere near the commercial rates, but you have the amount of days which makes it worth it. Yeah. Yep. That makes sense. Yeah. It's hard to, hard to navigate rates. I was kind of curious how much that helped the problem or mitigated it.

Yeah. But you know, do you get put since I have an agent too now, even on units that my agent gets in a good shape to rate, you know, and they know it's a union job. So they know how to, you know, work that out in terms of like, what kind of money they may or may not have. So have you had to say no to any smaller productions or small crew jobs because of joining the union? No, the union is pretty supportive of union members working non -union.

Seth Lowe (53:02.894)
Other unions like the DGA and SAG are way more strict about that. They definitely don't want people working non -union, but IOTC generally says, hey, we want you to work. We understand. And so if you need to take a non -union job, you know, for sure, but if you need us, we're here. So, you know, there are avenues of which if you're feeling like you're being taken advantage of or something, you can, you know, have somebody come in and advocate for you because you are a union member.

That's cool. How did the, uh, how did the strike impact you? Were you scared at all? Or do you, did you fall back on more color work or do you have other income streams? The strike was interesting because the strike only affected the film and TV contracts. Um, but we, uh, I primarily work commercials, so that wasn't actually, um, affected to commercials could work sag could work, DJ could work so on and so forth.

But I think with the strikes and also with the way just kind of fearing the economy happened, everything was real slow last year. There's very few people. I know that where it's just like super busy all year. I know I had my slowest year I've had last year, which was interesting because I worked less than I normally do, but revenue was still really good because of where the rate is and everything. So like that was something that I had talked to my wife about a long time ago was.

My goal is to work less, but still make the same amount or more money. And last year was kind of a good indicator of like, Oh, okay, we're doing okay. I was still less than where I had been, um, both in time on set and in revenue, but not, you know, to where we were hurting. Um, what was really interesting was I got some really cool opportunities last year that, um,

you know, were brought to me through my agent and stuff like that. And there were big jobs and I was like, ah, this, this could be really, really cool. Uh, but then I didn't get those jobs. And then when you find out who shot the jobs, it's like, it was an ASC member, you know, I lost like two or three jobs last year to, to people who were in the ASC, which is like, on one hand, really cool because, you know, that's where I want to be there a lot further along. They're super talented. I'm up on a job against them. That's, that's great. And so when you lose, you're kind of like, well, I mean, I,

Seth Lowe (55:28.814)
kind of get it like they're more established and you know, that's that's neat. But I think I do know who a couple of the DPS are a couple of those DPS are mainly feature and TV DPS. Well, because they're not shooting features in TV, they decide, oh, I'm going to go try to pick up a few commercials. And so I think maybe I would have gotten those jobs if they weren't in the running, you know, that type of thing. So I think the competition was a lot higher in the realm that I work.

than it has been in years past. So that's kind of how I felt like it affected me. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I've, whenever I've pitched jobs and not been awarded, I've always asked who won because I, you know, I want to see who, what happened, you know, you want to learn from it. And it's almost always been someone that's like phenomenal. I'm like, Holy cow. I was bidding up against them or something. It's like, you got to just have that perspective of like, I mean, I'm, if I'm in the same arena, who cares if I didn't get it. It's amazing to be included in that, that handful of people.

Yeah. And you know, eventually if you're working in that realm a lot, like you eventually will get one and then you get to prove yourself and then you're more into consideration. Sometimes it's just getting that first job is the hardest part. And then hopefully then it's like, you crush it, you do a good job, you build some relationships and now it's, it's not so much of a stretch.

Um, do you think, you know, if you were to break down your income into buckets from like color, DP work, owning and renting gear, could you do that? Or are they all too intertwined and dependent on each other? Um, color and DP work I can, but DP work and gear are somewhat intertwined. I do co -own my gear with a good friend of mine who, um, is just really smart, especially on the business side. So, uh, you know, that is separate.

Um, and that really just goes into, um, Kind of owning more gear, fully kitten everything out so that we can take a bigger chunk, you know, and provide more for productions. Um, so that, that business is kind of meant to take a loss or break even right now with the goal being in the future and, and hopefully the near future, it being a very good revenue stream. Um,

Seth Lowe (57:49.934)
Uh, but I mean, the way I've seen color and DP work happen is, you coming up on nine years ago, it was colored DP. And then over the years, it's just kind of, I was able to close that gap and now it's, you know, much more like this. Um, but that color revenue is, is still not insignificant. Um, it's, it's not enough to live on, um, and it's not enough to.

really be considered like, you know, super worth it really, I mean, but we're, you know, talking about probably 10 to 15 % of income is on color. But that's also in between when I'm busy shooting and stuff like that. So it's, it's almost like more of a side hustle. And the reason I do is because I like doing it. And I like building relationships off of it. I mean, that's, I attribute

the relationship that I've built to be able to build a DP career because of color. So I'm really thankful to do it. And so I want to do it as much as I can just because it's fun.

Seth Lowe (59:03.508)
Do you think you make more or less money than you thought you would as a freelancer, you know, like nine years in? Are you more successful than you thought you would? Way more, way more. I had no idea. That's awesome. You know, in my mind, nine years ago, I was like, man, if I made like 75, 80 grand a year, oh my gosh, I'd be, it'd be so good. You know, like I'd be.

Rich, you know, and so it's it's significantly more than I ever thought I'd be able to generate for sure. It's it's I am very thankful and very blessed by that. But at the same time, you know, as you buy more gear, as you invest more in things like kind of have to make more. So I think managing it is harder than it was back then. You know, back then it was.

Yeah, I guess we could go out this week and now it's like how we go out all the time and then you're like, whoa I'm spending way too much money. So I you know I've definitely over the last couple years had to like really check myself and in the spending aspect and be like especially after last year and go You know, it's not always going to be Exponential we might have times when it kind of dips a little bit and so we have to be prepared for that and I'm not you know

loaded and rich by any means, right? Like I'm not a millionaire. I'm not somebody that doesn't have to worry about money. But it's just when you look back on it and what you thought the expectation was and what you actually are seeing you could generate, like, you know, I'm pretty shocked by it, to be honest, just because I didn't think it was possible. Like I, you know, I thought starving artists was a real thing. And now I kind of feel like

There is a thing as a starving artist, but I feel like there's something you can do about it. I mean, there's so many jobs that I do that may not be like stoked for, for the real or something like that, but like it pays well. They want me to do it. I'm going to go and I'm going to do it to the absolute best of my ability. I'm going to try to impress and I'm going to be really professional and really prepared and I'm going to do it. But at the end of the day, I know it's a money job. You know what I mean?

Seth Lowe (01:01:24.852)
Yeah, I have plenty of those. Yeah. But I also feel that way about small budget stuff. I mean, on small budget stuff, I have that same mentality. I'm going to go in, I'm going to be professional, do the best to my ability. I'm going to impress like I'm getting paid more than I've ever been paid before. And it's maybe 50 % of what it should be.

I think it's really hard, you know, like I worked in a church as well. And if you have sort of like a poverty mindset or don't know what's possible, it's really hard to set like a healthy goal or know what's like a realistic expectation for yourself. You know, like, like you said, make an 80 grand a year and you're like, oh my God, I would be rich if I made 80 grand a year. And I remember thinking that. And then you get there and you're like, okay, this actually wasn't that hard, but like now what do I do? Because I've kind of already achieved what I thought was impossible. And you have to recalibrate.

And not that it's all about the money, but it just you, because it really isn't, it's more like how do you recalibrate your brain to what's a more realistic level of success, you know, when you never had a healthy, you know, healthy expectation of it to start with. Yeah, I completely agree with that.

I'm in this spot now where like, you know, I'm 10 years in and the growth has been really great every year. And now I'm in a spot where I'm like, okay, there's only so much of me to go around and I don't really want employees. Like, I mean, I think it's awesome when people scale and build a production company. It's not something I think I want to do. So I'm trying to figure out, okay, if I don't want to scale that way, how do I start saving and setting myself up to where I don't want to be 50?

five or 60 years old and still like hopping on a plane every Monday to go somewhere, you know, and starting to think about that. Do you, do you think about that kind of stuff or you're just still going for it?

Seth Lowe (01:03:17.838)
I think about that in certain ways and not others. Like I don't want to retire. Like I feel like if I'm 70 and I can still do it, that's what I want to do. But I want to provide for my family and I want my wife to be able to retire. And if we have kids, I want to be able to put them through college and things like that. I don't want to get to a point where I'm too old to work and I have nothing, but I also just want to keep working.

You know what I mean? So I definitely think about how do we set ourselves up for the long term, but I'm not worried about me. I'm worried about the people around me and the people that I love and want to take care of to help them fulfill the things that they want to do. You know, I'd love that if my wife is 55 and she's like, I just don't want to work anymore. You know, okay, cool. Go for it.

Do what you want. You know, we have built this together like I couldn't do what I do without her Even though she's not there on set with me and stuff like that She supports me she the amount of time that I'm gone is obscene and she puts up with me Through that and takes care of things at the house and so on so forth So like I want to provide her with infinite flexibility so

Those are the things I care and think about, not necessarily like, man, it'd be great to retire when I'm 55. I was like, when I'm 55, I hope I'm just like getting going. You know, like I hope I'm still have that fire, that hunger, and I'm growing at the exponential pace and I'm hitting the goals, those big goals that I have for myself that I didn't think was possible.

Seth Lowe (01:05:05.838)
That's, that's really cool. And I relate. I mean, my, my goal has always kind of been, I want to peak at like 50. I don't want to peak at 25 or 30. I want to like be hitting 50 and be like, man, I am like crushing it right now and live in, live in the dream. But I also, you know, want to be able to take my family on vacation and trips whenever, and, you know, be able to just spend time with them. And it's, you know, finding that balance is, is hard sometimes. Yeah. I mean, the perfect year for me is like five.

big commercials. I mean, we're talking like super bowl size commercials, like something that's shooting out of the country for two weeks and has lots of eyes on it and is, they're not small productions. They don't pay a little, they pay a lot, so on and so forth. And then like a movie or two, a small movie and a big movie, or maybe it's one big movie and some commercials. I don't necessarily want to be doing commercial to commercial to commercial, oh, fit in a feature here commercial.

that I do now. I love that for right now, but I think long term, I want to continue to build and grow and have a name that is synonymous with quality and artistry. And so, you know, you, you know, you look at someone like Roger Deakins, like, I mean, the dude does a movie every other year, maybe, and he's in his seventies. You know what I mean? Like, that's what I want, you know, and he doesn't even do commercials, you know, he's like, I don't do that. And I respect that so much that,

That's kind of what he does. You know, maybe somebody like Bob Richardson, you know, he does, you know, the movies that he feels resonates with him and he wants to do, and then he'll do an ad here or there as he feels fit. I care more about the flexibility and the ability to say no and yes and really do the things that I'm really excited about. And that also can afford for me to do nothing but that because that's what I think is really hard at this stage is, you know, I'm prepping two jobs right now. They're about a week.

there's a week apart between the two and both have a good bit of logistics to them. And so my whole day this week and you know, it's going to be on call checking in, how are we doing here? Having crew calls, prepping lighting plans, like all these things, but it's for two jobs that are like kind of back to back and both need a ton of bandwidth from me. And it's, that's, that's hard, you know, but.

Seth Lowe (01:07:28.398)
because of how they're budgeted and stuff like that. Like neither one can afford it to just have just me. So, you know, it's just kind of growing to where it's like, I'm on something that I can really put all of myself into to make it great. Like that's kind of the goal, but that just takes time. I mean, you know, you, I can't sit here and just assume that everything that comes to me is going to be able to let me give it its full.

attention without anything else going on. You know what I mean? Um, but I have to execute both those jobs. If something falls off on those jobs and I don't meet expectations or the quality isn't there, then that's my fault, not theirs. It's interesting to be in our career because there's such a juxtaposition of the content we create that is so like on demand quick.

Fast go single or just simple use one time commercial or get seen, you know, for one big kind of bang and it's done while simultaneously trying to build like a long -term career. That's like, I want to do this for 30 years. And the two are, they're almost at odds with each other sometimes. Well, especially with how fast content dissipates, you know, like, you know, I, you know, I, uh, I had a, uh, I did a campaign for Toyota last year. Um, that should be rolling out pretty soon.

But we shot seven spots and they're coming out like two this quarter, two in the summer, two in the fall. And by the time the fall hits, like those two, you know, in the spring are going to be completely forgot. You know, like no one's even going to know that they existed unless they saw it. And it's like an amount of time and effort that we put into doing it. It's just like, geez, like, you know,

It just goes away. It's going to live on my website longer than it lives anywhere else. You know? Yeah, for sure. For sure. It's kind of depressing sometimes. Do you? And that's what I love about like the Super Bowl commercials, like the big ones, like we all know, like the what the and the the the Clydesdales and the E trade baby. Like, you know, those are iconic spots. Those are the those are the things that I think are fun. And that's what when I say, you know, kind of like those bigger commercials and stuff like that.

Seth Lowe (01:09:49.453)
I look at them not necessarily because they have a budget and I'm going to get paid really well. But they're things that you remember, right? They're things that people have put so much time, effort and money into that they kind of like land in and become a little bit of the fabric for more than just a flash in the pan. What was the first commercial you remember?

First commercial I remember. Yeah. Like not as just like I saw a commercial, but like, oh, commercials are cool. Is there like a moment? Oh man, that's a good question. Mine was, I want to say it was like probably winter Olympics, like 20 or the year 2000. So it would have been 12. And I, it was a seven up ad, I think. And it was like this amazing, like boxing match in this.

this boxer just, I mean, you know, takes out the other, the other fighter, like just hook shot and lays them on the ground and pulls their glove off and they have a can of seven up in their hand. And I was like, Oh, that's so cool. Like I just, I thought that was the coolest. Like it felt like a real fight. You know, it didn't feel like a commercial at all until the end. And I was like, Oh, commercials are cool. Yeah. I haven't seen that one. That's a good one though. I like that. Yeah. I'll tell you what, I can't find it anywhere. There's one commercial. That's my favorite commercial of all time. That wasn't a commercial. It was a spec.

And it was for Dirt Devil. Have you seen this? I don't think so. You have to send it to me. It is by far, in my opinion, the best creative I've ever seen in a commercial. So it starts out like The Exorcist. It's this priest, he walks into this house. It's a horror film. You hear this person screaming up in this room and everything. And it's a lot of tension. And then he opens the door.

and it's this possessed girl and she's on the ceiling and she's moving back and forth on the ceiling and she's screaming and he's like, Oh my God. And like clutches the cross. Then it like pulls out of the house and it's somebody on the second floor with a dirt devil vacuuming and the girl's being sucked up through the floor. She's not really possessed. It's that, but the tone, the thought, the execution. I mean, this is probably like eight years old or something like,

Seth Lowe (01:12:03.918)
you have no idea what's about to happen. And then when that, when the reveal happens, the tone totally changes, but like the look doesn't change, but like just the feel, I just thought it was brilliant. It was just so good. That's probably my favorite commercial of all time. Um, so yeah, if you, if you get a chance, like dirt devil exorcist, it is, it is just so good. And I'm like, how did they not just

buy this immediately and put it out there. Like, it's this was such a great ad.

But I believe it was a spec. My understanding is it wasn't an actual commission project.

It probably got him something with them though. For sure. That's how that stuff works. Yeah, hopefully. I mean, I just had a spec, um, uh, released today that we did. It was a Chevy spec and, um, we shot out in Utah and the, the EP, uh, Brad Johnson at seed like to super believe in the idea of super believed in the director, Matt Underwood and, you know, put up some funds to do it. You know, I did it completely for free donated gear and everything, but you know,

We wanted to show, hey, if we got a Chevy spot, what could we do with it? And the reason you do those things is so that you can show what you're capable of. So hopefully it resonates well and it leads to work, especially for that team in the future, because I love Brad a ton. I love Matthew a lot. I'm shooting a hospital spot next week with Matthew.

Seth Lowe (01:13:42.574)
But it's like it was an investment. It was a time of that. I said no to a few jobs to do it on a year that was kind of slow. But I just said like, you know what, these are the types of things that we want to do. And it was a shoestring budget, even though we had more money than most specs, to be completely honest. Hopefully we turned it into something that, you know, looks even bigger than that. So, I mean, I'm a big fan of specs and big fan of.

showing people what you can do because you can't just sit back and wait for an opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. This wasn't actually in my questions, but I think it's a really important topic. Can you maybe talk a little bit about the difference between spec work and personal work? Because I think people often conflate the two and they're very different. So, you know, what's the difference and then how do you invest your time into either category?

Yeah, I think that is an interesting question and actually probably something that I haven't really thought of. But, you know, in my mind, you know, spec work is personal work, but I think spec work, and I slightly broke my rule on this one a little bit on the Chevy one. I generally don't believe in spec work. What I believe in is like, let's say you want to do a Nike ad.

And so you go out and get some Nike shoes, you shoot that how you think Nike would do it, but with your own voice, you put it out there and you're like, check out this, you know, work for, for, you know, spec work for Nike. I think it would be better to go to like a mom and pop shoe store, shoot it like the Nike ad you want with your voice. And instead of saying this Nike spec ad, Hey, check out this ad I did for mom and pop shoe store.

Because I think then it ties a client and agency perspective to it that when you say it's spec work for Nike and you know you didn't work for Nike, there's so many different brand guides that a brand like that has that you have to take into consideration on how you shoot the shoe, how you portray things. You're basically, you might've done something completely wrong that Nike would never do and that might actually hurt you.

Seth Lowe (01:16:03.182)
to work for Nike. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. I completely agree. Yeah. And so, you know, I think trying to not overinflate what the job is, but instead say like, Hey, like, this is my voice. This is the type of product that my voice can, you know, work well with. Check out what I can do is a lot better than like trying to specifically put a, um, a brand to it. Now with the Chevy thing,

You know, we wanted trucks and with the style of project that we did, Chevy seemed like the right choice. And we do feature Chevy, but we don't put the Chevy logo at the end. You know, we don't try to pretend that it's, you know, it's basically like a minute and a half short spec commercial just happens to have Chevy trucks. You know what I mean? So we're not trying to say it's anything other than it is. We're saying, Hey, this is, this is a personal project. This is, you know,

But the difference between spec and personal to personal to me, I think has more of an emotion or a film quality to it than spec, which is more of an advertising quality to it. So I just did a short film in Florida. First week of the year is the first job of the year. Young director was 24, reached out to me. He told me he had, he didn't think I was going to.

respond to him because he's like, I'm nobody, but you know, I'm open to anything and I read the script and it was really good and it was two days and it was five pages and it was really interesting and I got on the phone with him and we chatted about it. I was like, you know what? I think I'm down. Like this sounds really, this sounds really cool. And to me, that's a personal project. That's a personal short film. It was a story that meant a lot to him. I totally saw the heart behind it and the style and I think it's going to be.

really, really good, but he's not trying to sell anything other than this is the type of story that I want to tell. So that's where I would put like personal work. And then with Chevy, it's those same things, but it also has an advertising quality to it where it's like, hey, we're trying to make the trucks look good. We're trying to make it feel energetic. It has a heart string to it, but like you can tell that it has an advertising bet. So that's where I would put, you know, those two things.

Seth Lowe (01:18:27.31)
You know, anything that you're trying to push a certain product to spec, anything that's more like short film or narrative or something that is trying to communicate a specific emotion solely would be personal. Yeah. Just when it's your perspective on the world versus highlighting a product with your perspective, I think that's a big differentiator. Yeah. What am I? I did like a little kind of like a brand video. There's a really cool, uh,

kind of men's like high end men's clothing, uh, like American made us like, you know, thorough good boots and stuff. And the owners really ended up to motorcycles here in town. And I just did like a fun little kind of video, like a 62nd piece on their shop and their family story and everything. And, you know, it had some motorcycle riding in it and had some of their clothing and it was just this really fun character story about this father and two sons. And that piece has gotten me so much work because it's, you know, it's, it's not a fake spec ad about something.

And, you know, I had no money yet. Yeah. Yeah. It's not about Wolverine boots. I didn't try to make it a Gerber knife ad or anything. I just made a fun story about them. And I get like references all the time. And I mean, it's, it's like, fine. It's not, you know, an amazing piece. It's, it was just a fun piece to put together and all the time clients are like, we love what you did in this video. And I'm like, oh, okay. That's cool. It's funny to tell if you're still still resonates with people. Yeah, dude, I got my first union job for Domino's pizza.

It was my first union job, my first job that was like, it wasn't my first national TV spot, but it was the first national TV spot that like I saw all the time. Like there are multiple times when I would meet somebody and the TV was on and say, what do you do for a living? And I'd say, I'm a cinematographer. They say, have we seen anything you've done? And I would literally be able to point to this ran and said, I shot that. Like it happened multiple times. It was super weird. But.

That's cool. The reason, one of the reasons I got that job is I did a music video that I did. I probably put like three, four grand of my own money into to help with the G and E budget and steady cam and so on and so forth. That the producer on that no budget music video that we were trying to showcase our work, showcase an aesthetic. She was, I think a PM on the,

Seth Lowe (01:20:51.79)
on the Domino spot and the EP was like, are there any newer DPs in town? You know, somebody I should know about? And she said, well, John's has shot this and showed them, I think probably the rough cut or something. He goes, oh yeah, that's great. And he reached out to me and I got the job. You know what I mean? And that was like three weeks after we shot it. Was that the one, the female singer and it had the cool, what are those little window, crystal prism things called? Yeah, it was that one.

Yeah, that was beautiful. That was really, really beautiful. Yeah. Emily Sage, Cold Moon by the Seed. Yeah, I love that video. That was super fun. But because of that video, I got an opportunity. And so, you know, anytime I see something that I'm like, regardless of money, you know, I didn't make any money on that one either, I paid money. But like, you know, if there's something I'm like, hey, we can do something with this to make it interesting and special.

and also have a portfolio piece. I'm more than happy to see if I can make it happen. And you know, my whole thing with working on commercials and doing jobs that maybe I, you know, aren't the most excited about creatively, it affords me the opportunity to create time to do those things. Did you ever go into debt, investing in gear early on, or have you always just been a cash and go kind of guy? Debt. So much debt. Yeah.

Yeah, no debt for sure no, no not at all There's good debt and there's bad debt Bad debt is stuff that you spend and you're you're barely able to catch up with and the interest rate is killing you and it feels like you can't work your way out I bought an Alexa mini a set of Tokina Vista primes and a O 'Connor 1030 DS

in 2017. Might have been 2018. Let's just say 2018. The note for the whole thing was 110. And I was coming from a Blackmagic Ursa Pro, Ursa Mini Pro. And like some, I think I had a set of like ours. Huge jump for me. It was like, you know,

Seth Lowe (01:23:14.638)
That's I've never spent that much money before Is this you know gonna be good, you know that I think the note was for five years something like that it was like Thinking of being like two grand a month something like that I remember being really stressed out about it But what had happened the reason I decided to do it wasn't like I wasn't working and I'm like, oh I if I get an Alexa mini I'll get hired right I had done enough jobs

that we were shooting Alexa minis and those types, you know, cinema lenses and stuff like that. There were three, four day jobs and I would, you know, be looking at the camera orders. I'm like, it's just made like eight, nine grand on this. Okay. And then I do another job like that. I was like, there's like another 10, 11 grand. I could provide all those things and make that money. So I was already doing jobs that called for that.

quality of camera, right? So after it wasn't a lot. It was like, it was probably like three, four months of doing multiple jobs a month where those types of tools are on there. I was like, I need to, I need to do this because it's, it's going to pay for itself. Like it was the Alexa mini wasn't so old that it was going to depreciate really fast in it. And it, you know, was,

It seemed like a good time. The career was growing, the jobs are getting better. I was getting more calls. So yeah, I made the jump and I financed with me. I've always had a partner with gear also. So that was with my friend, Chad Cunningham, who's a director in Knoxville that was one of my best friends. We decided to go in on it together. He would be there to kind of help with the business side of things, taxes, that kind of stuff.

I'm the one that's working it. So I've always looked at gear as can I work it? Like I'm not, I'll rent to other people. A friend needs a camera and can rent it. Like, yeah, sure. You have a CLI. I'm more than happy. But that just doesn't happen a lot. I know I'm the one that has to work it. So that's what I'm looking at. So we made the jump and I mean, everything was good. Like,

Seth Lowe (01:25:34.67)
never really had a problem making the payment. We, you know, basically we worked it out to where one day a month would pay the note. So if I worked one day a month at full rate, we were good. We also would take profit from that, that was above that and buy wireless system or buy little thing here and there, so on and so forth. So we were able to pay that off.

fairly easily, like without too much effort. And then last year, I guess, 2022, I was really interested in the Sony Venice. And so I purposefully on a few jobs said, hey, instead of the Mini, let's try the Venice. So I shot a couple of jobs on the Venice and I was like, I really like this. This is pretty nice. So I decided to sell the Mini and buy a Venice. So I bought a Venice one with

all the things on it. I still have it. I need to sell it because last year I bought a Venice 2 and the Venice 2 we got to deal with Able that was zero APR for two years. So it was like, okay.

with how much I'm working at the scale I'm working, that should be super easy. Plus if we sell the Venice and stuff, that'll also kind of help offset the cost. So I bought the Venice too and so far we haven't missed a note or had to put money in. It's been self -sustainable and it's a more expensive camera per day and so on and so forth. I really enjoy it. I love working on that system.

So, you know, really, if you think about it, I haven't paid a dime for any of the gear, the gear that's just paid for itself. So if you're working and you're able to get those types of tools on the job, you're not overextending yourself saying, well, I'm doing a bunch of, you know, what's the hot camera nowadays? The. Like an FX six, I'm doing a bunch of FX six jobs like all the time, a red Komodo jobs.

Seth Lowe (01:27:43.118)
I'm going to go buy a Venice 2 or an Exeter Alexa 35. I don't think that's a great idea. I think if you're working on the jobs that call for those tools consistently, you can do that. And obviously once you own, if you want to do a job under rate to either help out or because you need to, you can. So, you know, that's also a, you know, if you need to have it generate money, if you're working, you can make it happen. So I think that kind of debt is, is good debt. As long as you know that you can,

you know, provide for it. Yeah, I feel the same, you know, never using rates to subsidize gear really. But when you're on when you're on jobs a lot and you're like, hey, you know, they're they're bringing out an FX six on this job all the time. I only have, you know, an A7S. I could go buy an FX six and start providing these jobs.

Seth Lowe (01:28:40.398)
Do you ever hit a point where you feel like you're sacrificing creative just to get the job done and you know, it's the money's good and the creative's terrible and that's okay, you're just there for the paycheck? Do you go through seasons of that or just the odd job here and there or do you just, it is what it is and you can't control it and you just do it? It is what it is, you can't control it. I feel very strongly that a lot of creative has more to do with the director than it does other things.

Because I've worked on some jobs the creatives not good, but the director is and the director makes it something interesting, you know At the end of the day I like to work and so I am NOT able to be picky all the time sometimes I mean sometimes there's certain jobs I just I won't do just you know because Just because you know, I because I don't like the creative. It's maybe a subject matter or a

an affiliation that I don't like, you know, something like that, you know, I'm not going to do not do a job necessarily because of the creative, but because maybe what it's for, what it's being used for that may not something that I personally want to be associated with. But, you know, if a job is a job,

Cool, but I've always had a mindset that even if his job's a job, how do I make this the best that it can be? I remember when I worked in Church World and I kind of led a team of guys. People would complain about, I always just shoot talking heads. I'm like, okay, so you know, it's church, we do a lot of talking heads. It's kind of like the thing. How do you get excited about that talking head? How do you...

you know, change a technique or a lens or how, how do you invest yourself into it? Even though it's quote unquote, the easiest thing ever. Right. That's going to change your mindset on what work is. And you're not going to sit there and ruminate about how bullshit it is that I have to do these talking heads. You look at every situation is like, how do I grow? How do I do something interesting? How do I do something better than I did last time?

Seth Lowe (01:30:55.79)
And so I've always called that creative equity. How do you generate creative equity in every single job? So I don't particularly care if the creative isn't great, as long as I'm working with good people, working at a good rate, working at a high standard of excellence so that I can grow even in a situation that maybe isn't the most creative or something that's going to do a lot for me in the long.

Yeah. Yeah. I love that creative equity. I think one thing that's important for me is, you a lot of times you get a shot list or, you know, whatever that's, there's some good stuff in there, but you're not like really pumped about it. I always try to find like, okay, I'm going to fight for one thing. You know, maybe it's, I'm going to nail these shots exactly the way the client wants and it's because they have their needs and that's, that's fine. I understand, you know, what I'm here for, but I'm going to pick one spot and it might just be based on how the day goes where I pick them. Like, okay.

We've got a lot done. I'm going to make a moment here. I'm going to fight to get this. Or I know like this one location, I'm going to do something a little different than maybe how it was originally talked about, but just having that one moment that I'm going to fight for my win there and really try to impress people on that and be happy with it there. And it'll make everything else go really well. Exactly. Well, and you know, the biggest asset you have as a freelancer more than anything is your reputation.

I think reputation is everything and so if you have a reputation for if you're not into it, you don't bring your a game That's not good You know I have three rules for for every set that I'm on and it has nothing to do with cinematography and like the art of Number one is don't be an asshole. You treat everybody with respect from PA to EP to client producer, right? You're on time that means

You finish the day when the day is supposed to finish and you're on budget. Now on time and on budget, those are sometimes prep discussions because sometimes you're not going to be on time unless you have more money or if you don't have enough money, you're not going to be able to be as efficient, right? So maybe that's people, maybe that's gear, so on and so forth. You have those conversations ahead of time, not on the day so that...

Seth Lowe (01:33:20.846)
We're not going into OT so that, you know, you're buttoned up on your end to make sure you've thought through everything that you need to do for, you know, turning the world or whatever it is. But if you do those three things, regardless of if it looks good, because that's your job, like my aesthetic, my eye, me saying, yeah, we're good to go. That's, that's the quality aspect. But working with people, if you do those three things, like you will get hired over and over.

Yeah, I absolutely agree. Those are great rules to live by. Would 20 year old John be impressed with 39 year old John? Yes. 20 year old John would be very impressed with 29 at 39 year old John, because I don't think he had any idea of what he was capable of creatively, business wise, family. Like, uh, I, I, I am so lucky.

to be in the position that I'm in. And I'm also so aware that there's a lot more ahead for me that's possible if I keep working hard and staying on top of things and just taking care of business, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Do you think your career and success are the result of luck or hard work? Both. And it's not, I don't call it luck.

opportunity. I think that when you're presented with an opportunity, you can either rise to the occasion or you can fold, or you can feel like the opportunity is too big and be scared of it. And I've learned that when you're presented with an opportunity that you think is too big, you know, you just got to go for it.

you know, and whatever you need to do to feel as ready as possible for it, like that's, you know, that's what you got to do because you may not get that opportunity again. So if you have an opportunity that scares you, you're probably doing something right. You just got to, just get past any kind of anxiousness, any kind of anxiety or fear and just like tackle it on because that is how you grow.

Seth Lowe (01:35:40.622)
Yeah, I love that, man. You've had so many good, insightful answers. Like I think if I were to summarize a lot of yours, you have, you have a lot of wisdom and I think it really shows and it's the grays. So thanks for all the gray. Well, I've made every mistake in the book. So, well, you gingers, man, they, you know, you just kind of keep that red a little law. Yeah. One day. So all at once. Yeah.

For sure. No, seriously though, I appreciate you sharing your insights today. It's been really fun to chat with you. Yeah, I've had a great time. I love you, buddy. It's good catching up with you a little bit. Hey, thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode of The Solo 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.