Evan Rogers - Living your dream job and leaving LA.

Happy 10th episode! Evan and I talk about building a community, finding a role in the industry, and his first internship as an assistant editor in high school. 

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 (00:00.43)
five or six episodes into the show, I realized that I'd just been wearing this hat in every episode. So now I think I'm just going to lean into it and it's just going to be the official. That's great. I know I it's so funny. I have a haircut right after this and I would have, I would have had nice hair, but I went for my John Deere hat today. Yeah. Well I would have had nice hair, but I just didn't take a shower today. So that's really, yeah. That's great. Have you seen the, there's like a meme and it's like the, the

time of day you shower based on your career and it was like freelancer 3 p .m. and I was like actually that's pretty accurate. That's accurate. Yeah that's really accurate actually. Hey welcome to the solo creative a podcast for freelance filmmakers and photographers who want to become more successful at the business of freelancing. I'm your host Seth Wohme.

Seth Lowe (00:51.726)
Hey, welcome to the solo creative. This week we're talking with Evan Rodgers. Evan is a freelance filmmaker and entrepreneur based out of South Carolina. What's going on, dude? Nice to see you, man. I'm excited for this. Yeah, me too. So we met, um, in line at NAB, but we had already talked on Instagram a little bit, but it was totally random. I didn't know we were in the same line to go to the aperture party. So that was kind of cool, dude. Well, and, and not only that, I mean, that's exactly like.

what better place that we could have met at NAB instead of at one of the booths, but at that sick party, it was the one thing that's probably the one thing that I left NAB talking about the most to people. Really? Is how bad that event was. I mean, there was so much to take in, but I think it's just how interesting all of that future stuff is going to be with them. I'm really excited about it. You know? Yeah. I've got some of their gear. I mean, that's what I'm lighting with right now. It's pretty cool. I think like, you know, even

10 years ago, it felt like impossible to be able to attainably light things. If you didn't have, you know, a couple of crew members in like a two ton truck. And now what you can do out of like the trunk of your car is pretty for a couple of thousand dollars is really on household circuits. A lot of times for a good number of there, you can put a good number of fixtures on one now, which is pretty wild for the output, you know? Yeah, it's really awesome. Yeah, for sure. But that was a great party. And you know, one thing,

One thing everybody should know is your boldness that during while we're all waiting out outside of that party, before we got into that party, there's probably a line of a couple, maybe, maybe 200 deep at that point. And Seth's going handing out, handing out QR code cards for the show and explaining what it is. And that's good marketing right there. That's hard to do. It's really good sales too. I'm not really good at doing door to door, but I respected you a lot more when I saw you doing that. That was hilarious.

Yeah, no, I just figured, you know, boots on the ground. Here's, here's people that could listen. Let's just go do it. So what else? You know, good way to kill half an hour. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's great. My I think my most interesting takeaway from NAB was the pure lack of AI. Like, yes. I you know what I mean? Like, I didn't know what I expected going in.

Seth Lowe (03:07.598)
But if you spend any time on the internet, you know, this past couple of months, you know, there's like really a doomsday vibe with creatives and you know, it just, it just felt like, you know, everyone was kind of AI is taking my job. It's all over. This is the end. And, um, it didn't, it didn't really have that. There was nothing AI that stood out to me quite honestly. I would say that that was a real.

Like I don't know how much that was being talked about on the floor. I didn't hear it all that much, but it definitely was the subconscious thing that was like a, I don't know. There was a lot of happy people at any B and I thought that was really cool. I thought a lot of, and there were a ton of creatives that showed up to that. I wasn't expecting that many. I think that probably was their most attendance post COVID I would think by now. Yeah, I would say that was dude. It was an impressive.

thing. So for anybody that doesn't have any idea, I mean, that's the Las Vegas Convention Center is, you know, close to a million square feet. They had three full exhibitor halls full of different stages of production, you know, and some kind of mixed around. And I mean, all three of them were pretty much full at any given time throughout that entire four or five days. And yeah, you wasn't bumping into people. Yeah, yeah. And they're randomly it showed to I think that our our world is so much smaller when you realize like,

Oh, there's, there's, you know, even as somebody newer starting out, you could recognize some people, either YouTube figures or, you know, just even friends or mutuals. Like you and you and I were mutuals through a lot of people and you got to meet my entire, our entire crew of guys out here. Like that was super sick, but the AI topic wasn't really there. There was a lot of virtual production talk, which is natural. I mean, there's so much advancement there, but you know, I was, I was concerned a little bit about.

like where that would be. And it always seems a little cheesy to me when they're pushing it so hard. But I heard somebody say this the other day, post NAB that I thought was interesting. And it's not these companies, it's not the production companies that are pushing the AI stuff as much that we have to worry about because I think they're always going to be kind of more creator friendly. I think it's more bigger picture the people that are actually creating all of the artificial intelligence.

Seth Lowe (05:26.03)
away from the production space that are saying, hey, this is going to take everybody's jobs. It's going to make us more efficient. But to see the show out of people was sick. I mean, it was so awesome to see so many production people stand up and be there. You know, that was cool. Yeah. It was super cool to just be constantly running into people. They're like, Oh, I know you from this Facebook group, right? You know, I've seen this thing you've done on Vimeo and it is just super fun to connect with a lot of people. It was so awesome. It was great. I'm definitely going back next year. I want to, I want to get a bigger group.

Yeah, I know. I keep inviting people. I'm like, we did like a, an Airbnb with five people in it this year. I don't, and I'm like, yeah, it was definitely the way to go. Cause we could all, you know, hang out and just like make breakfast and coffee in the mornings and kind of talk about our days or whatever, you know, we wanted to do and who we met and stuff. And yeah, good way to socialize without having to go anywhere, you know? Yeah, that's awesome. Awesome. So how long have you been in South Carolina now? So it's been three years out here. Um,

June actually is three years. So almost officially three years. Yeah, that's cool. It's been a really, really great journey. I tell people that me and my wife, Emma moved here for life first, which you'll probably see as a real, a real theme with people post COVID. I've just seen so many people that just felt like they needed to have that kind of change of pace and lifestyle and said, okay, work's gonna, work's gonna find its way around that. You know, I'll figure it out type stuff.

And I grew up in LA, she grew up in LA. The two of us kind of felt like we had this kind of unique perspective on it because we grew up in it. So we really were close to it. And I mean, I grew up right near the heart of where all the studios I grew up in Burbank. So I grew up kind of like where all the studios were. And I, you know, it's obviously amazing. It's amazing to go out and see that, you know, as a kid, you go to Universal or you go to Disney or you do whatever. And.

I have a dad that works in the industry. So I kind of grew up around in the post sound world cause he's in post sound. And, um, you know, it was awesome going to the lot. He was at Disney when I was a kid. So it was fun to go visit Disney and all that stuff. But as a kid, you don't have a concept for what your dad puts in to provide for you in that world. There's no concept of, wow. Okay. First of all, yes, I know where my dad is during the day now.

Seth Lowe (07:48.142)
You know, as a kid, awesome. He gets to be here. Wow. This is amazing. You know, I mean, like that Disney, the Disney campus there is so it is so Disney where there's birds flying around, like all the all the little squirrels and stuff are all friends with everybody on the lot because they feed them and it's so funny. That's hilarious. That's awesome. But what I didn't what I did see and he knows this now because we've talked about it is just the challenge of him being in his not nine to five more like a seven to seven.

or longer every single day at the mercy of clients in and out whenever they're there. And him being there for so long, even though we only lived 10 to 15 minutes away, I grew up in a house where he was gone before I woke up and came back when I was asleep my whole life until I got older. And when I started setting up later, he was there, but he was always wiped out. And so I kind of always wondered, would I get into it? And I think,

the editing side of things, we could get into that later. That's how it kind of started. But I didn't know if I was going to stay union is the point or try to go union is the is the point I'm trying to make maybe at some point in the future. But that's why I'm not there anymore, because I realized so much of what I built my early career on was non -union and I was able to get it going. And so when COVID hit and everything went ultra remote as an editor at that time, I was just like.

Uh, do I have to be here? I don't know. Do I, I mean, do I have to pay for this lifestyle if I don't have to even been be in this market? And then it just proved to me once we came out and visited out here, how life was, it's so different and, and calm and, you know, people are just really, really approachable and kind and like all this stuff was new to me. I never really saw that out West where it's just so hustle and bustle. Yeah. And that kind of planted a seed of like, I wonder if I could do something else out there. You know? Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, I lived in California for a year after college and I mean, I loved it in a lot of ways. I mean, it was, it's obviously it's beautiful and having beach access and mountain access and outdoor life is really phenomenal. And I met a lot of nice people, but it is kind of like everyone is business first, uh, friendship second. And you know, like after like a year, I was kind of like, I don't know if I can say I actually have any true friends here. It's just like,

Seth Lowe (10:11.406)
Sort of a sort of a ladder climb game here. And that was kind of tough. Not that people are rude or mean, you know, you just, you just kind of know you're in the friend circle until someone better than you can replace you is how it kind of always felt. Wow. That's, that's heavy. Yeah. I was describing that yesterday. No, no, but it's, that's the truth. I mean, I was describing that yesterday. The best way to look at it is just that you've got, you have this kind of it's at any level that you're at in your career, starting out there.

you know, if you're a runner or a PA or whatever, and however you step your way up the ladder, or if you start in post and you're an editor or whatever, you start your way up assistant, you're always gonna be competing against at least a thousand or more different yous. Whereas if you can go into a market, like, isn't kind of the point of, like, this is a deeper thing that we can talk about later, but isn't kind of the point of us being filmmakers that we have a unique voice.

And when you're competing against so many people that have similar skillset, you kind of feel like you don't have that uniqueness. So then it feels kind of like you're just another tradesman. And that's what that to me is what the union system seemed like to me was more like a trades based thing, which is great because they're all highly skilled and you're represented, you know, your rates are represented. All of that stuff is important if you're going to do it full time. But what's changed is this whole YouTube boom that we're in right now has really.

Breed it a whole new side of this business that is successful and is doing more commercial based stuff or, you know, maybe more in the doc space, which we could talk about later, different things like that, that don't really require you being. And you can, and like you were saying earlier, even just with the aperture stuff, that's more accessible. All this prosumer stuff came out. That's made it more accessible for people. Like you said, to not have to just go in and buy a whole two ton package, the old school way with HMIs and, and tungsten and all that stuff.

Now you can do, you can get away with like a little, you know, starting out, if you just start out and you want to DP, you can get away with a little three light, you know, system and you can have one camera and you can have the resolution of punch in and out to where you can make something convincing, figure out your price point and then grow your crew as you, as you grow and kind of, so it's weird. It's, you know, obviously you got to, there's a business side of it. I think that was one of the things we want to talk about later, but you can represent yourself. It's just a matter of like, how do you.

Seth Lowe (12:35.342)
Climb the ladder and how hard do you want to work on building it? You know? Yeah, totally. I mean, that that's kind of always been my mentality. I think really the biggest challenge in that sort of regard is like the YouTube thing or just completely going on your own. You have no idea like what to charge, how much money you should make, what time it really takes. And so I think the trial and error is a lot higher on that side and you definitely make more mistakes, but it is very free and you're not sort of like, you don't feel like you're in the system.

so much, you know, it's the independence. I mean, that was like what drew me that the independence of it. And you have a family, right? Yeah. So that's a huge reason that I think I love and really, really admire and love my dad now that I'm an adult even more than I ever did, because I understand this business now, especially being most of my career has been in the post side started as an editor.

then grew my operations to where now I have like the growing, growings of a post -house going right now where I'm working with other people on that front. But it's, you end up getting, gaining more respect for what he was able to do, what he's still doing as he's finishing his career and why it was such a challenge for him to be home and be present. I get that now.

And now that's what I covet where if I'm going to have to, cause the hours are never going to really fully go away. We all know that the hours are always going to be high. There's always going to be that demand. There's always going to be us trying to figure out how we can give to the client even more or whatever it is or how we can up our craft. So those are those extra hours unseen, but at least I can be around, you know, more or less around my future family. Like we're talking about that in the coming years anyway.

we bought a house out here, like stuff like that that didn't occur to me out West. I don't think we would have done that. It's, you know, frankly, until maybe mid thirties or forties. Yeah. I don't think we could afford to buy a house out there. Oh yeah. That was why I moved back. Yeah. Rental is like the same price as my mortgage. So I'm, I'm like, I'm happy to own and be a little bit inconvenienced from, you know, if a client, if a client wants to work with me, which is that point earlier, and they want me to be.

Seth Lowe (14:47.374)
out there, they fly me out. It's not that hard of an exchange. And then I don't have to live in that lifestyle if I don't want to. However, my buddy Lucas is here right now. My DP buddy is here. He flew in last night for a job out here and he lives in Carlsbad by the beach and he pays about the same as me. That's a little bit hard for me sometimes because I'm like, okay, he has a great lifestyle right there. I don't mind that so much. So there's definitely things. I think it's just urban downtown, you know.

LA is a lot to deal with, but otherwise it's amazing. You know? Yep. How long had you been freelancing in California before you moved out?

Not at all. Oh, okay. I never started fresh. Okay. So what are you doing then? I was editing. I started editing and shooting little videos on a camcorder and then what became my first OG, um, the first GoPro HD hero, which is sitting up here. I still have it. It's all sticky because it was in like, uh, it was like in an enclosure still for like a really the one of the water housings for like way too long. And it's just like lack of air and now it's all like, yeah, the really yeah. It's like starting to bubble up all the, um,

Anyway, but I started cutting and doing stuff when I was around 10 and started getting some little, you know, following my friends would love to watch videos that I would do on my YouTube that I had started when I was like 13. And by 16, I got asked to come intern at a little production, you know, house, little broadcast house that was in my city, right outside of Burbank area.

And I saw that and I was like, wow, this is like a huge opportunity, even at like 10 hours a week making like, I think I may be made just at minimum wage, like barely 10 bucks an hour for those 10 hours. So I was making nothing like $400 or whatever a month or a week or whatever. And I was just like, I was looking at it and I was just like, this is so such a huge thing for me that I'm able to work at this age, even if it's literally nothing. And even if I'm doing grunt work, I do not care. I just want to be here.

Seth Lowe (16:50.51)
Yeah, that's cool. I stayed through high school. So I would have been my I think soft end of sophomore year into junior year. And then I stayed there until my senior year of college, because I stayed in town for college went to a small school. And then I went out to the coast and worked with LinkedIn Learning for a little bit. There was a sister company startup that birthed out of that that had kind of recruited me for a little bit called made craft. Does that sound familiar? Do you know what that is? I think so.

Well, I met a guy, he was like an internal director producer for LinkedIn and they were doing like small business profiles. Were they part of that same thing and they were like traveling all over the country doing like kind of like mini docs and stuff like that. Oh, no, but I do know them. I do know that group. I do know who you're talking about. No, it's similar though. It was the guys that were the two of the producers that were at Lynda .com when the merger happened. Oh, that's what it is. Yeah, I remember. I think I had a Lynda .com account. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, same.

That was what I was like learning all my after effects on and then it was incredible. Yeah, dude. It was awesome. And LinkedIn learnings is been great as well. It's also great. I think they've just pushed products so much. Like they're, they have so many courses in that library. I think Lincoln's, LinkedIn's capacity was like close to a hundred courses a month or 50 courses, new courses. It was pretty wild. So two producers from their left and started their own startup and basically negotiated with LinkedIn to.

be able to create our own IP courses that were R &D courses for LinkedIn, which I thought was kind of cool. So they had topics that they were looking for that they just didn't really want to try to test in their market. So they gave them to us. We owned the IP of them. I was the first employee there. That's where this whole thing is. I was not a partner and helped grow their post operation for the first year and a half. And I think we did a hundred and.

10 courses or something while I was there. It was wild. It was a grind and start -ups like really taught me a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot. You were what? Like 22, 23 doing that. I was 20. Yeah, I was 21. Okay. Yeah, I got that. So I was like my first like real prior to that. I had just done some simple broadcast. This was like my first like, okay, here's systems. Here's how I can build a software kind of thing around, you know, a little bit of how we function. Um, and

Seth Lowe (19:11.63)
I had some, we kind of had some disagreements and I kind of stood up for myself and got let go, which was telling to me and it really lit me on fire for like, okay, I don't care what happens next, but I'm excited to try to figure out what we're going to do. And me and my wife were like ready, so ready to not be in LA anymore. We just needed to get out of there. And so we started to kind of.

road trip around because we had the COVID unemployment and the stimulus and all that stuff. So we were like, we don't have a place to be. Our lease just went up like literally right then, right when I got let go, the lease was up and I'm like, we don't really want to sign for another year. Let's just go road trip around. So we went around the South and while that's happening, I had applied for all these jobs, but it was during that weird hiring freeze that was happening. So.

I applied to at least 40 places, only got an interview at one, never got a return interview on that. And I was just like, I'm done with waiting. I'm not doing this anymore. So that was when clubhouse was really hot and I was on there really early before anybody was somehow I got on there like right within the first two to three months. And, um, it was, it was great. Dude, it was, it was so great at the beginning. Cause there were like so many important people on there that would jump on and you'd learn so much from them. And then.

you would just start connecting with all these creatives. And I met a good amount of creatives on there that started to freelance with me, as well as some existing ones that I already had. And I just dug deep into relationships. And as we're road tripping around, we come up and visit Greenville. My friend Nick Worrell was up here. He was from LA. And I was like, how are things going? You know, I've always wanted to check this area out. And he starts showing me what he was able to do as an editor remote and that nothing was really affecting him as far as being out there. And I was like,

Wow, this is super interesting. Okay, so three months later, we just jumped. We were just like, let's go. And the freelance kind of kept building. And one qualifier there though to say is like, I was doing anything I could do for whatever price at that point. Anything to build some sort of momentum. I was doing like, I was starting to color for people for hire at that point. I was doing music videos for like 200 bucks a pop for an entire video. Even if it took me like a week, I was still doing that.

Seth Lowe (21:28.942)
And I built a, what I learned though, was I just like the startup, I built kind of a lead generator through that. And now all of a sudden I could pitch that to other artists and other directors and all that stuff. It became easier and easier at the beginning. I didn't have enough product that represented me, but then once I did, it was way easier to be like, okay, that 200 buck video. Now my systems even are more efficient. I could do that in two days. So then I could stack five to 10 of those a month. And that's not too bad. You know what I mean? That's close to 2000.

then I could keep building that and I could start, you know, and then what I kept doing and we could talk about this later is I just kept putting a bug in people's ear to think about what they could do. And I started seeing, I started seeing people actually go through with it and they would attach me onto stuff. And I was like, Whoa, that was crazy. All right. So maybe I can pitch too. So then at that point I could start seeing, I would never be able to really go back, you know, and it's grown over the last three years to be a lot more stable where I can see.

this change happening, because I know you want to talk about the business side of it too, but like I can see this change. This change really happened now where I'm like, okay, so this is, this is stable. This feels like what I had before. I just need to work on building the relationships to a point where it's not one offs all the time. And they'll always be one offs. If you can, if you can stay within and build a relationship over a lot of time.

It could turn into you helping pitch something that's a legit idea and then it stays as a part of your workflow for years. You know, pretty cool. Those like, like low to no budget early, early on projects are really great spaces to kind of start building your own workflow and just work on how you want to do projects, how you want to kind of add your own voice to it, how, you know, just practicing communicating with clients, you know, they're, they're very low risk ways to learn and grow very quickly. A hundred percent. We all do it. Yeah, totally. Totally.

Um, how, so, you know, you, you said, was it three months from jumping from getting laid off to the move to Greenville? Yeah, more or less. It was pretty much January of 21. We came out and visited at that. We had left on a road trip around February or March. Um, and then we just were on the road until about April when we first came out here and then moved in June. So it was pretty over that six months or so. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Were you, um,

Seth Lowe (23:50.222)
Or were you kind of trying to hit the local scene a little bit and build up a lot of local contacts or were you not too worried about that and just more focused on total, total remote. And this is just a great place to live. So that was where I started for sure. When we first got out here, I was like, well, it's just going to be.

remote, everything's going to be remote and I'm going to be cool with that. And, you know, I was pretty much focusing all my effort on post. I was like, let's just build this up. Cause that's, that's where I'm getting business. And again, it was easy to do it remote. So I was just like, let's just stay in that zone. But then I met Max and my buddy, Max Huggins, who you met at NAB, he and I connected through just, this is another thing that you just never know what's going to happen in this business through, you know, relationship building and stuff.

One of my contacts through Clubhouse was one of his employees out in Denver. So I'd never even been or met Max at all. And his name's Jordan Chapman. You should look him up. He's super dope on Instagram. He's super route. He shoots in Orlando. He used to work for UCF and then now he's doing stuff for Orlando magic and stuff. He shoots a lot of sports and cool stuff. Jordan was me and him were talking a bunch and he was just like, dude, you have to meet Max. He's moving to Greenville like.

this the same week that you're moving, he's going to be moving. And that's how our friendship has been since then. It's just been this like weird. We are so in sync, this weird timing thing where that same week that we both landed there and he's from originally from the coast of South Carolina and never lived in Greenville, but he has family up here now. And so he was like, yeah, we're done with the hustle and bustle of Colorado. We just want to be he was in Denver.

He was like, we just want to be somewhere where we can raise a family. And so the two of us met at a brewery that week and we were like, hey, you know, let's, let's just talk, get to know each other a little bit. And then what are you thinking of doing here? It was a really quick question. We both kind of saw that we were doing something, you know, stuff was growing and he was like, well, I just went freelance.

Seth Lowe (25:55.566)
I'm really trying to, you know, invest in this area. I really want to see what's going on. And I was like, yeah, me too. I was like, do you want to do like a meetup or something? Cause we couldn't get a meetup going in either of our markets previously. And he was like, yeah, let's just do it. So that, that meeting of two there became a meeting of four, like a week or two later. And then word of mouth just started happening and we built this little network right away there that I never expected to be there. So imagine, imagine, you know how that feels probably like you're just sitting there and you're just like,

How did, like, who are these people? I have no idea who these people are, but somebody would just bring a friend. And then you're like, wow, this person's great. Oh, this person's awesome. Like, whoa, they're doing that. I didn't even know, I didn't know how much production was happening out here at all. But then I come to find out that there was actually a good amount of talent people here. In the Southeast, like just, there's a lot of talent out here. And so we grew that and we kept going. We would go every Tuesday night for the first year. We were going every single week and...

All of a sudden, there was, you know, by the end of that year, we'd probably met close to 100 people out here. And then that next year, it was close to like, you know, 200 or so people. And now we're still doing it. We've just backed it off a little bit. But that was like the ultimate test for me to figure out who was here and who what people I might want to collaborate with locally. There was always once that started, there was always an intention for me to do something here.

I just didn't know what it was and I wasn't going to stake all my income here. You know, you'll probably hear that from John and some of the others too. They love living here. They're not trying to put everything on this market because it's not there yet. But then that led to me and Max starting our rental package, which is starting to grow and more and more people are using that. And so you never, you never know. That was like, I didn't even have to reach out to Jordan back in the club. Like we were in the same room a couple of times, our clubhouse. I never had to reach out to him, but I did because I just, you know, you never know.

And then all of a sudden he connects me to somebody who I'm in business with that is one of my closest friends. And we collaborate on a lot of production, a lot of posts, a lot of everything. So that's like the power, I think, of the relationship building. And when you're a new little, you know, a new fish in a pond, you got to do that stuff because nobody knows who you are anyway. So you got to put yourself out there. Yeah, I love the sort of bottom -up approach to building the community there. I mean, what were some of your...

Seth Lowe (28:13.742)
Um, did you have any goals or challenges in getting that off the ground or did it just sort of happen and you just kind of went along for the ride? Um, I don't think there were challenges with the meetup necessarily. It's called Greenville film society. Um, for anybody, any listeners that are near this area. Um, I don't think there were challenges there. I think it was more trying to figure out like what the market needs was something that me and Max had tried to figure out and what we're still trying to figure out a little bit. Um,

You know, I think we started our rental package around the kind of community that we were building and definitely saw like, okay, so there's people that will use this, but they're probably mostly just using a lighter too. They're not really using our full kit at any point because I don't know if they know the full power yet of using that out here just cause there's no formal training unless you're in Charlotte or Atlanta. I don't blame anybody. If you're learning on YouTube. Yeah.

If you're learning on YouTube, there's not a lot of resources. You could learn, but there's not a lot of resources to put hands on stuff. So me and him were like, well, we both need it. So we're going to do it, you know, just to have it. We're going to just, you know, I think we both, we both put in a certain amount at the beginning, bought an initial amount and then grew. And now we've got a trailer and now we have a physical space and all that stuff. But, um,

It's been a challenge figuring out what the market wants and forecasting where it's going. But we're both in so many conversations now of where it's going that we're getting a sense of what's coming here. And it seems extremely positive with the amount of investors that are putting money in this region, the Southeast, and the amount of Atlanta people that are kind of starting to spill out of Atlanta. I think we talked about that. Atlanta's kind of starting to spill out.

people are going to check out Charlotte cause it is part partially union town. They can get into some stuff there, but everybody has to go 85 North or 85 East or whatever it is, 85 North of thing to get to Charlotte. So they stopped right in through Greenville and a lot of them love the way that the city's laid out. You know, it's pretty, it's calm and stuff. So, but there's a lot of bigger conversations for sure. Let's talk a little bit more about the community. Then we'll jump over to the rental side a little bit. Um, so.

Seth Lowe (30:27.598)
You guys started this community. You just invited people that grew organically. Is it purely like a social hour or are you trying to, you know, you sort of give people the floor or highlight, like remember the community each time or what's it, what's it look like? Our approach is go hang out at a brewery and don't pressure anybody. Yeah. And that works really well. And I think we've, we've done, we've done times where it's a little more formal, but what I think we've wanted to create was a safe space.

And I think that's really good because it really is just guys coming to hang, you know, you could ask John or Taylor or any of those guys come out every time we do it for the most part and they just come and kick it and there's no agenda. But what I've noticed and I'm sure you get this because I know you're you're really focused on relationship building and stuff. You end up seeing that that's the right space a lot of times to make a mutual connection of some sort or to spark an idea or.

I noticed in the formal circles with creatives a lot, everybody kind of goes like this. And I just didn't feel like that was the space for us right now. We might be able to add some more formal stuff, but we wanted people, I think, to feel like we were approachable for starting this as two people that are not from Greenville. And so we kind of did the least risk that we could and didn't want to come in and be like, hey, these guys are from the West Coast. They're going to come and, you know, they're trying to talk down to you because there's no way.

with the talent that I've met here, there's no way that that would even be possible because so many people have just been waiting for their chance here that are so freaking talented that have been doing so many proof of concepts, trying to get people to see them and all this stuff. And I'm like, man, this is just, this is the coolest, you know, there's so much talent just waiting to kind of, so you don't want to, you don't want to put any sort of pressure around that sort of stuff. At least that's my viewpoint on it right now. You know? Yeah. I was just going to ask, did you feel like,

maybe like a poser at all coming in, being like really young into a new community and trying to start a film group or you just didn't, I mean, any, did you get any flack or anything or you just went for it? Yeah, a little bit, but I mean, who cares? I mean, we just, we know what, you know, like our little crew of guys who you got to meet at NAB, that's like our closest group. They, they are all trying to make opportunity happen for other people all the time. There's such an other centered focus thing.

Seth Lowe (32:47.182)
going on with our really close -knit group of guys that I don't see the need to worry about all that stuff as much because I know where everybody's heart's at, you know? And I think that's really important to have that kind of others first kind of mentality. I really think that's important because then you can build a really equitable and strong community that...

believes in each other and doesn't try to challenge each other. You know, maybe like some of what we talked about with LA where it's just inherent that you're going to bid against somebody for a job. Yeah. And that becomes this nasty kind of, you know, you said it, you don't really know if you ever have friends there here. I feel like I'm friends with pretty much everybody that's in our group. There's nobody that feels really intimidating to me out here. That would be somebody that I wouldn't do business with because of that, which is cool. You know, we've met. I probably met a good

I would say now I've probably met over 300 people out here that are working. So that's great. I would have never guessed that much. They're not working local. I would say most of them are working. Some are working local, but I think most of them are traveling and doing jobs all over the place. You know, I think that's so important to build a space where people can kind of break down their walls because I think it can be no matter where you're at, you know, other creatives, you can always feel a little like, I don't know what the right word is. Maybe like.

defensive or just a little cautious because you don't want to give away like your client or what works for you and in any market, I suppose, doesn't matter what size it is. And you have to remember sort of all on the same side and the same team. And, you know, the, the more we all know, probably the better we're all going to be. And it's going to slowly benefit all of us. I mean, there are definitely people in moments. There are people who are a little more shark -like, you know, and we'll definitely try to take advantage of you, but in general, I think it's really important to have transparency is better than.

isolation. I think growing together is the most important thing like horizontally, look at look at who you're in this with, and just say, hey, at any point, if you've built enough trust in a relationship with any one of those people, if they are jumping a level, everybody's going to kind of come with them. That's the thing that I've noticed if you're pushing people, you have to push each other, you know, like, if you're pushing people, and you have a tight relationship with all those people, you're gonna you are going to level up.

Seth Lowe (35:08.302)
pretty quick and it's going to be with the I'm with you where I'm like, it's not competition at that point. Even if one of my buddies gets a job and I don't bring him, he doesn't bring me on or I don't bring him on or whatever. It doesn't matter to me because it's so amazing that they are even getting on something. I love it. The further that they push it, you know, the further that they push that relationship, it opens up eventually a bigger opportunity. And I've seen that happen, dude, from doing $200 music videos.

what that created to where some of those clients now are like, hey, we wanna work with you on something bigger. Like we're trying to pitch something bigger for you to produce, something bigger, something bigger. You get people thinking about creating opportunity, which is all of what our business really is about, is creating opportunity for yourself and others. But I just try to look at that not as I'm going out there trying to make it happen for me. I just don't believe in that, you know?

I think there's a lot of power to and especially like in a small market or if you're doing a lot of one man bad and gigs and you build a community and you can go to a client say, Hey, you know, for an extra 500 or $1 ,000, you know, we can bring in a whole nother person that can help light this differently. And it's going to completely elevate your, you know, your, like your project and your product. And then you're getting someone else local income and working together and you're getting on, so you're collaborating together and it is a really great thing to do. Yes. I'm, I'm.

fully in agreement, it's epic. So when you started freelancing and then moved to a new market, did you really just kind of own the I'm an Editor role or how did you, how did you kind of, you know, there's sort of like a chain of layers of people and you know, where, who you market yourself to and where you fit in the, fit in the timeline of a project. Did you, so how did, early did you own something or did you just kind of take a shotgun approach and see what stuck? I definitely came in as a post guy.

because I think that has always been a strength. And I think anybody that's in post knows that, that there's so many people that don't want to do it. That if you can claim that side of the market, that's, I would say the majority of people out here are camera people. So for me, I was like, Hey, I needed to, you know, me and Max needed to get G &E going cause there's not many grips or electric out here. So we're trying to figure that out. And the other part of that was post. So.

Seth Lowe (37:25.358)
I would say that a lot of my post clients, especially it's obvious, are pretty remote at this point, but there's so much growing here that could lean into using a post house at some point, which I'm building the early stages of that. I'm like, all right. So again, it's the same game. If I have enough product to show like showcase, you know, and I've got a couple of features that are done. I have, you know, I'm working on an episodic show right now, like different things like that with my company. So once Greenville gets there,

or somewhere in the Southeast, I mean, that stuff's gonna be here. That stuff's all gonna be available. And there's so many amazing talented people that are, you know, sitting in the wings ready to go and have enough product to show. It's just that bigger conversation always of like, you need something like the meetups or something to represent all these people eventually when a bigger company comes through and is looking for people. And the state and stuff is really starting to push, like the film commission in South Carolina is starting to get more and more funding.

And I've been in touch with them as of late, trying to figure out like how to get more attention on Greenville. Cause there's a lot that goes to Charleston. Charleston's way more established. They're shooting Righteous Gemstones and what's it called? What's the show about? Oh, Outer Banks. They're shooting the two of those down there at any given time. So they get a lot of that grant money because they're shooting down there all the time. But there are so many people up here that are professionals and are moving from all over the place that.

You know, there's some real talent up here for growth, you know. But yes, I was a post guy. Yeah, do you think that was like vital to your success or like, I think it can be really hard to pick something, especially like early on, you know, a couple of years into it when you're like, well, I like filming and I like running a camera. Maybe I like writing. I like, you know, you like all these things and it's really, I mean, I still struggle with it and I've been doing it for 15 years. You know, I like doing all the creative things. It doesn't mean I'm good at all of them, but I definitely enjoy the process of all of them.

And it's really hard to just like, be like, no, I'm a post guy or no, I'm just, I'm a sound guy or whatever it is and really own that. Like, do you think that was kind of important to you? Having a kickstarting really well. Yeah. And I try to tell everybody to start there. I tried to tell everybody, I mean, everybody's naturally going to gravitate toward camera. There's no doubt everybody will. And either whether you end up just being an operator throughout your career, or if you actually learn how to light and you can inform that as a DP and stuff like that, that's amazing.

Seth Lowe (39:50.99)
But I just look at where the saturation points are in our field and so many of those, if you don't already have the clientele, are in camera side. And it's so, so challenging to keep that up and going, especially with the commercial landscape changing so much. It's really challenging. So if you know how to cut, there's something to fall back on. And I try to tell even actors, like I've been talking to actors about you gotta learn how to cut. Even if you're just learning how to cut your self -tapes,

that's enough for you to learn at least the software. And then if everything went to crap and you had no other option, you can get on these like Fiverr or there's so many companies that are hiring in -house that you could get a stable job at any point if you needed to as an editor, but they're not really hiring camera people. A lot of times actually there is that still stigma of the 60K a year in -house do everything thing. That's really prevalent that I'm not a fan of. But if you can get...

if you can get an editor role in house, that's not the worst thing to get you going. And at least you have stable, stable income. But even as a freelancer, I've noticed that everybody needs it. And the more DP friends and more camera friends you have, the more opportunity comes your way. And it's not calculated. It's just that that's what most of my network is. And I noticed that from a young age, how many of my buddies were better at shooting and lighting than me. And I just was like, well, I love story. I'm good at story. So I'm just going to stay in that lane. And I think post is the best way to do it.

when people are not hiring a director. That's the other thing is when they're not hiring a director, most of them, most production company heads are the director. So they're just going to stay in that role. So what's second to that to me? Okay, well, maybe producing, which I do a lot of now because it's in the same vein, but then post is always something. And what I notice now, Seth is like, you can, you can attach post. So anytime that I get hired to produce, now I'm not just producing top to bottom.

but then I'm also adding my post company and I can add my rentals if it's local. So if you can think about diversifying your income a little bit more, that all started with me sitting at 16 years old, 10 hours a week, cutting as an assistant, like not even doing anything. But if you're willing to sit with that process, I think that's the thing that always, you hear from all the old heads is like, you just gotta work your way up. I think working your way up is a little different if you're non -union and you just do it your own way.

Seth Lowe (42:15.502)
Yeah, it's not creative. You can start as an editor right away. You're not going to be an assistant editor, but you just got to figure out how to. And like you said, pricing is a huge part of that. That's a hard part of starting. Well, I mean, yeah, that is. But I think, man, that internship, I think really impressed on you a lot of super valuable ways to think about where to make money, where to plug yourself in an industry, how to add value, not just from a work standpoint, but as a personality standpoint and a relational standpoint. And those are first chance you've had them. Yeah.

Dude, if you have a chance, don't blow it. If you're making money doing this, I mean, that was the thing I could not believe when I first got my first paycheck. I was like, this is ridiculous, dude. I'm doing the same thing I did at 10 years old, sitting at iMovie with my little camcorder, but I'm getting paid for it now. I can't mess this up. That's what I kept thinking in my head. I just can't. I can't. At 16, I'm like, I cannot mess this up. Even though I'm playing varsity sports, even though I'm going to school, I cannot mess this up.

But that also showed me there's flexibility in our business because I was able to do that. I was able to work flexible to deadlines. You know, I'd have a deadline every week. Yeah. But it's not about the hours. It's like getting it done. I could do two hours one day when I had some free time and go over to the office at any given time of the day. You know, like it wasn't it wasn't crazy. So having that flexibility so important with our business, we're able to kind of do what we need to do. That's something.

Nobody understands that about how important that is with freelance having the ability to cut out and be like, Hey, I'm not working today. I'm going to go do something for my mental health or I'm going to go do something with my family or whatever it is. You don't even realize how big of a deal that is until you don't have it. Like if I didn't have it again, I would hate my life so much. I'm so grateful. I would take not working for three months if it means I'm stressed, but I'm with my people or I'm with, you know what I mean? That's something people don't talk.

Yeah, we, uh, my wife and I went out for dinner maybe like two weekends ago and we, we drove in to, so we live in this little town called Morton. That's outside of Peoria, Illinois, which is pure is like a couple hundred thousand people. And we drove into town at like, I don't know, like right at five o 'clock when everyone's getting off work and like everyone there's just like this rage, like the way everyone drives and you're like, and I'm, you know, I'm pretty.

Seth Lowe (44:35.982)
pretty chill and you could just tell it's like, oh man, this is what it must feel like to like to finally be free after like five days of just like being, you know, locked in a office or whatever. And I was like, my God, like I couldn't do it. No, not at all. Yeah. Yeah. That would be tough. Does your dad still work at still work at Disney? No. So he's so first of all, he's re recording. So he kind of he does the full mix master for shows. Okay.

His latest, his latest that I'm really proud of him for is he just did fall out and that was, I don't know if you've watched it yet. It is epic. It's so epic. If you're a gamer too, it's super good. I mean, really, really good. And he's he in the last couple of years has really like gotten to a stage where he's doing the bigger stuff. He's always been on the lot and doing things like that. But, you know, as when I was growing up, he was like restoring all the old.

Disney classic films and like all that was so cool. But more recently, he's been doing like the epic stuff, which is really cool. He doesn't do any movies though. He's all TV. At least in the last almost 10 years, he's done mostly TV and streaming stuff. So, but yeah, anyway, where were you going with that? No, I was just, I was just curious. You know, it's funny. I'm pretty sure the guy in front of me at in line at the aperture party, he worked at a game studio and he was the art director on world, like the, you know, all that.

Like the general world building art director. I don't, there's probably a more specific title for that, but I think he did fall out for Beth Seda. That's the gaming company that runs it. Okay. Really? I'm pretty sure he did fall out. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I would have met him. Yeah. If I do it, it is an incredible project. It is an incredible project. We were sitting there just kind of like, okay, this is like, this is on par for me. The quality wise it's on par for me with breaking bad, which is my favorite ever. So I'll have to check it out.

It's not as grounded as breaking bad. It's a lot more fantasy kind of vibes, but it's awesome. All right. I'm going to check it out. That's cool though. I mean, so I, you know, I didn't grow up anywhere close to the creative industry in any, any sense of the word is your, is your dad pretty proud of you or like, what does he like, you know, is there pressure to go into the creative industry or totally your own choice? Um, he would never have forced that on me. My brother's also in it. He's an actor, um, younger. He's younger than me. He's finishing up school right now, but.

Seth Lowe (47:00.686)
I don't know. I don't think he ever like impressed on us to get into it because obviously he would showcase what the lifestyle was like, you know, and would tell us about what it's like, you know, and how hard it is. And I remember him always saying like, you don't want to what he would always say is you don't want to be at the beck and call of clients the way that I am. He's like, I'm a skilled tradesman, but I don't get to control any of my destiny when it comes to this.

I'm here to sit and push buttons and listen to how it sounds. And he does it incredibly. I mean, it's so amazing. I don't know how he's able to do what he does, but he is literally like, they basically are like tuning a piano every day. That's what they do. But they have so many strings to be able to, I mean, you know, there's what 86 keys on a piano or whatever it is. So, I mean, it's literally just like that where he's managing all the frequencies throughout that entire thing, that entire soundboard. But, um,

You know, I think he just always tried to impress on me, especially to not just be that tradesman, but figure out how to how to, you know, put my creative more in the forefront, which I think is really cool. He was always telling me to be a writer because he saw that I was trying to create ideas a lot. And he was like, writers don't have to sit and do this. They're the ones that tell us what to do. And they're the ones that come up with the long term strategy of of what a project is. And.

I think he was trying to say, try to go originate your own projects, you know, even if I'm not directly writing them. I can write, but I'm not writing that much. But even if you can be the guy that knows how to put everybody together and take it top to bottom, it's huge. But my dad's a quieter dude, so we don't like talk about that very much. But the couple times that he said that growing up, it meant something to me to think through because he saw me editing. And when he saw me edit, he was like, okay, that's really smart. Because he knew, I think he saw that a lot of editors become...

producers or directors eventually. So I don't know. You know, it's weird. My brother didn't take any of the, he just went for acting. My mom's also really like in the, she's more fine art and she's like an amazing designer and stuff, but she's never did it like at a, at a big, you know, industry thing. But yeah, it's definitely in our blood. But you know, I don't think my dad never gave us tools to do it. He never set anything up. I always, that's why I'm always like very cautious to talk about it because. Okay.

Seth Lowe (49:23.15)
I don't want people to think that I got set up from my dad. My dad said, if you're going to do it, I'm not helping you. And that's, that's what we did. That's cool. I just had a, do you know Megan commons? That name sounds kind of familiar. She was on like two or three episodes ago. She's like, I grew up in the industry. My dad was literally a DP at a big production house. So I have, that's all I've ever known is being on set since I was a little kid. Yeah. But I never want to come across like something was handed to me and you know, she actually moved away.

from her local market, you know, because she wanted to establish herself and be like, no, I can do this for real. I actually have the skill. I'm not just, you know, here because my dad's here kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Sounds familiar. That's what kind of what I was, I think, deep down seeking after was doing that. Yeah, I think, man. So like, you know, I grew up in the Midwest and I think that's such a different mentality. You know, if you grew up in the Midwest, the idea of having any any sort of creative career is almost like.

It's like a joke, you know, it's like it's not possible and like it's just a pipe dream and like, you know, you'll never make it in a practical career is like, yeah, go, I don't know, go be a brick layer. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. It's just like, I'm not like, my point is it growing up for you in the proximity of successful creatives, the idea of having a successful creative career is totally normal. Like that doesn't seem like a pipe dream. And that's such a different mentality for me where like, yeah.

being a freelancer for me. I have a lot of respect for you. Thanks. But I mean, like for me, it's like, it was like a pipe dream, you know, it was like, this is impossible. And it's just so funny that it's, it's not impossible. And it's just like the way you grow up, you know, I had that in, in just the fact that like, I would talk about running my own business and that was the pipe dream. Okay. So I think it was like, my dad was like, yeah, I could probably help you get set up in the studios, but I never wanted that.

I never wanted that. I wanted to figure it out myself. And there were times where I'm sure he was like, what are you doing? And especially when we moved, there was a lot of that. He was like, what do you do? Why are you leaving this? Like, why are you leaving it behind? But I just had this sense that there was something going on in my life that I needed to pursue. Obviously lifestyle was first, but I also felt like there was something drawing me when I got here. So entrepreneurial when I saw most of our city being small business and, um,

Seth Lowe (51:49.23)
I did a recently organized Tedx event here with my buddy Kaipo, which was totally a different side of my brain. And that's where I met and learned a lot about how the city actually functions. And it made me really feel more empowered on the film side to know what resources are coming, what's not here, what I can do that hasn't been done here. Like to the point where I met with the mayor, the mayor had me and Kaipo, my buddy out to talk about Tedx.

And that's something that I don't know if I would have gotten to him if I was going with the film pursuit right now. It's similar out here to Midwest where it's like they're just waking up trying to figure out what creatives do and all that stuff out here. It's never happened really in the South. And so there's there's ways to get in there that you're like, oh, OK, so now I can be a part of growing things is what I was trying to get to. Right. I can be a part of making my staple in a different couple of different ways that really, you know.

Let's me gain ground is what you were trying to get to. I think earlier, like gaining ground here before stuff really explodes. Cause there is so much growth here. It's ridiculous. It's definitely a hop, a hop in place. I think the attitude here is like, uh, the best example I could give is like someone sees a website and the website has like some photos and some video and some design and it like, there's obviously copy in the website works and.

people kind of think like one person does all of that. Like, oh, this is a creative person. And they say like, they, and it's like, no, like all these things, it's like, there's different, there's different people, you know, it's so like, sometimes like for me, like, or at least starting out with the kind of clients I had, you're like, no, like this is like 10 different people. Like I can do the photos or the video, but even that takes multiple people sometimes, you know, and then like, you got to find a web guy and a designer and a.

You know all this stuff. It is just like a lot of its education. Yeah, that's what I've learned is a lot of its educating clients on that stuff And I would say I don't know what's harder educating clients or clients that are educated Because then they actually know like I don't know what I would prefer like a lot of LA people know What spends are for that stuff? Yeah, and sometimes they will know what the lowest price is So then they're fighting for that out there because they are educated

Seth Lowe (54:04.974)
versus somebody out here might not wanna pay just cause they have no idea. But if you can get them to understand, that's what I do a lot of locally if I'm asked to bid for stuff out here. I just try to let them see what can be achieved like you were saying earlier by bringing a couple of people on, by actually bringing our lighting package on, like how much of a difference that is. And that's good cause that trains you how to be a good salesman I think. Whereas if everybody knows, like how many people wanna go make a coffee shop promo in LA? So many people wanna do that.

Yeah. And so many people will go shoot it for free. And now they're, they're totally accustomed to knowing that they could get a free promo. It's like a Hollywood movie. They've given up on like, we don't need to pay for this. So why would somebody's going to come shoot it? Yeah. I'm guilty. Yeah. I mean, we've all, we've all done it. Yeah. We've all done it. We've all given tremendous value away for free. Yeah. I think you kind of have to, at some point, I mean, like I did a, I did a video for, uh,

like a men's retail store that has a motorcycle vibe here in town. And I did it for like basically free. I think they like paid to like license some music or something. And you know, the value of that is, you know, multiple thousand dollars or whatever, but it helped them out a lot. And I get so many clients that are like, we love that piece. Can we do something like, you know, they refer to it all the time. So you got to have a couple of those. And I'm a huge proponent of doing a proof concept if you can do it your way. Yeah. And that's exactly what it was. Yeah.

It's awesome. Yeah, exactly. Do you have a sweet spot in budgets? There's kind of that range where you're like, oh, man, if it's typically any smaller than this, it's going to be a headache, or it's going to impact a better project that's probably going to happen. Or if it's over this, it's exciting because the number's big, but the stress actually ends up making it not worth it. Do you have anything like that?

Yeah, I think it's different for post. I bid post completely different because I have so much more of a reputation in post. So I'm able to get a little bit more than what I used to get. But usually what I try to do and what I tell people is I just try to make sure I establish what I want my going rate to be. And then I multiply that and then I figure out what career rates are and all that stuff if it's production. So a lot of times if it's like a day shoot,

Seth Lowe (56:24.654)
or maybe a little bit more, maybe a two day shoot, but mostly like I base a lot of stuff off day shoot stuff and then, you know, however many days in post or whatever. If I want to do it at the level I want to do it and I want to bring a DP and I want to bring a gaffer and want to bring sounds, like even just a little four man unit. I mean, I'm trying to get for that stuff, trying to get, you know, if I can 10 ish around there, 10 to 15 range, depending on what's available and depending on how many deliverables. Yeah. Right.

Exactly. So if there's a lot of deliverables, that's where that kind of becomes like an add on. I think most of the time I can get a good like three to four main unit for a day at like 7 ,500 or something like that, including myself. I think that's a pretty good range. Yeah. I think recently one recently I was able to do for. Yeah, I think that's right. Just around that 65, 7 ,500 or something a day. That's no, that's no rentals. That's just labor.

And I think that's totally fair because I can bring a pretty high bar at three to four people. Yeah, totally. It's not my top bar. But I also think that this kind of eight and above man crew thing is kind of dwindling right now. I don't know unless it's like, I don't know, higher commercial doesn't seem to pay for it as much anymore. And, you know, like we were talking agencies, we kind of talked about agencies when we saw each other at NAB and agencies are kind of like in this weird middle ground right now where.

their companies that hire them are not spending the 250, 300 range or more for what used to be a 30 second spot in all deliverables, including that's top to bottom everything. Yeah. Now there are testimonials and like 10, so it's cut downs and yeah. Well, cause influencer marketing has messed everything up. Influencer marketing is so important to brands now that I was talking to Lucas, my buddy about this last night. I'm like, dude,

they are making these, because we were watching NBA playoffs last night and I'm like, the only reason that there's any of these is because they know like these higher end looking commercial things. It's for brand reputation, like for aware, like people to know that their image is at a high bar. But second, it's really like an afterthought placement now for them to put it on TV. So they, like advertisers have never had a better time to be able to convert.

Seth Lowe (58:35.15)
than now and if it's influencer marketing, if it's somebody that they know and it's somebody that you've scrolled on your feed and you can freaking click it and order in like two seconds, that's crazy. They've never had a better opportunity. So I think that's why the Superbowl sucked this year because all the advertisements were like right here. You know? I saw something recently and it made a lot of sense and this is, I suppose debatable, but they were like, if your video is vertical, it's for like directly connecting with people.

But if it's horizontal, it establishes who you are. And that's like a funny way to put it. Yeah. It's like a funny way. At first I was like, Oh, that's weird to think about. But then I thought about it a little more. And I was like, yeah, that's so true. Because I started thinking about, you know, a lot of these like smaller brands that have popped up, you know, the e -commerce Instagram brands, you know, and everything they do is vertical and it it's fine, but you're like, you almost don't trust. You're like, is this just cool? Because I'm sitting on Instagram. Is the product actually good? Is it actually quality?

It's, I only see influencer marketing. You need both. Like, but then the second you see a brand pump out, even if you never heard of them, but you see a good like horizontal well thought out video, you're like, Oh, they still know, like they still have some standards here and they're willing to invest here. So I would assume their product is there's also like, you know what I mean? It just sort of validates the sides. That was poppy for the super bowl poppy that came out of nowhere with that.

Me and my wife had already been having, like we'd been drinking that for a while because it was at Costco. Yeah. And I was just like, dude, this is so smart for them because they've really now they've done a lot of the social media and all that stuff. But now they've really cemented themselves as a high end looking. Yeah. And the product's great. And it's a probiotic soda. There's a lot of healthy stuff in it. Like that's like to me, that was just such a great push. And they made it look cool, just like a Coke ad would look in the old days. Yeah, exactly. It.

Like their social stuff is great, but you never thought of them as more than like a social brand. You're going to find it like maybe three whole foods on the East coast. Just suddenly like, Oh, this is a real company. But now they're national. And so now they've got this poll all of a sudden. But yeah, yeah, I'm with you a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. I, I love that. Like I, I'm right with you. I like that three fourish man crew. Um, you know, maybe the clients got

Seth Lowe (01:00:57.358)
20 to 50 depending on if you're doing post or not. And it's like that one or two day shoot. Like that's like my sweet spot. I've done bigger stuff and it's fun but the stress level is super high and not always worth like the extra income or the work or whatever. And you start to dip below that like five or eight K range and you're just like, you're just like what's gonna go wrong? Something's gonna go wrong here and it's, or like I'm gonna commit to this little thing and then.

A big thing is going to come in. They're going to shoot the same week. I'm gonna have to, you know, and it's just, yeah, that's like, I'm typically not going out for production under 10 now is my goal. So if I can get 10, that's fine. I can work with that day shoot, you know, a day or two in post with like one of my editors can knock it out. I'll do that. Um, but then, you know, if you compound that, if it's a week shoot, that's not bad. You're getting up near, you know, 30 to 50 range. I normally discount after a certain amount of days. I try to not do full rate all the way through.

Um, but then it's for post, like this is where the post having a post backbone is huge. Cause I have all these projects that are happening in post right now that are a bit at a higher tier than that, that are longer term. Cause there's just so much to explore, obviously with the post stuff. And most of my work is in the documentary space. So it takes a long time. So I got to bid those properly. So with that backbone always going and I have a team on that at any given time doing color sound or whatever it is, if we're not in the edit.

I don't have to, I can bid a little bit less than what I'd want every once in a while because I have that kind of backbone going, which is also really important, right? It's diversifying your income is huge. So if I've got an engine going, working on the systems that I've built over the years and I'm doing that 10 to 15 % polish at the end before it gets to the client, then I can really, my time in the post window changes and now I'm able to go attack new terrain because I'm.

that's all kind of being built. I'm always lead generating for that as well, but it's a lot easier for me to lead generate that because people know me for that over the last couple of years. People don't know me as a producer director as much, which is what I'm working on right now, but I'll never ditch the post. I'll always be an editor. That's why a lot of my YouTube content is really editing heavy because - It's great. I love it. Thanks, man. Because I've been noticing people like breakdowns and like to know a little bit about what my story thinking brain is going toward when I'm cutting.

Seth Lowe (01:03:23.278)
Less technical, more story is like one of the ways I push that. You know? Yeah, no, I think you do a really good job at that. Thanks. Where are you? Where are you lead Jenny net? Lead Jenning for me is it's honestly very heavily through Instagram. Very, very, very heavily. And I don't have a I don't have like a very formal system. I might explore that later, but I think what has worked really well for me is being very like we talked about earlier, being myself, being really genuine with people.

building a relationship on the web. And I tell people a lot, like the way to do that is to be engaging in people's content a lot. And it's not calculated. It's just, if you think something looks cool, tell somebody it looks cool. If you, if you like something actually like it, don't just view it, like give people the validation of like, wow, this is actually really good. Like you should, you know, I think this is great. Like, and then those conversations start to happen. And if you really connect on the content,

you're then building a relationship over a couple months that turns into, hey, we should work together. And then an opportunity does arise. It might not happen right away, but if you are really in sync, it does happen six months to a year later, or maybe it happens next week, who knows? But a lot of times if you can develop that interest in people to be interested in you because you have this mutual bond or connection or whatever it is.

Then you can really, you can really push that far. You never know what could happen. And when I'm doing that, a lot of times my lead Jen ends up being me pitching as a producer because then I'm like helping develop the project. And then the post is kind of an afterthought and that gets added at some point in the process, because if I'm, if I'm in charge of budgets, I'm adding that, if that makes sense. So I'm not being too, I used to do a ton of cold reach out stuff, a ton.

of just email blasts and stuff like that. But my messaging when I would do that was incorrect. My messaging was, hey, I have this great work, hire me. It was not creative enough to build a relationship at that point. That was the beginning of me trying to do it. I would just send thousands of emails to people and never get responses. Like 1 % would get back to me and not even 1%. Like maybe 10 people, yeah, 10 or so people would get back to me. But...

Seth Lowe (01:05:33.486)
That's important to note that like if you work heavier on actually being genuine and building relationship and checking yourself to be like, how am I approaching this person? Am I trying to get work from them? Because that's not going to ever work. They will see that people will see through, totally see through you. You're transparent at that point. So how can you how can you be creative about building that horizontal like we were talking about earlier, horizontal network together that kind of all rises up. And if an opportunity pops up, boom, you're there or you might just be the person to throw.

somebody else horizontally into that role because you're not a good fit. But if you could be that connector, it's huge. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I used to do a ton of, ton of emailing, like blast kind of stuff early on. And now I probably send like maybe 10 emails a year. And it's, you know, usually like it's someone I like, I've been following a while. I like their work a lot or brand whose work I like, or, you know, or creative director or whatever. And I'm like, okay, I already.

But I feel confident enough that I can reach out and say, Hey, I saw this thing you did. I really liked it. I just let's just hop on a zoom call and chat. Like you don't have to, like, here's my side. If you want to take a look, if not, you know, whatever, and just try to be really, really transparent. Instagram is pretty good. And then, you know, I definitely do. I shouldn't. I mean, I feel like I do a lot of LinkedIn, but maybe compared to other people, I don't, I don't know. I feel like Instagram is kind of like, maybe how I would socialize. If I met an industry person, like at a bar,

And LinkedIn is like if I've met an industry person during the day, you know, so like, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, Instagram, I'm usually the same thing, like comment, Hey, that's awesome. Right. You know, I love that. Like, you know, great work, good job, a little more that kind of stuff, or sometimes even like a more funny or sarcastic comment. And I try to let Instagram be my, my personality a little bit more. Like if you were just to be on a set, what I would be like to be around. Yeah. And LinkedIn is a little more, a little more professional, I guess, but it, I don't, I don't.

I have not really landed anything from LinkedIn, maybe one or two things, but I've really have landed a good amount from Instagram. And it's really not one -off jobs. I'm saying I'm landing, but it's more those long -term relationships have started on, on Instagram and have lasted for years now. You know, since I went freelance, some of them are even before that. So like, it's, it's really cool because, and that's the other thing I try to tell people is like, if you're, if you're sliding into somebody's DMS or you're commenting on something,

Seth Lowe (01:07:54.766)
They have an easy reference. They're gonna look at your Instagram faster than they're gonna look at your website. So if they can click on your page and see that you're dope, they're gonna hit you back. So then it should be in your head, how do I level up my product when I'm starting out? Because then if you can level up your product, even if it means going and shooting proof of concept or original work, that feels like it's you.

then people are going to have more of that authenticity with you. You could say, hey, here's a big idea for you. And then they can look at your page and say, oh, okay, he can back this up. You know, like it's not as crazy of an ask to be like, cause I think a lot of clients, especially if you're pitching cold to clients is separate from the relationship side. If you pitch cold to clients, a lot of times if they see your works at a high bar and it looks really beautiful, they often think you're asking them to fund a movie. They don't, they don't, they think, oh, it's gotta be way too expensive for me. I can't do that. Yeah.

So you have to be more methodical about like, Oh, I'm just going to be, I'm a normal person. Let's just talk. Let's get going. And then eventually, once you get to set, you could show them the level you don't need to, you know, they'll look at your work, but you don't need to lead with look at how amazing this is. And they'll be like, Oh, it's gotta cost six figures to get this, you know, team out there or whatever. Right. If your work's good enough. I think a lot of times it's almost more about. Establishing that you're a competent, mature person who can communicate well than necessarily showing them.

a flashy image, you know, that's, that's probably 80 % of the decision is like, can I trust working with this person? Cause a lot of us are talented and a lot of people can deliver like a good image. It's how are you to work within the process of getting that good image? And then that's where story transcends everything. How are you?

That's what I do a lot now, especially that's why I try to stay producing or directing when I'm actually in production, because it gives me that's where my head always goes. Even if I'm ever a genie or whatever, like whenever I've done other roles, I'm always thinking about, oh, this is not telling the story, right? This is not telling the story, right? Or maybe this is, but oh, it could go a little further. So now I try to do that with clients where I'm like, I need to be the one saying this to them. I need to say, I need to first of all, I need to consume what value that they have and what they're trying to put out there. And then I need to.

Seth Lowe (01:10:03.568)
reflect that on my side and present hero's journey or some sort of story structure that is filmic to them, because then it's going to really, I just know, I know enough now doing this to know what these people are asking for. And they're trying to reach new customers or trying to reach existing customers or whatever. The best way to do that is to learn who their audience is and then go for it by, you know, whoever it is. I mean, even the big ones have that, even the big ones have the same demographic. You have to know the, the advertising side of it.

too, I feel like, yeah, totally. How much more time do you have? I got like, if I could be done in like the next five to one, maybe 10 minutes. Is that good? Yeah, we'll do it. I had, I want to double back on one topic. We kind of sweet glance over and then we'll wrap it up. So just, we'll just do like a kind of a quick fire around here. Tell me about co -owning.

the G &E package, how you guys kind of structure that as a business, share the profits, invest it together, just break that down for me, because I think there's a lot of people that want to do that or are interested in doing that.

Well, I think with that amount of assets, you really do want to have some of that protection legally, you know, and so we we set up a partnership LLC. We built that out a year ago now. That really just helps a lot, especially when it comes down to like your your K1 and your, you know, when it comes down to you trying to figure out what assets are owned by what with I buy gear for myself, but I'm not I'm not putting that on GFR Greenville Film Reynolds. I'm not putting that on there sometimes.

So it helps by us being able to build assets out that are owned 100 % by the company. The liability is all within the company. It's just the best way for us to structure it. And now as we're adding more assets, we're talking about the way that our insurance looks going forward as more and more people are renting it. If they're taking our trailers out, if they're going to be coming to our facility, like how are we doing that? So that to me is the best way to structure it because you can easily get in, you know, at this point we're in

Seth Lowe (01:12:05.744)
you know, five figures for sure. Well, well into five figures. And if you don't have that protected, it's not smart. You know, are you guys 50 50? Yes. So you just lump some you agreed on here's the kind of gear we want to buy to get started. Let's both throw in like two or three grand or whatever. Yep. Bought it 50 50. The profit comes right in. And then we split it up. You guys, if, or if you're independently using it for your own productions, you pay that company separately out of it.

Yeah, we tried to. I mean, we attach, we attach the full package as much as we can. And then the rest of it's all, all a cart. Um, and when I say full package, where it's at right now is we're just over a one ton and we're expanding our grip right now to be more on the two ton. We definitely have over one ton of lighting. So our one ton has a lot of extras on it right now, which is great. Um, but we're starting to get like a little more defined now and building our cart out and stuff like that for that stuff. We can't just be all the carts can be more expensive.

But we really want people to rent the whole thing, you know, one ton or two ton eventually. So, yeah, that makes sense. And you're in a trailer now. We have a trailer. Yeah. We have a little five by 10 and eventually we're going to get something a little bigger. Yeah. I I'm trying to decide if I go trailer or van route. I don't know what I want to do. We keep talking about the van, man. If we can get a good van, we will, but we're just, we need to figure out the whole thing that is tricky is you got to figure out the insurance side of that with people taking that because that could be super expensive.

It can kill your profitability really quick just in insurance. Yeah, I could really good if you're not careful. It's so funny I was thinking about this yesterday like I used to drive down the road and you'd drive past like a sports car and you're like, it'd be so cool to have that now I drive past a van and I'm like gotta be so cool. Yeah, for sure. They're the they're like the Corvettes for our generation. I think Sprinter vans. Mm hmm. Yeah, dude. That's hilarious. Okay, well last couple questions here. I'll let you get out of here. So you've just been freelancing for a few years. Do you feel like?

you're kind of living the dream or you know would you have expected to be where you're at five or ten years ago today?

Seth Lowe (01:14:08.91)
No, and it's so rewarding. I mean, I think it's a real grind. Everybody's gonna tell you it's a grind. It is, but if you can figure out where you're comfortable and then build your system around where you're comfortable and if you really just focus on like what we've talked about the whole time, if you focus on the human element of it, it's not as hard. People keep thinking that it is, I think a lot of early entry freelancers think that it is this big competition, but we talked about that earlier. I mean, if you can not level your playing field,

You don't want to, you know, don't don't be weird about how you approach, you know, your growth. Definitely be genuine and build with others. And if you do that, it's not hard because then if you're just starting out and you're a camera, if you're an op or something like that, you're going to start getting asked to be on those jobs because you're friends with those people. And if you can build that, you know, obviously people are always worried about like friendship in business. But if you have that mutual trust, you're already going to be talking to your people about that anyway. So why not work with them? That's how I.

look at it and you're going to be stronger because you understand each other in stressful moments. You know your friends, you know your people and if they're freaking out about something, you know where they're coming from and then you can figure out the best way to problem solve. I mean, most of our business is that right? Most of our business is people business. That's really what we're in. It's it's problem solving and it's trying to, you know, level up the best you can with the situations you have and you're going to get the result you get and the better you have your instincts. It gets easier to freelance. I think once you do that, that's what I would say.

Completely agree. Well, I don't think we could have wrapped it up with a better ending statement than that. That was awesome. There we go. Good. I love it. Cool. Well, how can people connect with you? Yeah, so, um.

I'm on Instagram, Evan M letter M as in Michael Rogers, ROGERS and then I am on YouTube now same at you can find me. I'll probably send you all the tags and then I really try to push people toward my website, which is EvanRogers .co. That's where I've got most of my stuff going and you know, I'm really recently have been putting a lot more effort on YouTube because I've just noticed that it's been it's been a good lead generator, but it's also

Seth Lowe (01:16:21.232)
like a really good way to kind of get out there and the way that I focus a lot of it now is just I want to same thing we talked about earlier I just want to talk with my audience not to an audience I want to talk with my audience about things that I'm encountering a lot of it in the post end right now but um

Yeah, that's what I've been pushing recently. That's been a really good lead generator, actually, because I think I make that stuff partially just for my clients to watch me talk about it, because I think it's a window of transparency for them to be able to be like, oh, OK, this is what he's doing. I could do this, but maybe I don't have time to do this, so I will hire him to do this. That's kind of the thinking around why I've been doing it. So we'll see if it grows. Very cool. Well, I'll throw some links in the show notes. So.

It's a pleasure, dude. Thank you for having me. It's been awesome. Yeah, we'll do it again. That'd be awesome. Thank you for your time. Yeah, dude. All right. See you. See you. 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.