We recently connected with Melanie Featherstone and have shared our conversation below.

Melanie, appreciate you joining us today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?

Maybe an unpopular belief, but life should be vacation forward.
In my earliest memories, I was exposed to violence. My household was a hive of domestic abuse. It scattered seeds of mental illness in fertile gray matter. I grew in agony – responsibility too old for the physical age of my body and still woefully emotionally underdeveloped. Years of therapy reprocessed a lot of the damage, and yet there is a hunger that will never be satisfied. I will damn abuse through the ages, but I will be forever thankful for the persistence it taught me.
I desire more for myself than my developmental years. I crave to be better than those before me. It is my pilot light. Trauma lit my fuse. I have always been fiercely aware of the finitude of life. And the only thing that makes sense to me is to seek fulfillment first and foremost. The phrase “you can’t take it with you’ while overbaked, has never been untrue. I pursued filmmaking as a career so when I set out for a job, it would always teach me new insight, bring me to untraveled places, or afford me a culture I otherwise am unknown. This is a luxury specific to my career, I understand. However, outside of work, I am gone. Traveling on the dirtiest budget ticket I can scrape together. Not only does travel make me feel- “alive” and stave off the overwhelming burnout of today’s… well, everything. But, travel seems – to me – the most mindful act of self-love you can give. When I arrive in a new place I hear my body breathe – finally released from a python of industry, “I see your existence. You are more than your numbered days. You deserve to wander and explore. You are human.”
Do you not owe yourself the ability to experience the world? Maybe I am just extremely privileged. But I like to think it’s my childhood curiosity that never got to bloom, melting forward into the rigor of adulthood; frivolously telling myself it’s okay to throw $1000 on a trip to Thailand.

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 brand myself as a Unicorn. A Filmmaker Unicorn, that is. Likely some rooted issue with being fiercely independent, I went to college for film and came out knowing how to do all the bits. Production, Direction, Videography, Audio, Photography – I’ll even photoshop your grandmother’s face onto a portrait of Jesus if you want it. Learning all of these skill sets actually has been quite a virtue. When working on a team, I am aware of the barriers other positions hold, and how it impacts my work for the day. Shooting a film is kind of like solving a puzzle of da Vinci’s Starry Night – You have to understand how the parts are shaped. And, you should probably have a good idea of what the final result intends to look like.
I package myself to small businesses because I like to support the underdog. I want to create meaningful work for individuals on a smaller budget. Is this often my own sinkhole? Yes. Often. But I love seeing the look on the faces of my clients when I give them content that they originally thought would be outside of their budget. The biggest thrill in my line of work is learning someone’s creative vision and making it breathe. My art is a labor of love, and I will labor so you love it, too.

My preferred work to complete usually falls into adventure sports, travel, food, strange or niche subcultures, I’ve created work for the protection of our natural resources, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, abstract dance, urban exploration in abandoned buildings, personal fitness, trans awareness, brewing culture, and travel blogs.

If there’s a new experience in it for me, I’m your girl.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think people enjoy me because I’m like a tick – pretty hard to kill.
I’ve become known for my willingness to bring a camera into some strange or downright disgusting places. I’ll lay in the manure of cow fields. I’ve hauled gear up mountains. Captured the insides of crumbling buildings. I’ve camped out in the back of a vehicle to capture a crime on camera. Honestly, it just all sounds like a good time. And to top it off, I am as chipper as can be; just happy to be alive and included.
I think the key to all of this is novelty. I look at every shoot as a new experience and something I can learn from. People seem to like that – an eagerness to explore and throw down some crazy work ethic. Now, people call me up when they have a weird job that they assume no one else will do. I like to think I’m the one people are referencing when they say, “I got a guy.”

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Unfortunately, the answer is simple but not easy. I have had a lot of management roles in teams of various sizes, both inside and outside of film production. The key is this ‘You have to know, and you have to care to know.’
You need to know who your employees are and what they do for their job. And you have to care about these facts. This may seem simple, but if you’re doing the right work, you will better understand their learning styles, their interpersonal work relationships, and the constraints they are feeling. When in a management position, I always have a notebook where I keep my observations. This helps me make informed decisions to better my team.
For example, I’m a producer on set (depending on your set you may have different jobs or goals) and my job was to make sure everyone and everything was where they were needed when they were needed. At the beginning of the shoot I always make time to meet and converse with the departments. In this example, my makeup artist was scheduled till midnight, as was the shoot (but we all know the shoots go over). During this greeting orientation, I learned that my artist had a gig the following morning at 9AM. So, when the shoot was clearly going to be over time for this artist, I prioritized the shot list so that we could finish up face shots first; relieving Hair and Makeup to finish up their day and prepare for their morning call.
Should I not have taken an interest in the Makeup department at the beginning of the shoot, I would not have learned about their obligations in the morning. Obviously, flexibility is not always admittable on a shoot. And generally speaking, most departments understand that there is a fluid timeline while shooting. In this case, we could ask questions, make adjustments, and compensate our team. The product would have otherwise been finding a new Hair and Make-up department for future gigs or changing the compensation.
Now this is one instance on a set with 20+ people. This was not my only role of pivoting on the set that day. But that is why it is important to talk with each of the members at the beginning of your shift. Check-in, even if it is small. It makes your team feel like people. Even if you are stressed, they will appreciate your ability to humanize them. AND WRITE YOUR OBSERVATIONS IN A NOTEBOOK. I don’t care if it makes you look like a therapist. When Stacy has to go pick up her son who is vomiting at school, you’ll look a lot cooler when you check in with Chris who is waiting on her spreadsheet and let him know there’s a delay. Chris will also appreciate not wasting his time wondering when the document will arrive. And you knew this because you remembered to take note of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.melaniefeatherstone.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melaniefeatherstone
• Other: Send Emails to featherstonemelanie@gmail.com

Image Credits

Melanie Featherstone