Megan Commons - I got his number from the call sheet

Meghan Commons, a Midwest-based AC, shares her experience in the film industry and working as a freelancer. In this episode, we discuss her upbringing in a film family, her transition to freelancing in a new market, and the challenges and benefits of being married to someone in the industry. We also talk about celebrating wins, cutting your own path, and building up confidence to be yourself.

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 (00:00.462)
I don't know like anything about you honestly. The algorithm gods served me up into your feed maybe like six months ago and I just followed you and you seemed pretty cool and I was like well you know I'll just reach out. So here we are. I love that. I've had other people ask me to be on the podcast and I'm always like are you real? And so I knew Tim Moore is a friend of mine and I saw that you guys were mutuals on Instagram.

So I messaged him and I was like, hey, have you ever worked with this guy? And he's like, no, we've been like Instagram friends for a long time. He seems really cool. And I was like, okay, so he's probably real. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. So, and then Chris actually, your podcast popped up organically and he started listening to it. Oh, that's cool. That's awesome. And he was like, Hey, is Seth Lowe the one you're gonna be recording with? And I was like, yeah. He's like, I just started listening to that podcast. That's so funny. That's awesome. I have a fan. 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 (01:01.198)
Hey, welcome to the Solo Creative. Today our guest is Megan Commons. She is a Midwest based AC who lives in Kansas City. What's going on, Megan? Howdy, thanks so much for having me on the show. Super excited. Yeah, glad to have you. So yeah, what's going on? What's what's happening in your world currently? Let's see. Currently we are, you know, in the Midwest. It's, you know, it's our slow season. It's a little cold here, so.

Stuff is just starting to roll back up again. We just ended a really phenomenal chief season So that kept us very very very busy last fall with you know, the Chiefs going all the way to the Super Bowl So that was very excited very exciting now. We're thawing out and It looks like you know right now. It's all the with the new tax incentives It's Willie's different features pop up will you know? What's the future for like TV shows coming through? so right now there's a lot of like kind of sitting on our hands waiting to see what happens, but I

Hopefully cool things on the horizon. That's for sure Yeah, that's awesome February and March are pretty slow for me as well I think it's just like that Midwest thing where nobody wants to go outside and I always kind of chalk it up to like maybe Corporate budgets people haven't figured out how to spend their money yet for the year So maybe a little bit of the two, but it might be different if you're in a different market. I don't know. No, that's pretty accurate It's pretty much the same so you're you're mostly doing like features and shows or what what kind of work like what's your daily or monthly?

you know, kind of spread look like on jobs. Yeah, for sure. So my bread and butter is commercials. Um, that keeps me pretty much employed. Um, I love doing features. I did several features in 2022. Um, didn't really have any opportunities to do anything in 2023. Totally fine. And then, um, and then, yeah, now with the horizon of potential, I'd love to do a lot more features. Um, but yeah, so commercials and music videos are kind of my main.

My main role, I like to tell people when they're like, oh, have I seen any of your work? I'm like, well, actually, have you seen that really obnoxious Patrick Mahomes T -Mobile commercial? I say obnoxious because it plays on TV every five minutes where he strips off the suit and the uniform and everything. And all the tight shots of Patrick are shots that I was pulling focus on. So that's my like, oh yeah, you've seen my work. It's on TV all the time. That's awesome. So I creeped your Instagram and I saw you.

Seth Lowe (03:22.894)
hold on a Devil Wears Prada music video and I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. That looked fun. Little jealous of that one. I've actually did, I think six of their music videos. Oh wow. A bunch of them. So Chris, my husband, who's a director of photography, he was D .P .ing and co -directing all of those. So yeah, that was very much fun. They are such a fun group of guys. So yeah. Yeah, that's cool.

Do you know Anthony Barlich? He's a photographer friend of mine. He did their album artwork. I can't remember which album it was, maybe like five years ago. Oh, that's so cool. His name sounds super familiar. I only started working with him post COVID. Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what he's done with them since then, but how long have you been in the industry per se and what was your exposure like to it? So I have a very unique backstory. I was literally born into the film industry.

So my parents are both in it. My dad's a DP. My mom is a producer, well, was a producer slash AD. Now she's a writer and just retired as a homeschool mom. But she still writes and all that. But yeah, so like my childhood was literally growing up on sets with them. Like I have, you know, memories of being like a toddler, maybe not a toddler. I have photoed memories of being on set while my mom's...

you know, over here, I'm looking like a homeless child sitting on like the sets, cause we're in like a soundstage and I'm sitting in the sand in a set cause we were shooting like a Bible series or something. And my parents are shooting on one set and I'm, you know, off doing my own thing. So anyway, so I only have ever known filmmaking and interestingly enough, like growing up, I told my parents, I'll give you a real brief story. I told my parents, I don't want to be a filmmaker.

this is stupid, I never see you guys. Unless we're talking like I'm like 12 years old, like screw this industry, it's the worst. And I said, I'm gonna be a chef. And when you're homeschooled, you fast track. Even though I'm 12, 13 years old, my mom's like, okay, we'll go tour a culinary college. Okay, we'll get you in the back of kitchens and start watching. And then I had the opportunity to meet Paula Deen in person. And this is before all the stuff went down with her. But.

Seth Lowe (05:44.878)
And I idolized Food Network stars. I just loved, you know, grew up watching them. So anyway, I went up to Paula Deen and I said, hey, what advice do you have for, you know, a kid who wants to be a chef? She looked me square in the eyes and said, don't do it. Do anything else. It's the hardest job you'll ever do. Like, and she wasn't like, ha ha, don't do it. She was not kidding. She was like, do it for fun. Do anything else. So, you know, my little 13 year old brain just exploded. Like my idol just told me not to do what I was planning on doing.

And my dad said, well, why don't you come be a PA on my sets? And my mom said, well, any day you go with your dad to set, I'll count it as school. And I hated doing school. So I was like, well, bet, I'll just go with my dad. So I started PA -ing on his sets at 13. Not paid, so that way there was no child labor laws taken advantage of. But yeah, so he was doing mostly religious films at the time, but still.

You know, I got to dumpster dive because an extra had thrown their wedding ring away. I've chased sheep as they fainted down hills. I've, you know, like the things I've gotten to do as a PA was absolutely bonkers. And so that fast tracked my, my rest of my life and I've never looked back. So I've literally not ever, I've never done a different job other than being in this industry. That is, that's super cool. Like I, I mean, that's gotta be a wild experience just growing up in this, in this world. I can, I mean, I was homeschooled and

My dad ran a very small commercial construction company. So, you know, same thing. I was like, I hated school. My mom was like, well, if you work for your dad, it counts as school because you're learning about business and real life things. I was like, well, perfect. Like I'll leave because you know, we go out deep for lunch and that's way better than eating lunch at home. And you know, I can, you know, you're in the dirt on a job site. So it was pretty awesome. I think maybe around the age of like,

14 I convinced my dad to pay me like a dollar an hour, which was pretty legit because I was making like 20 bucks a week, you know, dude Yeah, that's great in 2002. I was killing it. Yeah That's a game stop money right there. Well, we weren't allowed to have video games in my house, but it would have been good Yeah, it's okay. I different types of homeschooling. It's okay. I have a ps5 now. So the jokes on them Okay, good good good. Yeah, I actually I was movie hopping on a job. I don't know

Seth Lowe (08:07.086)
a while back. And well, I was, I was doing the controller. I don't even know what you call it. I was on the thing and the cam op was running around with the movie and I sent my mom a picture of the controls and I was like, see, you should have let me play with video games as a kid because I'm making really good money doing this. So jokes on you. You know, that is actually so true. So when I was working for my dad, he started doing drones and we were doing big octocopter stuff where it was the drone and then you had the different camera control underneath. And

Honestly, it translated because I did grow up playing video games. It translated so well. Oh, totally like that hand motor skills. Yes, the finite muscle like finesse like yeah. I mean, I think pulling focus even is like playing a video game. Yeah, it really is. So it's all that like knowing how to take what you're seeing and translate it into can controls. Yes. And vice versa. And predict where something's going and like have the hand movement. Yeah, absolutely. So you kids play video games. It's good. Exactly.

Do you, let me backtrack here. So were your parents self -employed or did they work for a studio or did you kind of grow up with a little bit of like aware of like, oh, you can work for yourself or you know, what was that like? Yeah, so my, interestingly enough, but for most of my childhood, my dad worked for a Christian production company. Okay. So there's one in Texas he worked for for a while and then he moved us when I was 10 to Kentucky where he worked for a

brand new startup Christian Production Company. And so for the longest time, he was like in a place. I actually did, when we were in Texas, I used to say, let's go to dad's house, which was the studio, cause he'd be in the, cause at the Houston location, he was editing as well as shooting and he'd be gone for, you know, weeks on end, just trying to get a project deadline done. And so it was dad's house. But yeah, so he actually went freelance when I was,

17, 16 maybe, and we started a company together called Visual Poets Studios. Where we would do small commercials and things where he would shoot, I'd be his AC, and then we'd come home and we both would share the burden of editing projects and stuff. That's amazing, I love that. Yeah, so I definitely learned a lot about working very, very closely with my family. And my dad and I had definitely a very fun relationship of...

Seth Lowe (10:33.198)
we would really, really fight and bicker about it at it and like get really mad. And then we'd come up, go away and then come back and be like, I'm so sorry, you were right. The change you wanted was right. No, no, no, you were right. We should do your change. And you know, we would get pretty hot headed at each other because we both are very passionate individuals. And so when I was actually about to get married, I gave a nine month resignation because I was going to move to Kansas city and wanted to give him time to figure out his world before I left. And, um,

NAD came up to us who had worked with us for years and was like, hey, are you and your dad like doing okay? I was like, yeah, actually, I feel like we're we're doing great. He's like, yeah, you guys haven't like bickered at each other at all or like gotten on each other's toes. And so I just want to make sure you two are okay. That's hilarious. I was like, oh, yeah, no, we're we're actually doing great. So yeah, so he it was definitely a wild transition for him to go freelance just because he was so it's.

It's a scary jump from being inconsistent in a studio. So even though I myself has been, I mean, like even though I worked for my dad, I technically didn't get like an employee salary. I was still technically freelance working for Visual Poets. So I've never not been freelance. I've been freelance my whole life. Watching him go from that consistency to freelance, I remember him being very, very, very nervous about that, but it's been great. Yeah. I mean,

I think about that now, you know, with having kids and stuff and jumping into freelance like now would be terrifying, you know, without being, you know, having had that experience like pre -kids or anything like that when the risk is lower. Oh yeah. So, um, how long have you been in Kansas city? So I've been in Kansas city six years. I moved here right after we got married. Okay, man. I was just down there for the Deacons thing back. Oh yeah. Were you at that back in November? Deep week. Yeah, actually my dad came into town for it too. Okay. That's super cool. Yeah.

And I was, I mean, I've known Travis for a long time. He's great. Yeah. Travis is awesome. But I was really blown away at the film community in Kansas City. I just didn't expect, you know, I was like really shocked at the level of people there. I became buddies with Dawson Puthoff. I don't know if you know him. He was just on the show. But yeah, I mean, really, really incredible community and amount of work you guys are doing down there. Kansas City is popping off. It's been kind of really cool to be a part of it. And, you know,

Seth Lowe (12:55.022)
I feel like they've very much embraced me, which I very much appreciate it. I really consider Kansas City 100 % my home. Like it's, it is amazing to see that we have a big indie scene, but we have a huge commercial scene and it's like, yeah, like the Deek Week was really cool because we just had, you know, over 200 filmmakers in one room and you just really begin to realize like, oh wow, like we're, we're actually pretty substantial and get along pretty well with everybody. I mean, we're all.

pretty good team players. I can think of all the ACs in town and we all get along great with each other and there's no beef or anything. So it's a cool community that we have here. It's a very unique thing and want to protect it at all costs. Yeah, I, I completely see that. I remember like I came home and I said to my wife, I was like, man, Kansas city. I could just tell that like everyone I met, there was like this really good community where no one was like trying to compete with each other. Everyone actually had like a good relationship and seemed to really enjoy each other.

And I think that's really special. That's hard to come by. Yeah, it's always like a family reunion when you get all of us in a room. Because it's like, oh my gosh, hey, oh my gosh, hey. There was definitely, as we talk about just freelancing and stuff, when I first moved here, there was a three month period where I didn't work at all because no one knew me. And I was like the new girl in town. There actually wasn't a lot of females working in town either. And so when I'd be like, yeah, I'm a first AC, they'd be like, that's nice, that's cute. Like, OK. Yeah. You know?

And so I actually had to start seconding again under the A -Season town, kind of get to know them. And then once they realized like, oh, you are the real thing, then they turned around and when they double booked themselves or not double booked, but they had like a secondary offer, they would say, Hey, call Megan. And so I really owe it to the local A -Season town because they're the ones like Chris obviously was hiring me because you know, he's my spouse and I really appreciate that. But it was nice to have them vouching for me for other jobs. Yep.

And that really helped me get my footing here when I first moved. So yeah, was that transition, like as a freelancer, was that transition hard going to a new market? Oh yeah. Was it scary? Yeah. Yeah, it was, you know, I wasn't sure what it was going to be like because my husband was already established. And so I was hoping like I could go, you know, hey, I'm Chris's wife, you know? Yeah. But there is, when you kind of come into a new market, people aren't sure if like you're just.

Seth Lowe (15:19.086)
Oh, are you just doing this because you've met Chris or have you been doing this before you met him? You know what I mean? Yeah. So I had to show that, well, no, I was doing this. Like we met on set. Like this is still, you know, what I've been doing. So yeah, it was definitely very, very scary. But we had like, you know, we were, we had our nest egg, we had things. So it was like, he continued to work. And then I slowly.

started that and I because I moved here in September and I think by March of the next year, like when things have gotten busy again, not including the January, February drought that always happens by March, I had started really, you know, the train had started chugging of getting more and more jobs. And again, it was people like Roger Brand at Tom Pease couldn't have done it without them vouching for me saying, oh, yeah, no, like, hey, I'm booked. Call Megan. And that started getting my first AC jobs here.

So I didn't I didn't think about that but I guess it would be kind of hard like marrying an estate someone who's maybe a little more established in your market and Not appealing to someone who's just kind of getting validated because you're married to them or you know them but actually like being You know valued on no, I already have this skill and I can't do it So that was probably it was like a little rough transition I think it was a challenge that I didn't expect to be a thing because that was the question people would say like oh did you get in this cuz of Chris was a question I got a lot at the beginning and I was like, oh, yeah, no, no, actually we met because of this I

even though I was a first AC when I moved to Kansas City, my career wasn't at a point where it really could vouch for itself, if that makes sense. I think if I moved to a new market now, I have, my career is very, very well established. I have a very good resume. And at the time when I left Louisville, I had not worked on as many projects that I think are as hugely eye -catching to the degree that they are now. And so I think that's the other thing that kind of didn't.

I needed to revalidate myself to a new market just because I was also like 23 when I moved to Kansas City. I had started professionally a first day seeing at 18, 19. But that was, well, actually no, it would have been a little later just to start. So I'd only been ACing for a few years even too. So I was a baby in my career. So I kinda needed to reestablish myself regardless of who I was connected with or not just because.

Seth Lowe (17:45.102)
Yeah, now I'm over 10 years into my career, definitely much more established. Yeah, yeah. I think it can be really easy in the internet age to compare yourself when you're young with other, you know, if you break out young creatives, you know, or people that get established really young. And it's, man, just age and time in the game is so important, you know. You can't shortcut those things. No, and I am very, like,

very grateful to have the family that I had, to have the coattails that I had, because I mean, I didn't go to college, didn't go to film school. I was gonna go, I asked everybody I was meeting on sets when I was working with my dad, being like, hey, did you go to film school? Would you have gone back? And a lot of them were saying, like, actually with the groundwork you've already done, I wouldn't go to film school. Like you've already been doing this for years under your dad. So I skipped college, I did all of that and literally just went into the workforce. So.

If it wasn't for my parents, my dad being able to show me the ropes, give me, literally laying out the red carpet for me, I definitely wouldn't have had the opportunities I have today. But literally continuing off of that, I met Chris on a job in Wichita where my dad had gotten booked as a DP. Chris was one of the cam ops and I got brought in as the AC and then was like, oh, you're a really cute guy and you're single? What's wrong with you?

and we hit it off really great, got his number off the call sheet. And yeah, it was a love at first camera job and yeah, never looked back. He was like, I like the way you tie those cables. Yeah, he's like, I like the way you pull focus. And yeah, we did long distance for two years before, well, the one year of dating and then nine months of engagement. And then I moved here. So yeah, very cool. My wife and I did long distance as well. It's great. It definitely pushes you.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, you know, I, I actually, I know a handful of people that, you know, our husband and wife in the industry, but you know, typically they're like, even though they're in industry, maybe they work at two different ones, a freelancer, ones at a agency or, you know, maybe one's like a post producer and the other is a DP. So they're, they have very little overlap. You guys are like, you know, kind of side by side at work. I mean, I'm assuming you guys work together a lot. So is that, what's that like? Is that fun? Is it hard?

Seth Lowe (20:11.438)
It is honestly one of the best things I can think of doing is getting to work with my spouse. It's great because being in the exact same field, we understand, well one, just being in the film industry in general, even if you're not in the same field, you understand that hours are crazy, hours are long. When they say, hey, I'll be home for dinner, actually now I won't be because the client just changed something and now we're gonna go four hours into overtime. And you're like, oh yeah, that happens. Or I have to cancel his vacation plans because I just booked.

this awesome commercial or, you know, so it's like, there's at least a huge understanding for the sacrifices that we have to make as freelancers. So that's nice. The conversations are much more just like understanding of what we have to go through. And then also like buying gear, it'll be like, oh, hey, I want to buy this, you know, lens. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that's amazing. We should buy that lens, you know, so it's definitely more like, I feel like we get to collaborate.

on so much more just even in our marriage because we do the exact same thing. I mean, we don't do the same thing, but we're literally, you know, we're in the same department. Yeah, that's really cool. But I love, I love getting to work with him. I love being his AC. The thing that is unique about being an AC under a DP is that we walk away from jobs and he has a chance or I have a chance to him to say like, hey, would have been really helpful if you would have told me this, this, this ahead of time or versus or vice versa. He'd say like, hey,

It would have really been helpful if you could have done, you know, as an AC, I really need you to be doing this, this, because other DPs, when I work for DPs I'm not married to, they're just not gonna hire me again if there's something I did that they didn't like. You know what I mean? Whereas with him, I get the opportunity to sharpen my skills because he has the ability to critique me to make me better and vice versa. I get the opportunity to critique him and make him better.

Whereas if I was an AC and he did something I didn't like, I just wouldn't work for him again. You know what I mean? So that's been a cool thing where sometimes we're harder on each other because we wanna make each other better. So that can be a little difficult. You can come off a job and you'll have notes for the other and you'll kind of like, I don't wanna hear this right now. And you're like, yeah, but it's good to sharpen yourselves and get better. But because otherwise you come off a job and you think I did really great. And it's not till the grapevine, you're like, oh crap.

Seth Lowe (22:34.99)
Maybe I didn't do as good as I thought I did. So that's a cool element, especially if you can have open communication with each other, that's huge. If you're gonna work with your spouse, being able to also separate our life because it's our marriage and our career, it's kind of all encompassing, like being in the industry, having camera gear. There's a Pelican case right out of frame in our dining room. It's just there's gear everywhere.

And you have to be okay with that when it is your thing. But so anyway, open communication is huge where like one time we were in the midst of a really busy season and we were on the phone and he was like, hey, okay, a DP talking to his AC. I need this camera built this way. We need to have easy rig. We need to have the day in a dolly, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, now a DP talking or a husband talking to his wife. Do you want me to pick up dinner? Do you have energy to cook? Are we gonna do this? Are we gonna do that? And so.

we've had times where we've had to actually like separate out, you know, the conversations or there's times where like, I have a gig, he'll say like, hey, I'm the husband, you're the AC today, let me serve you, I'll cook dinner, I'll do this or vice versa. If he's prepping for a job and I don't have a, you know, it's, he's doing all the pre -pro and I've got nothing till the actual shoot, you know, I'll say, let me, you know, I'm the wife, you're the DP, let me do what I can to serve you. So having just healthy communication has been.

the most important aspect and the most important thing. Man, that's awesome. You guys are figuring that out and have a lot of it figured out because that could mean that could really break you guys down pretty quickly if you didn't have that. We still have moments where we get on each other's nerves, but it's definitely few and far between. We, we, you know, are also very big sarcastic jokers. And so we like to play to have like the play fights and stuff like that. So you got to keep it lighthearted to, uh, to get through some of those really hard days. So do you guys, um,

Do you ever feel like you've gotten taken advantage of like as a couple by production, you know, like, oh, let's just get, you know, people trying to get you for less money because you're together or something, you know, anything like that. Not necessarily get taken advantage of. We did get perks during COVID because when it was like during like early or late 2020, early 2021, when they would be like, oh, we can only have like a 10 person crew. We technically counted as one person because we were one household.

Seth Lowe (24:58.574)
So that means they could actually get 11 crew members because he, him and I would count as one person. So that was kind of a fun time where we would like work the system to our advantage. So that was helpful. And then we also have pitched ourselves to, to different clients being like, we're one hotel room, you know, it's a lot cheaper. Like, you know, we can, we can help with costs in that way. I think for me at least, you know,

Marriage has been really good for my career simply in that it forces me to be a little more thoughtful with what I say yes and what I say no to because your your time value becomes a lot higher, you know, just because of your personal life and then you're you know, you think through risk like, you know, if you're when you're young or single or whatever and there's lower like risk or pressure, you know, if you say yes to a job and it like sucks or the hours are bad or whatever, but you still learn something and have fun like you don't you don't really care. But then if that happens when you're married, like it totally changes the value of the job.

Oh, 100%. Though I am very appreciative of Chris because there'll be a job that I'm like on the fence about taking because like maybe it is like my, like my first feature that I got to like my first union feature I did a couple of years ago, I was very nervous to do it. And he was very quick to baby bird me out of the nest and say, this is great for your career. Shove, go do it. You know, that's awesome. So I do appreciate that. He's always had, you know, my, my career.

best interest and so he's very quick to say no no no you should do this opportunity when I'm like well but I'll be gone for six weeks and he's like we'll you'll be fine go so how do you guys how do you guys like take a break from each other like if you're working together you know obviously you live together so like what what like outlets do you have outside of work we're kind of each other's best friends so we kind of thoroughly enjoy hanging out with each other all the time

He golfs, that's how he gets away from me. He'll go hit the range with the guys for a little while. I'm also a toxic extrovert, so I hate being alone. So in my world, I'm like, I'll just hang out with you. You can come back now. No, I paint and stuff. I spend time in my art room. That's a good way. But otherwise, no, actually, genuinely, we spend a lot of time together and don't actually have that many outlets outside of each other. But we - That's great.

Seth Lowe (27:22.094)
We, I don't know if it was doing the long distance or what, or the fact that we don't have kids or anything. It's just like, we just hang out all the time together. We, he plays like, oh, sorry. We'll like just sit on the couch. He'll play video games with his boys and I'll play my own video games. We have our TV set up mounted on the wall. So each gaming TV. That's amazing. Yeah. You know, so we'll play our own games, but we'll still be sitting on the couch together. So I guess that's probably our most alone time is when we have our headphones on playing separate games, but still sitting together. One of my...

best friends, we game together a couple nights a week and his wife plays and they just have like a TV in the basement and we all play the same game. So that's like how they talk and hang out. It's hilarious. And sometimes like they'll get in a little, a little bicker on the game and it's just absolutely hilarious. That's so cute. We used to game a lot more together. Uh, back when we were dating and stuff, that's how we did a lot, you know, bridge that long distance gap. And then he's got his PS five and I've just, I've got my X -Box, actually I got a switch and that was the end of our gaming together was the getting up the switch during COVID. That's hilarious.

Do you guys, do you look at your careers as like kind of separate businesses and independent career paths or are you intentionally kind of intertwined or is it just if you know, how do you balance that or goals or anything like that? Yeah, so I definitely think we look at them as individual paths. Like especially because like if you think about it, a first AC, I have to work twice as much to make the same day rate as him. Yeah. And so and a lot of productions will bring

you know, we'll bring their DPs in, but not their ACs in. And so like, I genuinely do work twice as much just because of the nature of the position I'm in. So I definitely view my career as its own misfiring entity because I probably work with him 40 % of the year. But also he's very big on saying like, Hey, I know we have this job together. Like I might have a one day commercial with him, but then a five day commercial out of town pops up and he's very big on saying like, Hey, you go take that five day. I'll get,

you know, so and so to cover for you, like no worries. So, which I very much appreciate him being like, yeah, no, go take the longer paying gig or whatever. So I think as much as we are intertwined, we are still very much individuals within it. Whereas like when I worked for my dad at Visual Poets Studios, we were much more intertwined. I did not work outside of my dad, especially like I was younger. I was in my teens, like that was scary to jump out. And - Yeah, totally.

Seth Lowe (29:45.454)
I didn't want to push myself out. I wanted to only work for my dad. Whereas Chris has made a huge point to say, no, no, you should work outside of me. You should make an identity outside of me. So yeah, no, it's, it's yeah. 40 % with him, 60 % with other DPs and other things. And yeah, it's been, it's been good to have our own, our own paths. And it is nice to be able to say, like, come back and say, Oh, how was your day at work? How, what happened on your set? Oh, what happened on my set? You know,

that you kind of get that sense of normalcy that other couples have when they come back and they're like, oh, how was your day at work, honey? Yeah, yeah. No, but there's a lot more relationship that can happen there because you share so much, which is kind of awesome. Yeah. Or they'll be mad. He'll be like, oh, you have so and so on your crew. I wish they were on my crew. Or there's sometimes jealousy back and forth on what jobs we get. So. No, that's all super cool. I mean, I really love that. Is one of you the?

sort of the crazy gear person and someone has to like be the reality check or you guys both have like bad gear habits or how's that go down? I would say he's more of the gear nut when it comes to purchasing gear. I feel like he's always like, I found this great deal. You know, he's always certain. I have a much, and maybe it's something that's not good. It's something I would love to be better at. I'm much better at turning off when I'm not, when I don't have a job.

when I don't have a gig coming up, when I don't have anything. And sometimes I need to be better at that because I've got things like a small list of maintenance stuff I want to do, or even just like organizing stuff. And I have a bad habit of putting it off because I'm like not working, you know, I'm just going to veg or I'm going to, you know, I've got the house to clean or do other things. I put other things ahead of sometimes organization of the gear, whereas he's always thinking about the gear, what to buy, what's the next thing we need to get, what, and he almost struggles to turn it off. Um,

So it's almost like I need to almost be better at keeping it turned on when I'm not like have a gig and then vice versa needs to be better at like relaxing and shutting down and like, so he's definitely the, and I've also already kind of purchased the gear that I need for my career as an AC. I only really need, and the interesting thing is Midwest ACs are different than, you know, coastal ACs. Like my buddies in LA don't necessarily own any gear because they get it all rented based on each job.

Seth Lowe (32:12.27)
Whereas in the Midwest, it's almost expected of you as an AC to own your own follow focus, own your own focus monitor, own your own carts, even own your own camera van. Like almost that's expected of you versus my buddies are like, oh yeah, why would you ever own a vehicle for transporting gear? They always get that for you from the studios or from the rental company or whatever. You're very right in that. You know, I think one challenge that,

everyone goes through if you, you know, as your career grows, as you kind of go to like, like when you start making like decent money, or like you get on those bigger, like longer jobs, you take home a big check is kind of like staying level headed and not get too pumped and like spending all at once, you know, and like, just still treating it like a normal income. Is that, is that hard? Or how did you kind of, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like you go from like, you got a one day job every couple of weeks to like, oh man, I just put in, you know, two weeks and there's a real check coming in. I mean, we try to deviate.

We try to divvy the money up in a way where like gear rentals, like my high five, well, and the high five is a little different just because that's my personal tool, but like the tripod's getting rented or the other monitor's getting rented, any gear rental, we try to turn that back for gear. So it's like gear money in, gear money out as a way to control that budget. And then day rates is much more like what we live off of and like pay the bills with and stuff. Just so that way we still always have the money to be investing.

back into our own company, into our own, I mean, even though we're freelancers, but you know, buying the gear is a part of that effort. So, you know, you need to have that budget in. And so it helps when it's like, you know, okay, I just, you know, made a grand on rentals. Now that's, can be easily be put back into either paying off the stuff that's still being paid off or pushing that towards the next fun piece of gear, because you kind of have to stay, not have to, but it's.

We have tried to stay up to date on some of the gear, some of the brands. Like we just got the new small HD Cine Ultra 7 that just came out. We sold one of our - I didn't know there was a new one. That's cool. Excuse me. Yeah. So they have the Ultra 5, now they have the Ultra 7. We sold one of our, just our regular 707 or 703s. Sorry. We sold one of our 703s, put that money towards getting the Ultra 7 just to be like,

Seth Lowe (34:39.534)
on the edge of that technology, just to look at the other interesting thing, which we can talk about later is branding. I'm very involved in social media. And so some of playing that game is staying up to date on certain gear. Yeah, totally. I know exactly. To look more innovative and to look more involved in the community on social media. How do you guys, I think this is, well, this is something I struggle with. And I think having like a sense of like,

good, bad, normal, I'm failing, I'm winning. As a couple, do you guys feel like you're good at celebrating each other, like wins and losses? Or does it still sort of get lost in the reality of you don't know what's normal because you don't work a normal job? You know what I mean? Yeah. Oh, 100%. I think we're definitely, you have to celebrate all the micro wins because I feel like when you're a freelancer, there's pretty massive losses. Yeah.

just because like you'll have, oh my gosh, I've got this great, I mean, even last year we had several features that we were like, oh my gosh, you're gonna DP them. I'm gonna be your first AC, this is amazing. And then the strike happened and we lost our actors and we lost, you know, and so you just have to like celebrate every little victory of even just getting a phone call, even if you're not invited, like you end up not being, I don't get on the job, but I got at least got a phone call.

which means at least my name was somehow in the conversation. Let's celebrate just that fact that I was at the table at one point. So you almost have to just because it's one step forward, 10 steps back. And it's not even, it's most of the time not even your fault, just like with that movie. The strike happened and one of our actors got pregnant and so she was gonna start showing by the time we were gonna start filming. And so we had to, everything had to stop and they had to reevaluate things. Completely out of your control.

So yeah, it's definitely, I think we are really good at, I love a good, I don't need an excuse to celebrate. I love a good reason to like, let's go get ice cream. We friggin just booked this job, even though it's a one day little tiny commercial, like this is awesome. Like great. We have, we got, I had four jobs in January, January, they were one day jobs. I'm like, girl math, that's free money because I don't expect to work at all in January.

Seth Lowe (37:03.182)
So like that was great. I was like, oh my gosh, that was amazing. I tell my local buddy all the time, January jobs are like double money. Yes. Because it's like extra, whatever it is, it's just worth double. Literally. So I was like freaking out. Yeah. So, and the other fun thing about working with your spouse has been making the most of like when we get to travel for work together, it's like we went to Michigan a couple of years ago to do a commercial.

and stayed an extra day and just explored the town we were staying at and like made a little vacation of it. Or even when we don't have the ability or the time to add to it, just finding like the fun moments of like, hey, after work tonight, let's go out to like a fun bar in town and like just explore the city a little bit before we have to be back at work tomorrow. So that's been one of my favorite elements of working with my spouse, especially getting to travel with him has been making the most of.

you might be exhausted, the work might be hard, but like just being able to like experience it together has been the best part. Even like, I'm gonna go to NAB this year for the first time and it's like, oh my gosh, let's go, you know, explore Vegas a little bit, like just the two of us, like go to some shows or go do some different. So it's just, even though it's a work trip because we're going to NAB, it's still, we're gonna be able to still have a lot of fun doing it together. Yeah, that's awesome. My wife and I.

She traveled with me like early on for the first few years and she would do anything from, you know, she's a, she's actually a stylist by trade. So sometimes if the job had hair and makeup, she would be involved in that. And sometimes she would just, you know, kind of be like a line producer or, you know, even PA or just whatever. But it was just fun to travel together and explore, explore whatever city or town you were in and be together. And you know, we have kids now, so she's just, she, it's just hard. You can't really travel with two kids practically when they're little and, you know, hours are crazy.

But maybe, you know, I think someday eventually we'll get back to that. It'll be cool to like, you know, take my kids out and be like, Hey, you know, are my 12 year old is going to be the PA today or whatever. Yeah, we need more. We need more set brats. Yeah. The next, excuse me, next generation of set brats. Yeah. Talk to us again in a couple of years and we have kids and it'll be like, well, now one of us is always home because the other one has a movie. And so I'll take this movie. You take the next one. I'm sure there'll be a whole different level of negotiation career wise. Once that happens.

Seth Lowe (39:29.102)
we won't be the only ones complaining about the gummy snacks on set. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The kids, every time mom comes home or dad comes home, what'd you bring me from crafty? Yeah, right. How do you choose, you know, between or like, what is there like when you have maybe a commercial job come up, which is obviously much better day rates versus a show that's, you know, I mean, on a commercial job, I would assume, you know, you're probably can make in a day what you might make in like a week on a

depending on the show, how do you choose or how do you prioritize? Like, okay, you know what? The show doesn't pay great, but it's what I'm passionate about and I love it. Or you know what? I'm gonna say no to the show and just hedge my bets on getting a couple of commercial days the same month. How do you divvy that up in your mind or make those decisions? Such a gamble. You have to be a professional gambler. Yeah. I call it the freelance dance. Oh, that's a good term. I like that. I mean, obviously if you want work, book a vacation. That's always the rule. Oh my God.

But yeah, it is hard. I'm actually struggling with that right now, just trying to, you always, it is every time I've taken anything long format, even if it's a two week long format, like, okay, I'm gonna be gone on this, whatever, insert, I don't know. But anytime you have a longer job, there's always that risk of what's gonna pop up. But like you said, commercials pay.

significantly more. I have to look at it all, you know, especially coming from a religious background, I do take my features more seriously when considering. So like I typically do not agree to a movie until I've read the script. Okay. Just because I do have some things that I won't work on. Yeah. And so it's that's obviously like a huge way of.

you know, separating the wheat from the chaff of like, are you worth my time? Also season, like what season are you wanting to shoot? And if you're a feature in January, I might consider that very differently than a feature in June during the middle of my home season. You know, when we're shooting all his commercials, drastically different commitment levels. Are you an out of town feature versus a local feature? Because even a local feature, it's not ideal, but.

Seth Lowe (41:51.79)
you could potentially jump off of it for a day, get a replacement, go jump on that commercial. But if it's an out of town feature, obviously you're not gonna be able to get back in town. So with the features I have taken, and I haven't done a lot of, a huge amount of long format in my first AC career. I did a lot more when I was seconding for my dad. But I ended up being gone for three, like almost three months in 2022.

When I was on a feature and then I had an out of country gig that was several weeks long. And then I had, you know, other domestic traveling, like a commercial in Colorado and another commercial here. So I was kind of gone for a huge shot. And then I had the six week feature in Nebraska. Um, and that was all that three months was all after a whole other local feature that I had did with Chris. Uh, so it was like local feature and then gone for three months. And that was definitely a huge gamble, but the.

It was my first time to do a union feature and I figured the education I was going to get, I was going to be B cam first, um, which I hadn't done for a movie. Uh, and so I figured getting to work under a really great first AC and learn from them, that whole thing, and to do that long format. I, you know, most of my features have been four weeks. I had not done a six week. And so I basically said, whatever commercials I miss out on, it will be worth the education I'm getting.

to do this. Yeah, you know, yeah, that totally makes sense. That's kind of where I gauge is like what, you know, is it a good career move? Is the feature going to be something worthwhile? Is there an aspect to the feature that's extra unique that makes it worthwhile? Like, is it a sci fi and therefore it's like that'll be a whole challenge in itself? Or, you know, is it just another, you know, not just another drama, but you know, is it what, what is it going to allow me to potentially progress better or not?

Because commercials, they pay so much better, but they're kind of not going anywhere. And at least in the Midwest, features are a little bit more rare. And so I definitely consider those a little bit. I take more time to consider them just because the opportunities don't come all the time. Now with the tax incentive, hopefully they come a lot more. But yeah, so that's kind of like...

Seth Lowe (44:11.182)
my process is reading the script or at least getting a good synopsis of the script if I don't read it. Because my biggest thing is I just personally don't want to work on like demon worshipy stuff or like heavy nudity stuff. Those are just personal things I'm not really a fan of, don't really want to make the effort. So I've turned down like some horror movies that were going to be like a little over the top for shock appeal. And I was like, yeah, thanks but no thanks.

And then honestly, most of the times when I've said no and I'm like, wow, that might've been a great opportunity for me potentially, cause it's a DP that's got like all these great accolades under their belt, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've still, even though I've turned those down, I've still managed to get some really good commercials that have popped up. Obviously you don't know that those are there. You have to literally say no with the potential that you may not work that, you know, that time that you just turned down. But I've been very fortunate that some sort of commercials have always popped up to.

cover my butt. Yeah, I think it's man, that's awesome. You have good boundaries about what you say yes and no to. I think a lot of people don't have those and you have whatever they are. You have to have your own boundaries and be willing to say no. Would you describe yourself as like a risk taker or a pretty conservative person? I'm probably a pretty in the middle. I'm a very anxious person. And so I overthink and I get myself nervous that I've, you know,

I think all of us have a good healthy, probably unhealthy dose of imposter syndrome. So it's, you know, oh, they called me. I don't know that I'm actually good enough for this job, you know? And so Chris is like, no, you're, you're going to be fine. You can do it. So I think if I didn't have him backing me, I would probably struggle to say yes to a lot more jobs. I think, so I think I'm not necessarily the biggest risk taker. I think I want to be a risk taker. Um, but I'm probably have too much self doubt.

for that. And I think a lot of us who are freelance have that, at least with the people I've talked to. I think a lot of us, if they tell you they don't have any self doubt, they're probably lying to you. Just because it's, you kind of sit there and think, why would anyone pay me to do what I get to do? Yeah, all the time. All the time. Yeah. And that you always think, well, my peers are probably better at this than I am, or, you know, I'm not necessarily got the skills. I mean, I'm a professional Googler.

Seth Lowe (46:38.158)
especially early on in my career. Hey, can you change the setting to this? Yeah, absolutely. The DP turns their back, you know, and then you're just like, Google, Google, Google, Google. Oh, okay, that's how I get to that setting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. And so yeah, you definitely need to surround yourself with people. If you're not a risk taker and you're not gonna jump off that ledge on your own, you definitely need to surround yourself with people who will help push you out of the nest. Because the best things in my career have happened when I've said yes to jobs I'm terrified of.

terrified of because I don't think I have the skills to go with it. I agree with that. And I think there's like a, you know the saying, fake it till you make it. Oh, I live by that. Yeah. I mean, I think we all sort of do, but I also think it can be like sort of unhealthy, maybe, you know, because I think it can set people up to like create a perception that they actually can't walk in the shoes of the perception they're creating. And there's a difference between like faking it till you make it and.

saying yes to something, even if it's maybe like you're not entirely sure how it works or how to do it, but you are entirely sure in your ability to figure it out and be ready by the time you show up and do the thing. You know what I'm saying? Like not knowing the camera setting and Googling isn't like faking it. You know, it's just like, yeah, I can do that because I know I can figure it out and I know I'm, you know, smart or whatever and I'll work hard at it. And I, you know that you can work hard and you know, you can be smart and you know, you can be prepared, but you're not faking anything. And they're, they're two totally different.

things I think. That's fair. Yeah. It's I think the fake it till you make it just comes hand in hand with my imposter syndrome thinking that I am faking it. But it's really it's you do know the stuff especially if you're technically minded or you know have been around the gear long enough like I'll be on jobs where I was on a Carvana commercial that literally broke me for other reasons that job was just hard because we had four location changes a day and it was a week long gig and the DP and the director kept changing their mind. We had one camera build and it would go from

on the sticks, to on a movie, to off the movie, to on a, to on a, on a, on a steady cam, off the steady cam, back to the gimbal. And it was just like snip, snap, snip, snap. And sometimes for the same shot, they'd be like, Ooh, this should be handheld. Actually, let's make it movie. Actually, let's make it, you know, and that you're just like, Oh my gosh, guys, like make up your mind. Cause it takes me 20 minutes to rebuild this back to the set, you know, or whatever. And, um, but that job, I was like, I don't think I can do this because I don't.

Seth Lowe (49:03.79)
You know, you just get your in your head that they're going to ask something of you that you don't know how to do. But it is a hundred percent that it's sure. You may not know what to, how to do what they're about to ask of you. But if you have the problem solving skills to figure it out, you still can do it. And honestly, I shock myself where I'll take a job and I'll think I, I might end up fish out of water. And then by the end of it, I'm like, Oh, I actually knew everything. I thought, okay, actually I.

actually I do kind of know what I'm doing. I'm not an idiot. Yeah. Maybe I am a professional who does this for a living. And that is getting better. I'm definitely like getting more confident in myself and also with age. I mean, when I was in first AC at, you know, 23, 21 years old, I felt everyone's judgment of my age. And now that I'm almost 30, it's like, I feel a lot more confident in myself and in my career. And now I can take jobs that are just like simple.

commercial on sticks the whole time. And I'm like, oh, easy breezy, no worries. Like this is gonna be, you know, I don't lose sleep, but a lot of jobs there early on and even some of these big commercials, you'll still lose a lot of sleep just because you're like, okay, did everything get set right? Do I have enough cards? Do I have, you know, enough, is everything charged? Is everything, you know, you're just sitting there. Did I pack everything? I'm not gonna get on set and realize I left some of the crucial case at home. You know.

I struggled with, I think, tying my identity to my career and sort of living into that role. I really, you know, because my background is photography, and I really struggled for a long time saying, hey, I am a photographer. I felt like an imposter, because I was young, and I think also the weight of so many sort of the talented legends before me that I was like, well, I'm not.

anywhere close to them. So taking the same title as them felt like literally like I was lying. And so I really struggled for a long time with that. And then I remember my first like kind of commercial ad job I shot stills for was for a hospital in St. Louis and this agency had hired me and it was like a, I think maybe like a three day shoot or something. And you know, like halfway through the first day, the, um, the marketing director from the client side, uh, walked in and I was, we were shooting.

Seth Lowe (51:30.926)
And she was like, are you even old enough to drive here? And I was like, you know, I don't even know what, I don't even know what I said. I don't, I don't know what I would have said or anything. I can't remember, but I was like, yeah, it just kind of like hammered home to like, I'm only 22 and sort of the imposter syndrome feeling that you have, you know, when you, when you do that, it's really hard when you're, when you're young and getting started. Oh my gosh. I don't know how I survived those first couple of years. Cause literally everyone looks down on you.

even if they don't mean to. Yeah, yeah, you're just young. Another thing I think is interesting about sort of our community and industry is, you know, you're pretty entrepreneurial. I think everyone is. If you're a freelancer, whether you realize you're an entrepreneur, you just are. Do you guys have anything else, you and Chris, that like outside of the film industry that, you know, kind of scratches that entrepreneurial itch or other income streams, anything like that?

Not at the moment. I think we're always thinking of what can we do to, especially if we want to start a family, how can we diversify? You know, I think we're scheming about it, but we have nothing, nothing set in stone yet, but it would definitely be a, you know, a good goal. And obviously we enjoy any time our gear gets rented that's on a job that we're not on. Cause then it's like, Oh, this is, you know, free money. We're sitting at home and making a.

grand here on all the gear that just went out on a rental. So that's always nice, but no, not at the moment. But definitely scheming, thinking about it. Yeah, no, I have some gear out on a job right now and it's like, I mean, it's not like a ton of money or anything, but I'm not doing any work and I'm getting paid. So yeah, exactly. It's good Chipotle money right there. Yeah, exactly. It'd be a nice date night money. Exactly. How much do you guys like kind of carry like?

How many months buffer do you guys like to carry? That's a great Chris question. We are very, very fortunate. The house we own, he got way before I met him as a foreclosure. So we have basically, if we needed to survive, like we cut out, trimmed all the fat, all the fun. I think we could last a very long time just on our basic needs. So I mean, I think to live the lifestyle we enjoy living, we try to at least keep.

Seth Lowe (53:54.158)
you know, a four or five month, you know, comfortable nest egg, cause it's very important. I mean, you know, it's, I feel so sorry when I hear filmmakers who, you know, and obviously life and circumstances and not, not trying to bad mouth or anything, but it's just like, I feel bad when I see them having to pick up part -time jobs here or there, because it's just, you know, it, it, they haven't had the ability maybe to create the nest egg that they've wanted. And so I'm very grateful that we've,

we've managed to get quite a good nest egg. And then I think if we really wanted to, we could make that, you know, four or five or six months last over a year if we trimmed everything out, you know, and just went down to basics. And also, you know, the fortunate thing is living in the Midwest, housing costs is just completely different here. Oh yeah, just living costs, gas prices, everything's just a lot lower here. And so to live, we would need not as much. So.

You know, every once in a while, you know, when it's, if like, like, especially like coming out of COVID, we would have budget freezes where it's like, okay, you know, I have a job in the next two months. Let's just not like, you know, eat out. Let's not, you know, let's just really tighten our, you know, just, just because we didn't want to overeat into our nest egg. You know, we wanted to preserve that. And so sometimes we'll budget freeze even earlier than we technically need to, just because we want to maintain this for when, you know,

stuff really hits the fan. Yeah, we're pretty similar here. Like six months of like, we could just kind of keep doing life how we're doing life and probably a year if we're like, okay, we're going to really batten down the hatches here and figure this out. So, yeah, I think that's a pretty, pretty healthy number. Um, do you guys, what do you guys do for like,

Long -term saving you guys have like a sep IRA like how do you how's your business structured? Do you know I'm gonna go ahead and tell you right now You can just cut that question out because that's a Chris question. Okay, that's no I can say like if you want I can yeah, I I'm very fortunate. I married someone Who is business minded I have never been Very well, very good at the business. I think I'd get audited pretty quick if I was in charge of my own taxes so I'm very very very grateful to

Seth Lowe (56:10.862)
my sweet, loving husband who takes care of our business side and makes sure he has made sure that we will have funds for retirement and he puts stuff away to make sure that we'll be okay. So basically when it's tax season, I tell him I will make whatever meals or cookies or whatever he wants because I'm just, that's my gift to him since he has to do our quarter taxes and all that. So I am.

Yeah, I kind of coast when it comes to our financial area a little bit. That's weird, honest, right? So I'm actually curious, since you guys are working independently, when you get paid, do you get paid as Megan Commons or do you always bill it as your production company, regardless of whatever independent work you're doing, or how does that work? So if I'm getting paid invoices, I will pay through Uncommon Creative, so under our thing, or our LLC.

But if it's a time card job, it still has to be Megan Commons. So it just depends on, I think though in, actually I don't know that I wanna say that. I was gonna say in the eyes of the government, I'm technically like heck and underpaid because Megan Commons doesn't make that much. Yeah, we can cut that out. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, so yeah, no, the...

I most of our income does come through uncommon creative just it also makes it easier just to keep track of all the taxes and everything under one, you know, under one roof. And then, yeah, my union jobs or my my time card jobs, we always call free money because it's like we're budgeting. We're looking at our life based on what's coming in and out through the LLC because it's easy. You know, it's our trackable invoices. And then like, obviously, we know what's coming in under my my.

my time card jobs, but it's not the same level of trackable. Like when we're looking at our budget, we just look at this number over here and then it's like, oh yeah, there's an extra couple grand right there because of that thing you did or whatever. And so yeah, it's our, it's our bonus Christmas money. Yeah, that makes sense. That's awesome. Cause also in the Midwest, we don't do, I mean, I think I do one out of every 10 jobs is a time card job. I mean, we're just so much more invoices here. In fact, I had a friend who moved here from LA.

Seth Lowe (58:31.662)
And he had done only TV, I mean, big TV shows, big movies. And he came up to me on our first commercial and he was like, I've never done an invoice. How do I do this? And I was like, it's literally the easiest thing. You just put your rate as a line item and any overtime and done. No needing to know that in and out times. No need to know what time we broke for lunch. No needing to know any of that. So easy. Yeah. Do you, do you just use like a word template or do you have a software or what do you use for your invoicing?

QuickBooks, man. QuickBooks is great. I have QuickBooks, but I use a separate software actually for my invoices. Oh. I don't know. Well, it's called BlinkBid. It's because I produce smaller local jobs every now and then. But then it's actually a photo software first. And it has a really good kind of layout for putting usage rights and terms built into your invoicing.

So it's nice for that, but it's, I mean, you could, you know, even if I just do a simple, like, Oh yeah, I went and cam opt on some corporate thing. It's still a nice, like really basic, easy in the tail. It looks nice. And it puts your logo on top and it's, it's fine. Yeah. So the thing I like about QuickBooks though, is when I'm building estimates is the link you send is still live. So like I'll have like a producer and I are nitpicking, Hey, cut this, add this, do this. And then I can say, okay, recheck the link. So instead of keep having this send it over and over and over again,

they can just keep re -clicking my link, I emailed them and it'll auto update as I change things. So that's been nice to not constantly keep having to feed a link. I should check that out. I mean, I get, you know, a lot of contractors that work for me send me QuickBooks invoices. So yeah, I should, I've just, like, I've just always paid it. The negative is the, you know, when you get an invoice or an estimate has a big number, that big number in the email, like of what the whole over price, like if it's two grand, that number won't change. It's, they have to click on the link.

to then see the new number. So if you wanted to like send them an official one with a new number at the beginning of the email, you have to re -email it to them. But the producers that I've like specifically like we were working in invoice recently, hounding it down because they had budget issues or whatever. And so I just kept, even when I was like out with friends, I could quickly jump on my phone, update the next thing they needed updated. Hey, we need to add extra batteries. Okay, great. Check the link and they could click on it and see, oh, it had changed. But the big main number that doesn't change.

Seth Lowe (01:00:55.502)
in the email, but it changes on the invoice itself or on the estimate. Yeah, that makes sense. I should, I should explore that. Oh, you know, back to Midwest gear ownership. I, I run into a lot of situations where I, maybe it's just my judgment call, but it seems like I tend to bump rates and package gear into things or bundle gear.

I feel like that's kind of a Midwest thing. Do you run into that for you or you're just kind of like burying costs of gear and other things because it's, you know, it's smaller productions here oftentimes and they don't, you don't want to argue with why they're being charged for batteries or something like that. I'm notorious for giving more than what is being paid for because I just feel bad. Yeah. Like my monitors, like I'll rent from someone else and like they'll charge for the batteries that come with the monitors. And I'm like, Oh yeah.

I guess people do charge for batteries. Like all my monitors come with batteries. Like when, at least when I'm on the gig, it might be different when it's renting it outside of me. Sometimes I change, you know, I will be more nitpicky when you're renting my gear separately. But if I'm on the gig, I know what I want to make my life easier. And I know, oh, they may not pay X, Y, Z because budget's tight, but I would rather have that. So like even with like my high five, some of the smaller commercials I'll do, I have a couple of clients I work for.

who, you know, they have tighter budgets, but I love working for them. They're fun. They're, you know, we normally don't even do a whole day of days worth of work. Like they're great. But I charge them my high five for my nucleus rate because they really only have the budget for the nucleus, but I don't want to use the nucleus. Now, maybe if my high five like has a job, it gets rented. Like there has been times where like, Hey, someone calls me. They want to rent my high five for the price that it's actually worth. Okay. I'll take my nucleus to this other job that I already had booked because.

that's what they're paying for. But if the high five is just sitting at home, well, I'm going to take what is better for me to do my job better, even though they're not paying for it. So I do that a lot where I just cover my butt or like I'll take, you know, they might only be renting this many batteries, but I'll take extra batteries because like, well, I don't want to, if some reason we can't get the charger up and running fast enough or you know, whatever, like I'd rather cover my butt and have extra batteries.

Seth Lowe (01:03:15.278)
We have run into several times where we'll both be booked on a job, Chris and I, and my kindness of wanting to cover my butt. I'll take extra batteries, for example, and then he'll call me, like, cause I'll be on the job while he's prepping for his job. And he'll be like, so how many batteries did you take? And I'm like, well, this many. And he's like, well, crap. I needed those for my shoot. And I'm like, oh no. So we have had that happen where like I've done him dirty because I've taken more than.

Technically I've told the production I will give them and yeah, then he's left in the dirt being like, well, now I have to figure out what to do. Especially when I've gone out of town, I get extra nervous because I don't have like my garage or I can't, you know, run home and go grab more gear. So when I'm out of town, I'm definitely take more than I need. And that's when I've done him dirty. Cause he has a one day shoot or a two day shoot. And he's like, you took everything that I needed or.

Aspects of what I needed or like because we have um, we have we use a fax this transmitter system wireless picture system and love it. It's great. We have a one to three receiver and You know, they'll only be renting a one -to -one, but I'll take the extra receiver just in case something goes wrong blah blah and it's he's because we have a well we have basically a one -to -one kit a one -to -one kit and then an extra one that's not as good a signal, but it's a good like

you know, it's a 500 foot range versus our 10, you know, our thousand foot range or whatever, but I'll often take both kits just because I'm like, well, what if the one transmitter goes wrong? What if whatever, and then he'll be like, I needed one of those transmitters for my shoot. So we've had to be better at communicating what each of us needs for, you know, our shoots. So that way I'm not just again stealing because I'm like, well, what if, you know, there I am living in my anxiety. I'm always like, what if, you know, take more than I need. Maybe you just need to buy another VAXIS system. I mean, I wouldn't.

Yeah, I do that a lot though. Like just throw in like extra things like, yeah, you know, maybe we'll use this who knows like I'd rather have it not need it than need it not have it exactly so I You know, that's something I've tried to learn though when I do bigger commercial jobs where you know your clientele is coming from LA or New York and they're just much more Used to being Charged every line item. I've tried to be better at charging my worth not just in day rate, but in

Seth Lowe (01:05:40.046)
making people pay for my gear. Oh, you want that filter? It's an extra $25. Yeah, that's not a much big cost, but I'm trying to be better versus a lot of times when it's local jobs. I have a nasty habit of saying, Oh, you need that. Yeah, no worries. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think too, you know, the more detailed your invoices are, the more money you make simply because, um, you know, if you're like, Oh yeah, I'm 2 ,500 and you just show up with a bunch of gear. Like it's really easy for somebody to be like, well, they're 1500.

But if you're like, well, I'm 1500 and then here's all the gear and it's in there, like, you know, you just have, you have leverage. If you don't give yourself any leverage on an invoice, you're just screwing yourself. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's, I'm still trying to, to learn how to, uh, fight my fight and fight my leverage. And I just had a job ask if I would discount all my gear 50 % to match, uh, what a rental house in New York was doing. And I sheepishly was like, no.

Thankfully it was over text so they couldn't read my voice, but it was like, that was hard. Cause I want it to be, you want to be a team player, but also you, you know, when these big dogs come from out of town, you can't let yourself get stepped on. And that's such a hard, a hard balance. Yeah, there was, I had a nightmare job maybe in like 2018, someone from LA, you know, producing a job locally in.

In some ways, a lot of things are cheaper in the Midwest, but in other areas, rentals tend to be a little bit more. And because there isn't literally a thousand people with Alexa minis in every neighborhood. So, she just was beating me up on rates and I'm like, I'm not making up these rates. You're just, like I was producing, I'm like, this is just what it costs, period. You wanna call the rental house? Do you wanna call all these people? It was so frustrating. Yeah.

Seth Lowe (01:07:36.846)
just for the sake of time here. I've got kind of one more topic I want to throw at you. Are you good on time? I don't want to take up too much more of your day. Okay, cool. So one thing I just wanted to kind of talk about was, you know, specifically, I think in maybe in your role, but it does affect all of us. How do you ever worry about technology affecting your, you know, your career? Like, you know, it's so easy, like as.

Autofocus becomes more prevalent on cameras and camera packages become smaller and all these all these things, you know, is that ever stress you out? You know I get I'm a little less stressed about like autofocus and things just because I don't necessarily fully see cinema cameras Embracing that yet and honestly like the smaller like cannons and things that want to go that direction I'm kind of like, you know, a lot of times they're solo operators and things so I

I mean, yeah, there's always the potential that autofocus could leak more into the AC world. But the part that I'm actually more interested in, a little bit more fearful of, is the industry changing as a whole. Not because of autofocus, but because of where AI is going and where, and I know that's an absolute buzzword right now is AI. But I just had a really good conversation with a buddy who was saying basically like,

fads come and go, like, you know, the 3D fad came and went the, um, you know, Oculus, like everything being like in your goggles kind of came and went and, but fads that didn't go away was when film went to digital. That's not only stuck around, but dominated. It's like, is this AI trend? Is this a fad that's going to come and go, or is this a trend that's going to stick? And the likelihood is it's going to stick because it is a revolutionizing technology and AI.

has an amazing potential to, you know, to coincide, I think, well with creators, but it also has the potential to steamroll. So I'm interested to see just where the film industry or the commercial industry goes. Like, you know, my buddy was saying, like, they'll always need to film Patrick Mahal's endorsing a subway sandwich. Like that, you can't necessarily AI that, but.

Seth Lowe (01:09:55.694)
the people standing in line waiting to get the subway sandwich, the B roll that you cut to. That could potentially be generated. And so like, will we see a shift in like how much content we're shooting, what content we are shooting? You know, our movie is going to be affected by that. I don't know. Maybe, maybe you'll see more principal shots, but all your like wide aerial shots are going to start to go away. I don't know. So I, I'm very intrigued to see where the industry goes as a whole, but my position itself,

I think auto focusing will only aid us. There's the focus bug has a feature that I've, I want to get a focus bug for multiple reasons, but one of it I love is it's got like a 10 one feature where basically if you, cause ACs never get a chance to pee because if I walk away from the fall focus and the DP wants to just not shoot, but just frame up or the actor steps in to do a lighting thing and it's out of focus, you get yelled at. So like you very rarely walk away from your post, but they have a 10 one feature.

where it will just generically keep it in focus, just kind of constantly like rides the focus just a little bit. So if an actor walks in, it's not enough to like full pull off of, cause it's not fast, but it'll just ride it just gently keeping it in sharp. So if you need to go to the bathroom, the DP can still have some, some ability to see stuff. So that there is some aid to that auto focusing that could help us.

Obviously I could be wrong and in three years all the cinema cameras have amazing auto focusing and then all of us ACs are out of a job But I think there will always be needed people needed to build cameras. There will always be technicians needed So maybe it'll be less focus pulling in the future and more just you know Babysitting and managing and making sure the gear is working correctly I mean someone still has to set up that auto focusing someone still has to make sure it's programmed and running correctly Yeah, I I guess it didn't make autofocus was maybe like more than like an absolute but you know, like I

I think one thing that is true is sort of the, I hate calling your like an AC a support role, but. No, but it absolutely is a support role. Well, I guess all I was going to highlight was, you know, I think the first jobs you tend to see get cut on smaller jobs, like smaller productions is like the sound guy or the AC because they're like, well, we can just record audio and camera or, you know, we're just going to rock out of focus and the cam ops are going to.

Seth Lowe (01:12:22.286)
you just work around, you know what I mean? Stuff like that. So that has to be like really, really frustrating at times. I'm sure. The thing I see the most get cut is my second, my assistant. Yeah, oh for sure. So like, I find that even like the smallest commercials will still, at least obviously they're calling me. So it's the specific small commercials. They'll bring me on as a first, but they won't have a budget for a second. I'll do music videos that way. I've done a lot. And especially when COVID coming out of COVID, I feel like we were really good about fighting for our seconds.

and then COVID hit and then we kind of proved not to say we could do it without them, because obviously like I am so much better at my job when I have a second AC. I really, really don't like not having one, but I think COVID proved that like it was possible as much as we don't like that. And so like that does get cut often, especially on lower budget productions or smaller commercials or smaller music videos. Or they're combining a second AC with like a...

media manager, which that's a rate that I will not waste your time with, but I could get on a soapbox about how much I hate that. I know what you mean. I mean, I think it's just a thing. It is what it is. Like how I look at it. I'm like almost all travel jobs too. So I'm just like everyone, they're always cutting stuff because no one wants to put a, you know, a grip in a hotel or something like that. You know, so it's just kind of the world I permanently live in, but I was just, you know, curious your thoughts. Yeah, no, absolutely. But it'll be, you know, I think the industry as a whole,

That's kind of, we always have to be adapting. That's just like, you know, it's a technological, it's a technical industry and technology is always changing. So staying up, up on it and being interested in it and learning it and being ready to adapt is all a huge part of it. Yeah, absolutely. Man, your, your whole story has just been really fun. I think I'm.

I don't want to say I'm envious of you growing up in the film industry, but I definitely think it's so cool and super, super unique. And I love that. And I love your relationship with your dad through that and probably how it's fueled so much of the way you work and what you're passionate about. And I think it's really awesome. It's definitely fun when we go home for Christmas because you know, my dad's a DP, my husband's a DP, you know, it's all shop talk and oh, how'd you like this scene? Oh, how'd you do this? So let me show you this video I shot and.

Seth Lowe (01:14:40.11)
You know, so it's definitely, or he'll, you know, my dad will say things like, Oh, you stole my AC from me. And, you know, it's funny stuff to, to my husband about the fact that I'm no longer ACing for my dad as much. I still will go home. He calls me and brings me back for jobs. But yeah, it's definitely fun to be a family full of shop talk. And even my mom being a writer and a former AD, like she gets it just as much. And you know, they, it is nice that my family understands freelance since they're all our freelancers that we can, you know,

If I call them with a, you know, a question or a woe, or I call them all the time for advice on jobs I should or shouldn't take. And I'm very, very fortunate to have parents that, you know, I feel like a lot of people, their parents don't understand what they're doing and just desperately wants them to get a normal job. Why are you freelancing? Like, you know, are you sure you don't want to work like a corporate America job? And I'm very fortunate that my parents are not only understanding of what I do, but encourage what I do. And.

know that I'm making a living and they're not worried about me. Yep. Yeah. I can't relate to that. The idea of having a normal job never, never really crossed my mind because I knew my dad worked for himself. So I was like, okay, this is working for yourself is normal. Even though I didn't land land in that career field, you know, it just was normal to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's did your, did your dad, uh, review Chris is real when you were dating? Was he like hyper critical? You know, funny enough, kind of.

We had gotten he and my dad had actually gotten to be friends before we started dating because we had worked together and so He thought Chris was super cool thought his work was super cool. And then when we started dating dad was like, oh crap I probably need to be the grumpy like You know dad who's like you're dating my daughter, you know, and so Chris was like wait I thought we were friends like what happened? You know, and then once we got engaged and got married my dad was like, alright, we're back to being like best buddies again and

That's cool. You know, everything's fine. But yeah, no, he's I think they're they have different shooting styles, which is fun. And they they do get advice. And my dad will say, like, you know, what do you think of this lighting set up and Chris will give his two cents or vice versa. And, you know, it's definitely a very unique son in law father, you know. Yeah, that's really cool. That's really cool. Well, kind of last question for you. Do you think it's been harder to.

Seth Lowe (01:17:06.19)
develop your own voice and your own career path growing up in a film family and you know, then marrying someone in the industry or do you think, and if you think it's harder, how have you stood out and stood up for yourself in that and made your own way? One thing I never wanted when I was working for my dad, especially because I started at such a young age, you know, 13 as a PA and then professionally moving into ACing, specifically second ACing, you know,

at 17, 18 when I was getting college age, I never wanted someone to say, you're only here because your dad's the DP. And that haunted me, the thought of that. And so I feel like I had a lot more to prove because I didn't want there to be blatant nepotism. I mean, there definitely was. I was being offered positions and things because it was my dad's set. But I wanted to prove to people that I had the work ethic.

that I was worth keeping around. Even when I was a PA even, I had a rule that I wouldn't sit down, always walk around looking for trash, always doing things just because I was so scared that I would get him in trouble, honestly, and that the producers or people would say, you gotta quit hiring your daughter, she's not helpful. And then same when moving to Kansas City and getting married and working for my husband, it would break my heart if someone ever said, you're only hiring her because she's your wife.

And if I didn't have the talent to back up, you know, back up my being hired. And so that's, you know, I think something that I've worked very, very hard to make sure people don't. I mean, I'm sure people have said it to each other, you know? It's something that's gonna be said. I am aware that I have had phenomenal opportunities because of who I'm connected with. And I don't wanna be ignorant of that.

but I also want to very much have my own career and my own voice. And I feel very confidently that I've achieved that, especially with the resume that I have nowadays and the opportunities that I've been able to jump onto on my own. But definitely during the beginning, cause my whole career was based on following my dad around, that haunted me. The thought of that being said haunted me. So. I mean, that's really cool. You're aware of that and paid attention to that. And I think that's probably.

Seth Lowe (01:19:30.542)
one of the key things and probably your success and where you're at today. You know, cause if you hadn't been aware of that and just, you know, written coattails, you wouldn't, it wouldn't be here. I just hated the thought of someone ever saying a NEPO baby, where it's just like, you know, your dad's the CEO. That's why you're the VP. Like that's something that like, obviously that's like a corporate phrasing, but yeah, but it's still true. You know? Yeah. It's, it's especially because the first AC is such a powerful position. Sure. We're not necessarily the director, the producer. We're not those people, but.

I mean, everyone knows when you mess up, like you're still leading a department. You're still, you know, very much in charge of what you're in charge of. And if you mess up, if you mess up a camera setting and now you've just recorded everything in the wrong format or, you know, so there's still a huge amount of pressure. I have like anxiety after every job. I'm like waiting for that phone call of like, even though I'll know I've done the job right. I've done everything perfectly. There's still that like, did something go wrong? Am I going to get a call?

Or, or did I pack a piece, you know, did all the gear get packed away and shipped off? Right. Did everything make it back to its original location? Um, you know, there's still always things if you're an anxious person, stuff still haunts you. But yeah, no, I, it's, I, again, like I'm, I have a very unique story. People ask me all the time, how do I get into the industry? And I kind of laugh and say, you know, I may not be the best person to ask for that, but I have, I mean, to segue into what would, you know, advice would you give other people? I always say be a PA.

I mean, it's not always fun, but like being a PA gives you the opportunity, especially if you're a young person, you get to learn set etiquette because even though if you go to film school, film school is great. It's a great place to connect with people. It's necessary to make connections and learn the basics, but they can't teach you set etiquette. And that's something that's almost can't even be said. There's like, it's such a nonverbal thing, but growing up on set and seeing set life, my entire existence, it's something that's so important.

how to speak to people, when to speak to people, when is it appropriate to do things, you know? How to deal with your higher ups, how to deal, you know, it's the joke of don't make eye contact, but kind of, depending on who you're working with, you know, don't go talk to the actors, don't, you know, all X, Y, Z, you know, go be a PA, go learn set etiquette, and then hone in on what you wanna do, you know? I pick your path. I think that, and my mom used to always say like, dress for the job you want, and I hated that because I didn't want a job, but.

Seth Lowe (01:21:57.006)
I mean, you know what I mean? Like I wanted to like play in a band or something. I was like, well, that means like jeans with holes in a mom. But I think what is important and what has kind of stuck with me from that is being ready for the job you want. So like, you know, have a multi tool on you, you know, or like an extra roll of gaff tape or something in your car that you can like, you can be the guy that like solves the problem or just like be on your feet. Like if you're sitting down, you're not going to be ready to grab something quickly or like be the guy that like jogs to the truck and doesn't just like, you know, check your Instagram while you.

shuffle to the truck, you know, those little things. I mean, they just, they just stack and build up and go such a long way. A hundred percent. Just being aware. That's something that it's also easy to get lax in. And I think I've even struggled sometimes recently because I have managed to get so far in my career where I'm at, where I'm on a job. I'm comfortable. I get, and that's honestly something that's happened with jobs that I'm on with Chris, because I know Chris has my back. I know we're doing this together that I sometimes get laxed.

And then I do find myself getting distracted or maybe checking my phone a little too much, or because it is an environment I'm more comfortable in. And that's something that I would love to get. I need to get better at is cause when I'm on, you know, jobs with DPs I've never met and stuff, I'm like, best behavior can't, you know, you can't mess this up. But then I'm like, oh, I'm, you know, it's Chris, like he's got my back. So that's something I even need to be better at, at getting back into is, is keeping myself alert even when comfortable.

Yeah, it's hard to do. All right, well, Megan, thank you so much for coming on. I had a blast talking with you. It's been really fun just getting to know you and hearing how your career has evolved. Thanks so much. Yeah, thanks so much, Seth. This has been a fun opportunity just to talk about everything going on and the wild, wacky worlds of being a first AC. Yeah, well, I hope your next production goes really well. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. You have a good day.

Seth Lowe (01:23:51.214)
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 thesolocreativepod. Hit us up with any questions or suggestions for show guests. Thanks and have a great week.