We were lucky to catch up with Maud Lazzerini recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Maud, thanks for joining us today. Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?
Covid has totally transformed Glitz Entertainment’s business model. Two weeks before Covid, I moved to California to expand my company and produce larger video shoots…but well we all know what happened. I was very important to keep everyone safe, so I ended up working mostly on the post-production side for a couple of months: film and video editing, photo retouching, etc…
When Covid restriction soften, I then turned to doing more photo shoots, as they allowed to have a smaller crew with me, which seemed to be the safest option at the time. The crew was limited to one client, one makeup and hair artist, one stylist and me.
The photo shoot side of our business really grew from there, and now represents a good 50% of what we do.
Maud, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Of course ! I am Maud, the owner of Glitz Entertainment, a production company that helps business owners and artists to showcase their brand and reach out to their audience and customers by creating cinematographic grade tailor-made digital content.
I grew up in a small town of rural France, moved to Paris when I was 18 to pursue my dream of becoming a director. I worked as such for 8 years, directing passion projects, and now awarded short films, web-series with France’s biggest YouTube stars and commercial campaigns or branded content for larger brands such as Tinder or Coca-Cola.
I open Glitz in 2018, first in Las Vegas, later in Los Angeles, to provide high quality content to small businesses and up-and-coming artists.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I think that every artists journey is filled with challenges and struggles to overcome. It’s a cliché, but it is never easy to follow your dreams… However, I would say that the hardest challenge so far has been the same as for so many business owner: keeping your business alive during Covid-19.
By fate, I moved to Los Angeles only two weeks before lockdown started, and only a little over a year after I opened my company.
Every business owner knows that the first year is the hardest to overcome, and I was finally booking clients and shoots months in advance. Basically I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and then: COVID.
I was driving back to LA from Vegas, to finally settle down and start working here, when then Mayor Garcetti announced the lockdown, and clients were all calling me during that drive back to cancel months worth of shoots.
And cherry on top, I was facing the obstacle of being a foreign citizen living in the US with a work visa, in a time of crisis.
But, I made it through, I stayed as busy as I was allowed working on post-production. I also wanted to help the people I used to work with, so slowly but surely I was able to produce smaller photo shoots where we could all work and generate some much needed income.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I don’t know if this is per se a mission, but one of the thing that keeps me motivated and drives me to grow my company is to be able to provide creative constant income and fulfilling gigs.
It can be so hard to find consistent creative work that allows us all to live and thrive in one of the most expensive in the US. And being able in the long term to provide a steady income and a safe space for creative to express themself and live their passion and art fully is truly what drives me to wake up every morning and work for 16 hrs everyday.
Down the road, I really hope to own a studio where other photographers, videographers. makeup and hair artists, models, can all collaborate freely and create the art they want.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.glitzent.com
- Instagram: @glitzentertainmentla
Image Credits
First behind The Scenes: Robert John Key All other photos by me, Maud Lazzerini at Glitz Entertainment