Meet Megan Easley | Filmmaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Megan Easley and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Megan, what is the most important factor behind your success?
I believe success needs to be defined by the outlook you have on your life. If I looked at the first commercial I shot and edited to the documentary I shot and edited in North Carolina just this past year, there is a huge difference! Someone may look at the two videos and think it was made by 2 different people!

I think the biggest mistake someone can make in defining their success in their business is comparing yourself to others. I’ve made this mistake too often and it’s funny when I talk to my friends and family and they say the same thing about me, that they see mine and my husband’s successes in our business and they feel like they aren’t doing enough!

I define it by little achievements throughout my day or a job completed and hearing a client tell me they love what I did for them whether it’s a commercial, a photo, a personal video, social media posts, etc. If a client of mine replies with, “I love it!” then I consider myself and my brand successful for the day. I love that I can create something for a person or company that is artistic fun and professional and it’s about them. They can see how special they are through the art I’ve created about them if that makes sense. haha.

I would also say the biggest factor in my success is the relationships I’ve built with other people in my cohort. It has been a huge success for everyone who lends a helping hand to one another and I love the community of people that I’ve made over the years with my husband. He has built an amazing networking company called the Long Beach Acting & Film Association aside from our main film business and that has been an honor to be a part of a community of filmmakers and like-minded creatives.

What should our readers know about your business?
I learned very quickly owning your own business means you need to sell yourself and your brand. If you don’t believe in yourself, how will other people? And if people don’t believe in your ability to do a job then how are you going to run a business?

It took me a long time to figure out how to talk to people without sounding like a door salesman. Through time and continually making connections with people I realized I just needed to believe in myself and my ability to do good work. The rest of it became easier because I fell back on my personality rather than trying to change it into someone I thought I needed to be.

In the beginning, I tried to be more like Derek who is outgoing and commands the room and I came across as unauthentic because I wasn’t being my authentic self. The difference in my switch of selling my abilities and our services was it came from a place of self-assurance and confidence. I am good at what I do and I enjoy doing it.

I have often heard through reading books, listening to podcasts, and following other entrepreneurs that getting yourself into a very specific niche will give you success. Being known as that person who is an expert in X gives you an edge against others. While That may be true for some, Derek and I have never wanted to be put in a box. And we hate saying no to people. If there’s an opportunity that pays well but we haven’t done it before, we do it and figure it out. And every time we’ve done that, we find that our clients love the outcome and believe we’d been doing that for years.

We do it all and we love it! I find that the things I fell into are the things I love doing the most. In March of 2020 when everything shut down, we really needed to pivot and figure out what we were going to do with our business and our livelihood. We began digging deep into social media marketing, editing, corporate commercial work, and helping local businesses stay afloat.

Derek Easley Entertainment has dipped its hands in almost every aspect of filmmaking and marketing. We create commercials for local business owners like realtors, storefront owners, and entrepreneurs to billion-dollar companies like eBay. We run social media accounts and create content for local businesses, we offer photography services from headshots to family photos to wedding photos to website photos. We have made wedding videos, home goods online ads, documentaries out of state, produced live events with a big production team, and so much more!

Aside from the daily work that keeps us busy we also dive into our passions of movie making. Over the last two years, we have produced 8 low-budget feature films. Currently, we are in production for a movie called Pancake Man which is a crime/revenge film about a man who takes his vengance out on the people who wronged him using a fork after not getting his pancakes in the morning. We just became in demand for funding on our Indiegogo and we are expecting to begin the second half of production in November 2023.

We love collaborating with other creatives, we love content creation, we believe in scalability on all fronts of social media marketing, and we make storytelling EASLEY done!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
The feature film I am producing has had some out-of-town employees on the payroll and Derek and I felt the need to be ambassadors of LA/OC. It’s funny how you realize how much you enjoy where you live when you want to show a friend a good time in your local hometown. We had 1 day to take our stunt coordinator and assistant director around Long Beach and Orange County before they had to take their flights back to Texas and Michigan. We ran out of time because of all the things we wanted to explore!

We took them to our favorite local comic shop, stopped at downtown Seal Beach to go window shopping and get some deserts from Sweet Jills, and took them to Huntington Beach downtown and had some amazing burgers at 25 Degrees. It just didn’t feel like we did enough! I could write you a 5 page essay of a perfect week but I will spare readers my long-winded answer!

If you really want to have a fleshed-out experience in LA you would need to be here for at least 2 weeks because you can only do 1 maybe 2 fun things a day in LA. The rest is traffic.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The only person who has consistently believed in me and encouraged me is my amazing husband, Derek Easley. He is the smartest person I’ve ever known and the most creative and talented artist. When I made the decision to pursue this as a career alongside him I was definitely out of my element but I knew with his support and encouragement I could do it. Together we have built our little production house up to a sustainable business that supports both our dreams.

We crush our goals and move on to bigger ones and what keeps our foundation rooted deep is our belief and love for Christ. I believe anything is possible and I’m so excited to see what’s next, shout out to my husband for opening the door to filmmaking!

I also want to give a shoutout to the person who referred me for this article, our writer/director Bron Theron whom we are currently producing his awesome movie, Pancake Man! It’s been an exciting ride producing this film and I’ve learned so much from him and the team on this project. Thank you, Bron!

Website: www.derekeasley.com

Instagram: @meganmelissae

Linkedin: Megan M. (Diaz) Easley

Twitter: @EasleyCompany

Facebook: Megan (Diaz) Easley

Youtube: Derek Easley Entertainment