We recently connected with Cassie Hunter and have shared our conversation below.

Cassie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers

So, like I had mentioned in the about me section, a random woman, I had never met, had no mutual connections with hit me up through instagram searching for a camera woman specifically from Louisiana to shoot a documentary based on her motivational podcast. The documentary would take place May through July, we were gonna be traveling to all 50 states, mostly by van except to Hawaii and Alaska, we would fly. We would be interviewing people in every state about their passions. It was gonna be me as the camera and sound operator, her as the podcast host and another girl from Arizona as the producer. They were both involved in the motivational world through workshops and stuff like that. And we would mostly be staying with the people we were interviewing and sometimes hotels.

Why a camera woman from Louisiana, you ask? Because she had already been planning the trip with her producer and neither of them had connections or interviews set up there yet and were hoping to kill two birds with one stone. How did she find me?! Well, on my instagram profile at the time my bio line read, “Camerawoman” lol because I was having an identity crisis from doing both video and photo work, I thought Camerawoman made sense. And for that situation, it certainly did.

At first, I wasn’t sure if it was for real or not, but after talking with her on the phone a few times and all the emails back and forth, I believed it. I was nervous about being on the road with people from that industry because when my asshole ex-boyfriend and I lived in L.A. one of our roommates had just joined a life coaching type of group through a weekend workshop thing and he was always trying to recruit us and it sounded very culty lol so I was a little nervous this was gonna be like that. I also never really saw myself as a super motivating, life coachy type of person and I knew it was going to be unpredictable to be in a van with 2 strangers for 3 months, but everything else about it was perfect for my situation AND I was gonna get to see all 50 states?! Plus, let’s be real, I was kinda desperate so, I went for it.

First half of the trip was great! The ladies liked to have a good time, I liked to have a good time so we got along swimmingly and were having a blast! About mid way through, things started getting a little heated. Do ya’ll remember the summer of 2016? I know I’ll never forget it! lol The presidential election with Trump, Hillary, and Bernie was going on and BLM was roaring because there had been many devastating police shootings back to back resulting in many innocent black lives being taken. I basically quickly learned we all had very different political views on what was going on. And because they had planned the majority of the trip, most of the people we interviewed and stayed with shared the same political views as them. Being the rebel I am, and being young in my mid 20s at the time, looking back I feel as though I was pushing my views a little too hard onto others, one night, I pushed someone to tears, I’m not proud of that. But other than we were pretty respectful.

By the end of the trip, the tension was thick! The host and the producer were fighting all the time. I would try to stay out of it but when I was pressured for my opinion, I usually sided with the producer because she was definitely the more level headed one. I felt so trapped! I would stare out the van window trying to tune out the arguing and any time I would see a “Now Hiring” sign or a “For Rent” sign, I would fantasize about running away to start a new life in the middle of nowhere, lol! I was nibbling on Xanax like candy just to try to keep my sanity! About a week left of the trip the host almost kicked us to the curb and quit the trip entirely. But she ended up sticking it out and somehow we all made it back safely.

But! I am extremely thankful for that trip and I would do every second of it again in a heartbeat because I saw and learned so much! I got to see the entire country, learned a lot about it’s political views, I witnessed two wedding proposals, documented the last days of a dying man with his family, saw a the birth of a calf, flew a plane, sailed a boat, explore the Alaskan glaciers by ship and helicopter, ate reindeer, almost got arrested at the Ronald Regan Building in D.C. for non-permitted filming, hiked through the most beautiful Hawaiian jungles with a throbbing ear infection, worked out with the Navy Seals at Pearl Harbor with a throbbing ear infection, had all my clothes stolen out of our unlocked van in San Francisco, and fantasized of a new life in Oklahoma lol.

The ladies and I don’t really stay in touch but we are all on good terms. I still have a lot of respect and admiration for them both. I hope we get to have a reunion one day. The host is currently writing a book about our adventure and I’m very excited to read it! :)

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana. My parents always did their best and meant well, but home life was pretty chaotic most of the time, haha. I don’t remember a lot of it but I do remember watching a lot of movies and loving how easily it was to escape in them. I wanted to be an actress. I did all the school plays and acting opportunities I could. I eventually caught the interest of a manager but my parents decided then they didn’t want me to pursue it any longer, so my sweet little dreams were crushed at age 9, lol. I was always rebellious and never a great student, but I became even more difficult after that. I was always more interested in having fun with my friends in the here and now than planning for a future. I never saw myself getting old enough to worry about any of that. Reading and writing and listening just wasn’t my thing, nothing would stick, so I had to memorize everything to get decent grades. Now, I know it’s because I’m a visual / hands on learner. My parents swore I had a learning disability and told me college wasn’t in the cards for me. Being the rebel that I am, I got into the community college just in spite of them haha! Eventually, I got my grades up enough to transfer to the university in Lafayette and then later on to a university in New Orleans.

By this point, they were taking me more seriously and offered to pay for my college. I knew I wanted to do film, photography was a hobby of mine, so cinematography make sense to me and became the goal. I thought studying film would be more hands on than it was, but all we did was read and write and talk about it, not my forte! Haha, so it took me almost 10 years to finish and I hated almost every second of it, but I was determined to prove to my parents wrong.

At the end of 2013, I finally graduated from UNO, I didn’t even attend my ceremony, I didn’t want to give them another second of my life. I felt that the structure of our education system was (and still is) extremely narrow minded and constricting for someone like me. I knew I wanted to move to Los Angeles to be a badass female cinematographer. I had never even been to Los Angeles, but my boyfriend at the time had been living there for about a year, so that made the unknown a little bit easier. I had been able to save up a few grand from my full time job as a manager of a spa and a couple of side hustles I had while I was in school. So, May 2014, I packed up my car and I hit the road.

I lived there for about a year or so, it was hands down one of the worst periods of my life. My boyfriend was an abusive, cheating asshole that had isolated me from my friends and family. I was so depressed and became a shell of myself. My first job in L.A. I worked as a receptionist at a high end hair salon downtown. But, I didn’t come all the way to L.A. to do that! So, I continued to look for any kind of camera work I could get. It wasn’t long until I landed a job as a camera operator for a startup youtube channel. I quickly came to realize it was an extremely patronizing and misogynistic work environment, but I did my best to stick it out. Within a few months they had fired all the women and their business went under not long after, haha! So, I was back on the job hunt. I wasn’t having any luck getting a job on set. Then I came across a job listing for a seasonal traveling portrait photographer gig that included training. It sounded perfect! I had been practicing photography for years and portraits really intrigued me. I ended up getting the job. It was basically a yearbook photo gig, but I would get to travel to different fancy universities around the country, like Stanford, Notre Dame, Harvard, etc during the school year. They trained us for 2 weeks and then worked us like machines, haha! I would photograph about 50 people in a day which was exhausting. (Fun Fact: in the 2 years, I worked for them, I photographed over 10,000 people!) They also put us up in really shitty motels but, hey, I got really good at portraits and was able to get at least some physical space away from my terrible boyfriend.

By summer of 2015, my boyfriend broke up with me for someone else and kicked me out! I couldn’t afford to live in L.A. on my own and had to find work and a place to stay ASAP because my photo gig was only during the school year, the summers I was on my own. Luckily, a dear friend of mine in New Orleans got me a gig as a location assistant on the film, Keanu for the summer and let me stay at her place. It one of my favorite set jobs I ever had to this day. I became good friends with most of the cast, it was a blast! After that film wrapped, it was just in time for me to get back to my traveling photo gig.

As luck would have it, in February 2016 a woman randomly hit me up through instagram saying she was searching for a camera woman from the south to shoot her “motivational” documentary where we would be traveling to all 50 states in the 90 days of summer! Was it kismet?! Was it a scam?! Was it a cult?! I had my concerns. But, I didn’t have much of a choice and I didn’t have much to lose so I went for it! It ended up working out for the most part and was a truly unforgettable experience. (more on that later!)

I eventually came back to L.A. summer of 2017 after being on the road for 2 years, I was feeling pretty good about myself. For the first time in my whole working life, I had financially provided for myself strictly through full time photography and film work and I had done it in a very unique way. So I thought I was ready to come back and give L.A. another shot.

My first summer back, I struggled to provide for myself with freelance work. I started driving for postmates and shopping for instacart while trying to get any freelance gig I could, I was barely making ends meet. Thankfully, I got hired as a teacher assistant at a film school. It gave me a flexible schedule and access to photo and video equipment! It was the perfect job for me at the time and played a huge role in getting me at where I am today. Because of the job perks, I was able to still pursue freelance camera work and have free equipment for the gigs! I stayed at the job for about a year and a half.

During that time I had started doing cinematography for a few web series, commercials, music videos and an indie feature film. I also started doing more portrait photography, some hired, some personal work and I started creating more elaborate sets for my shoots. One set that kinda changed things for me was I was working with a dominatrix that I had hit me up from craigslist. She wanted to be a warrior in a jungle on a super low budget. My new and much improved boyfriend at the time let me use his garage, his mini above ground pool, and a few fake plants he had in his house. As helpful as all that was, it was not gonna fully sell the jungle vibe. So, the night before the shoot, I dressed in all black and drove all around Pasadena in the wee hours stealing plant clippings out of people’s yards and businesses. I do not recommend that! But, I was lucky, I didn’t get caught and I was able to really sell the jungle vibe with that and lighting. That shoot caught the attention of a friend of mine who was just starting out as a production designer. We ended up teaming up as a production designer and art director duo and started working together. After working with a few known names and brands, we started working with my friends that I knew from New Orleans, Nomad + Art Design, an award winning art crew who now were working and living in Los Angeles.

Sometime in 2019, I quit working at the school and I’ve been working full time as a freelancer in photography, cinematography, and art department ever since! I’ve been lucky enough to attend the VMAS the year my Nomad friends won for best art direction for Ariana Grande 7rings and I’ve had the pleasure of working with Rosalia, Finneas, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Alia Shawkat, Nike, Gunnar Deatherage, The Keith Haring Foundation, and Sierra Ferrell, to name a few / toot my own horn ;)

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

When I moved back to L.A. in 2017, I thought I was gonna have to get real serious about my social media following if I was gonna be taken seriously as a visual creative. So, I started a new profile just for my business. I had been able to build my followers up to about 1k on my own. But getting more than that was really hard for me or it was taking too long and I was being impatient. Maybe it’s because I’m a millennial, maybe it’s because I’m kinda shy not good at selling myself like that, it doesn’t feel good or come natural to me. So, I ended up buying followers from I can’t remember, there’s so many companies that offer that now. But that got real weird, real quick. Like the bots would just comment on all my posts using just emojis or like basic one word lines, like yas queen! beautiful! stunning! slay! lmao It just felt fake and I felt like an imposer so, I ended up deleting that account, haha, I just couldn’t do it that way!

I see plenty of successful and talented people thriving without a huge insta following, so I don’t let that pressure get to me anymore. Some people are naturally really good at it. I do think it’s a gift, but it’s just not mine and I’m ok with that.

I also will say, I’ve definitely struggled with caring way too much about trying to fit in a specific mold that felt “cool”. I took so much advice from other people of what they think I should do and I’m just now starting to let go of that. I believe, I and the universe will lead me to exactly where I belong, my own special lil place. I’m just trying to focus more on what I like, what I want and that’s what you should do too. Don’t listen to me! lol

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I’ve definitely gotten most of my work through people I know and word of mouth!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cassieisahunter.com
• Instagram: @cassie_ann_hunter