We were lucky to catch up with Sean McBride recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Sean, thanks for joining us today. How’s you first get into your field – what was your first job in this field?

I’ll be the first to admit, I never in a million years thought I would do work in the public health field. Not to say I’m a bad or uncaring person, it’s more I just had always deferred to the experts when it comes to matters of health and medicine, assuming I never really had anything to offer. It’s funny how a worldwide pandemic changes things.

During the lockdown, my producing partner Michael Greene and I were invited, along with other creatives, doctors and healthcare providers to participate brainstorming sessions organized by USC’s Keck School of Medicine and the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute. The goal of the sessions was to address vaccine hesitancy in the different communities across Los Angeles. Even though we didn’t realize it at the time, it was the official beginning of the VaccinateLA campaign.

Our production company, Everyone Can Eat, working directly w/ the SC CTSI helped kickstart the campaign by producing virtual town halls and engaging question and answer sessions about the vaccine on Instagram, which paired social media influencers w/ doctors of the same race.

From there, we went on to help run ad campaigns across LA County, promoting community health fairs and vaccine clinics. In order to accomplish this, we produced multiple PSA’s and the “Share Your Why” video series, where we interviewed different doctors and members of the community about their reasons for getting vaccinated. Each video ran under a minute long and was used in targeted marketing campaigns across the city.

I’m very happy to say the incredible efforts of the SC CTSI and all the amazing doctors and healthcare providers involved throughout the VaccinateLA campaign led to a 30% higher vaccination rate in the communities and neighborhoods we were targeting. That said, while proud of the work we did, everyone we worked with or who spoke on camera to us, would have much preferred we did not have to endure the extraordinary loss of life we felt not only across Los Angeles, but the whole world.

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 have been living in Los Angeles for 17 years this spring, and honestly doing a little bit of it all.. Everyday I’m afforded another opportunity to learn something new, which I love. Nothing has been more fun or rewarding though, than the amazingly talented group of people I’ve met since arriving in LA back in 2006.

It’s really only been recently where I’ve been fortunate enough to work on
projects where I have had the resources to hire other people and actually utilize my Rolodex. Prior to that it was always me having to talk people into working on my crazy ideas for free, and any roles I couldn’t fill, I had to learn how to do those jobs on my own. When I first met my producing partner Michael. He was running a casting session, but come to find out, he was a Director and Editor. I noticed right away that he was a lot like me and always having to wear multiple hats to make it all work.. We hit it off, a few days later, he and his wife came out to my comedy show and we have literally been working together ever since.

Together we’ve been blessed to produce a movie together and get a distribution deal, write scripts, produce commercials, music videos, fundraising videos, explainer videos, and now a treasure trove of great public health content. We’re both very organized, shoot cost efficient, and pride ourselves on delivering on what we said we were going to do.

As far as our production company, Everyone Can Eat is concerned, our brand is in the name. We approach every project with a team mind set and believe with proper preparation and communication, great things can be accomplished, and in the end when we chop up the pie, there will be a slice left over for everybody involved.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’m about to be 40 years old this summer, which is wild to me. Looking back at my life and career, it seems like I turn and pivot every decade or so. Growing up and through college, all I wanted was to be on Sportscenter. Then I got some actual real world experience, and I realized what I really wanted was to be a comedian, so I went on the road and did it. But after a few loops around the country in my car, I knew if I didn’t find something more stable, I was never going to be able to have a family of my own. Even if it did take a literal pandemic to get me to park my car, my life couldn’t be more different or more fulfilled than it was ten years ago. I’m engaged to an incredible woman, who gave me the best present I ever could have gotten in life, our beautiful baby daughter, and we live in the best city in the world, LA! Life is good. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t an easy turn and pivot to get here, but like all my turn and pivots in life, it was totally worth it.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

My good buddy Norman Towns was going in for a commercial audition at Paul Sinacore Casting in Glendale and the role was for 2 friends, so he asked me if I’d go in with him. As fate would have it, Michael Greene was running the casting session, and the three of us immediately hit it off. By the end of the session, it was like we had all known each other for 20 years.

Fast forward six years later, and it was actually Norman who came up with the idea of pairing doctors w/ social media influencers, and Paul who sent out all the ‘Real People’ casting breakdowns for the PSAs we produced as part of the VaccinateLA campaign.

I’ll never forget that day. I literally walked into Paul’s shop, thinking it was going to be just another casting office, completely devoid of life and compassion, and I walked out having all the key ingredients for a production company and three amazing friends. All in all, Not a bad trip to the Jewel City.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.everyonecaneat.com
• Instagram: @seansmcbride
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sean-mcbride-a3140b3

Image Credits
I own the rights to all pictures. 1.) Myself, Michael Greene, and Dr. Jerry Abraham of Kedren Health at Nickerson Gardens in Watts. 2.) Myself, Michael Greene, Leonard Jackson, Donna Brown, Esq., at a taping of the “No Half Stepping Podcast” at the Santa Clarita International Film Festival. 3.) Myself at the 2022 American Public Health Association Film Festival for a screening of our film, “Vaccinate Watts”. 4.) My former life interviewing ESPN reporter Peter Gammons at Fenway Park in 2002. 5.) Myself and Norman Towns on set filming a sketch in 2014.