EP:68 - Entrepreneur Inspiration -Balancing Multiple Creative Passions with Rachel Galvin

Rachel Galvin is a multifaceted artist with talents spanning acting, writing, and editing. Rachel has an extensive background in journalism, having written for over 40 publications and managing her own magazine, Independent Streak Magazine. With a career that includes theater, film, and a variety of artistic endeavors, Rachel brings a wealth of experience and passion to her work.

Rachel shares her journey from being an actress and writer in Los Angeles to building a vibrant career in South Florida. She discusses her current projects, including her magazine and blog, which focus on film events, food, and travel. The episode also delves into her networking strategies and how she manages to juggle her numerous interests and commitments.

If you are interested in acting, writing, and creative entrepreneurship will gain valuable insights from Rachel's experiences. She emphasizes the importance of effective networking, leveraging social media platforms, and continuously evolving in one's career. Key phrases such as "independent film," "creative entrepreneurship," and "networking strategies" are integral to this episode, providing practical advice for aspiring artists and entrepreneurs.

Contact Rachel: HERE

Three Potential Listener Questions:
1. How can artists effectively balance multiple creative passions and careers?
2. What strategies does Rachel Galvin use to network and build connections in the entertainment industry?
3. How can social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram be leveraged for career growth in the arts?

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Transcript

0:23

So if you're an actor out there and you are looking for jobs, my independent streak magazine has a Facebook page where I put castings constantly on. Hi everybody. And welcome to another episode of the owl podcast. Today we are here with Rachel Galvin. She is a woman with many talents. She is an actress, a writer, um, editor, many more things, plethora of, of artistic things. I would say, um, I'm here today by myself. Jason is out today. So this is going to be an interesting episode, first time hosting. So be nice. Um, anyway, I want to hear a little bit about you, Rachel. Um, obviously, like I said, you have a lot of different interests and passions. I'm the same way. Um, when people ask me what I do, I'm like, well, where do we start? There's owl, there's singing, there's writing, meditation, all the things. I guess my first question is, is there one passion or job that you'd say is like your number one or the thing you've been doing the longest? How do you, how do you handle all of these passions? I get this question a lot. Yeah. Um, I wouldn't say that there's one, it's writing or acting. It's both. Yeah. Those are probably my two passions and it goes back and forth. I get maybe burnt out a little bit on the writing and then I go to the acting and vice versa, but it never stops completely. So right now I'm in the mode of, I want to do more acting again, but I'm still writing like crazy and editing and doing photography and going to events like every night. So it's, it's really insane and I've been writing and editing and being an actress for more than 20 years. Awesome. And when you say writing, what exactly are you doing? Magazine writing? Are you writing about events or are you writing, you know, screenplays? Like what, what type of writing? I have done screenplays in the past, but basically I'm a journalist. Okay. So I've written for over 40 publications around South Florida primarily, but also in Los Angeles. And I have my own magazine, which is independent streak magazine, which I do the entire thing myself. Wow. Graphics, the writing, the photography, going to the events, interviewing people, promoting it, everything. And then I have a high end blog I do as well. So I get invited to a lot of events. If they're not a film event, then it goes in the blog. Okay. So that's food and food and wine events, um, beauty events, travel. I write about, um, sometimes human interest things, more art like that. So independent streak for all of those who are listening, just as a recap is going to be film based events. Yes. Um, and besides events like movie premieres, like new films that are coming out, you do reviews of those as well, I'm guessing, or. It's mostly independent films is what I'm focusing on. Okay. So it's an international audience, but it has a South Florida focus. Okay. So if a big star comes into town, I may either interview them or just meet them and take photos of them. Like Nicholas Cage was here. I videotaped his entire interview. Nice. Um, let's see. Gosh, Tom Arnold, um, Karen Allen, who was in Indiana Jones. I did a interview with her with only like three other people. Nice. Interview her. So I interview a lot of celebrities or at least get to meet them and write about them. And then I go to every single event at the Fort Lauderdale international film festival. Okay. That's my baby. Nice. Biggest event of the year, which is coming up next weekend, like this weekend, but next week. Yeah. Exciting. Can anybody get a ticket to that or. Yes, absolutely. Um, they may sell out. Yeah. Yeah. And they're having a lot of great events this year too. So I'm really looking forward to it. Um, opening night, uh, Robert Schwartzman, who is the son of Talia Shire, who was in, uh, Rocky and, um, Godfather, he's coming into town again and he has a movie called good half and David Arquette's coming in. Nice. No. And some other people. We got to get these people on the owl app. I mean, we already have some actors on the owl app. I'll have to tell you about our ambassador program later, cause you can get benefits from getting these people on the app. But, um, we have, I know like the director of the song, is it the song movies? Our producer might now Jason's not here. He knows everything, but, um, sorry, Jason. But yeah, I think it's, I want to say the song movies, I'm not a huge horror movie person, so I don't know. I don't know. But, and then we actually had, um, a couple come in a couple months ago and they are movie writers, directors, actors. One of them, he's also a comedian in the area. Um, so you definitely need to connect with them on owl. We, we definitely have a lot of people in the arts on this platform. So streak, you said streak magazine, independent streak. It's S T R E A K. Okay. Independent streak. So all the film people out there go check that out. And then the other publication with the food and other events, networking, all those, what, what is that one again? That's let's talk magazine. Okay. Let's talk. And are these, there are pretty much just websites that people can go to, or they all, they're all online. Okay. The independent streak magazine is through a software called issue. Okay. So I have kind of a very bare bones website where I just have them sitting there and you can go into the website and see each magazine issue and flip through the pages like a mag. Nice. I love that. And I mean, most things are digital these days, so it's nice that you are doing it online and it's free. I'm guessing accessible to everybody. Okay, cool. Awesome. Advertisers. So I'm always looking for advertising. You hear that guys. If you want to advertise, sponsor this, uh, independent, talented woman over here, you, uh, you can call her on the owl app. That's right. Yeah. And you mentioned horror. I'm actually going this weekend to spooky empire in Orlando, which is a horror convention. I used to help run the film festival there. Okay. Last year for the first year, I wasn't helping to run it, but I was asked to be a moderator still for the female filmmaker panel. I'm doing that again this year. So this Saturday at one 30, I will be in Orlando for at spooky empire, interviewing several female filmmakers that are in the horror genre. Nice. That's amazing. I definitely need to connect you with this couple here on the app, but I'm curious, obviously you're a huge networker as am I. Um, and for me personally, I feel like my background in music and entertainment definitely like makes it easier just being on stage in front of people. Like I'm not afraid to go up to anyone. Um, do you find that your acting background helps you with that? Or are you just like naturally a people person or, or are you more of an introvert and it's like more difficult for you to just walk up to anyone? Like, what is your, what's your networking trick? I guess. For the most part, I'm a people person, but I do find if I'm at an event, I don't know anyone. Sometimes I do get a little shy. And I just gravitate toward the one person I know or the staff. And I try to slowly make my way through the crowd and meet some people. I find something that stands out about them that like, Oh, I saw you in there. You were watching the film. What'd you think? Something like that. Some way to ice break them. Or I like your shoes, you know, just anything to get their attention. So that's how I approach it. But I know most people. I mean, everywhere I go, I know the bulk of the people. So it's great for me because I I've been there for here for 20 years. So I know everybody. What about in terms of getting these interviews with the other actors and more famous celebrities that you mentioned, how do you create those connections? Well, a lot of times the PR person will send me something. I will follow up at other times. I'll find out that they're coming into town and I will track down the PR person and say, Hey, I have this magazine. I would like to interview them. Gotcha. And how do you find, like do you just follow them all on Instagram and get like notifications or something? How do you do that? How do you go about that? Yeah. I look for, you know, sometimes in my spare time, I will look up film festivals in town, like festival. Yeah. I'm like, Oh, that's coming up. So let me contact them and say, Hey, by the way, give me your press releases of what's happening and I'll write about you. Yeah. Gotcha. I'm all about promoting people. That's my main thing. And you know, I'm not doing this to make a lot of money to help people. Yeah. And that's, that's what I love to do. And I love to be creative. So I'm not doing it for any other reason. Yeah. I love that. And I feel like we talk about that. That's why I think you're perfect for owl. And we talk about that with our app, how like a lot of people on here, you're not charging a hundred dollars a call unless you're Jason. But fine. He's allowed, he created the app, but typically I would say people charge a dollar to $3 for a call. And the main purpose isn't making money. The main purpose is networking and making these connections. And you know, so if you're on this app just cause you want to make money, that's not the point. Like, we don't really want you on here. If you're just trying to get your point across and sell, sell, sell, like we're here to make genuine connections. And, um, you know, it is a lead generator too, at the end of the day, but in order, we've had so many sales people on here and business owners, and they all say, that they give before they get. And so, um, I know that you're a master networker. You understand how it works and how to make genuine connections. So yeah. And I go to these events and I get invited to another event. It happens to me all the time. I was at this bartender shakedown up in Palm beach and it was really fun. I'd never been to anything like that. Although I've written about events like that. I used to be the editor for in the biz magazine and I used to write about that type of thing. And, um, they were doing like a flair competition, like the movie cocktail where they're throwing bottles in the air. And then it would switch over and it would have talking about a cocktail and how they made it and what the story is. So it was really cool. They had two booths set up and it would go back and forth. So it was very dynamic, like ping pong back and forth. That's an interesting idea. It was really cool. And I got to meet people and somebody was like, you know, I'm having an event coming up on the 7th. If you want to come out to that, and then he turned around and he said, would you like to judge that? Wow. So this happens to me constantly. Yeah. So my calendar's really packed, but I love it. You know, I'm the same way. Like she's always like, what are you doing this weekend? It's I'm always kind of last minute too. Like I don't like to make plans because I'm just like, well, something could come up. And I want to, I always like just enjoy meeting people, telling them about owl, like sharing my music, all those different things. So I'm in the same boat. I love it. And I like when events are unique. Like the thing that you mentioned about the drinks, like there aren't, I look for events that aren't just like another yoga class or like another thing that everyone is doing another social networking event where you drink and talk to people like, um, where people think outside of the box, I find that those are the best events. Yeah. And do you ever throw events yourself or you're just too busy going to events? You know, I used to have events, but not anymore. Um, and that was more personal events. It wasn't a big blowout or anything, but, um, I have no time to do that. I did a fashion show slash, um, music event in Los Angeles for 500 people and we raised a thousand dollars for someone that got shot by a drive by shooting. Oh wow. Yeah. And we had a couple of celebrities come out and, um, I was in the fashion show. Cool. I'm like, if I'm going to have a fast, I'm going to be in it. Yeah. Of course. If you're running it. Yeah. Why not? Luckily I've actually gotten a lot of modeling work in the past, not recently, but I did a runway, which I was really surprised for my height, my weight. I was surprised that I've done runway, which is really cool. I love doing modeling. I think it's so funny you say that because a couple of people have said that to me. Like you should, when I lived in LA, like you should act and model. And I'm like, I'm five two guys. Like, what are you talking about? Like, no. Um, but you know, I think these days, like anything goes, like we, it is a cool time to be in the arts right now because people are so inclusive, I think just for every race and body type. And you know, if you look at Victoria's secrets models now, um, you know, compared to the nineties, it's totally different ball game. So it is interesting the way that things are shifting. I think it's great, um, for us all to kind of have a try. I've done a lot of mostly done lifestyle modeling. Okay. Yeah. So anybody can do that really of any size. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. I, I've tried to do, I've done a couple events myself as well. And I just found that I really didn't enjoy putting on events. Like I think if I do events again, I'll just hire an event company to do it because I want to enjoy the event. And I just find myself wanting to make sure that everyone is happy and having fun. And then I'm not even really present in the event that much. So, and even just getting people to come to the event, like I can be, you want the event to go well. So I find like days before I'm doing everything, like hanging flyers, like old school and random places and texting everyone I know a million times. And it's just like exhausting in my mind. So I, I, you know, shout out to all those people putting on events. It's, it is a lot of work and, um, it's not for me. I just want to be the entertainment at the events and meet the people at the event. I've, I've learned after doing it myself, but, um, yeah, it's definitely, I think does make a difference though. Going to in-person events compared to just like, I've done the networking on zoom thing as well. And I, I really enjoy just go. No, I enjoy like being in person. Um, and just that energy. That's how we met. So, yeah. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of zoom at all. I really like going to events. So during COVID I was really depressed and I didn't really embrace the zoom because of my technology issue. Which we've learned. Yeah. Me too. I'm, I mean owls owl is pretty easy to use. I will say as someone who's not a technology person. Um, so you know, I, I think that that I can do, but majority of technology, I'm, I'm more on your end where I'm like, I'm an artist. Can you just do it for me? Um, but I do well, before we make some calls, I want us to call a couple of people on the owl app so you can dive your, your toes in and get to know a little bit about how it works. But I see you brought a book over here. You are a published author. So tell us a little bit about that and if you want to hold up the book so everyone can see it and possibly purchase it. Okay. So the book is called basics of the biz and I wrote it a while back. Um, after I was in Los Angeles, I was not only an actress there, but I also worked for a talent management company. Nice. So it was, you're working with kids and I taught the parents about the industry and worked with all the kids and help them audition and help them pick out photos and everything. So I got knowledge of the industry from the other side. So when I came here, I moved here with someone at the time and he wanted to open up a cell phone company, which is completely outside of my, what I do. So I went into working with him and I had all this knowledge in my head about the industry. I didn't know how to get into acting here or do anything. I wasn't really a writer yet other than I had been a theater critic for talent magazine in Los Angeles and I thought, what am I going to do? And I just poured everything I knew into this book. Nice. So half of it is about my experience in Los Angeles. I moved there from Colorado not knowing anyone. Matt, I've did the same thing. How long were you there? I was there for three years. I was there for two years. Yeah. From Philly. But yeah. Yeah. And I talk about culture shock. Yeah. Yeah. And my family didn't want me to go. I didn't have any place to go. I stayed in a hostel. Wow. You really did it. I was really the struggling actor. Yeah. I was the struggle. I did the struggling musician thing too. Waitress whole thing. Yeah. I was a host. Yeah. Um, so I did all of that. And then I ended up working my way up. I was an intern for the company that I told you about the talent management company and they hired me. So I did all of that. I worked at universal studios on the weekend as a tram tour guy. Nice. And I acted, I was in theater, I did film, uh, mostly extra workout in LA as an actor, but I came here and then I wrote this book. So half of it is about my experience. The other half is how to be an actor. So it's all the basics, headshots, resumes, acting classes, unions, everything you need to know. And there's a couple of things that have changed since I wrote the book. I was just going to ask, you read my mind. I was going to say, well you said you wrote it a while ago. And so I'm sure that some things have changed. There's only two main things that have changed. Headshots are now in color versus black and white. And the unions have now merged. Of course they're on strike right now, but SAG and AFTR have merged. And that's really the two main things. Other, other things in the book really apply still. Of course the digital world has changed some things where you can find a lot more jobs online by yourself that you couldn't backstage. I know is a big site that you couldn't access before, like actor's access, um, casting networks, even social media. Now people get so discovered as you know, Tik Tok and Instagram reels and stuff. My independent streak magazine has a Facebook page where I put castings constantly on. So if you're an actor out there and you are looking for jobs, I'm constantly like, and is it mostly South Florida jobs or all over the country? Mostly South Florida, but I do put jobs all over. Okay. Cause I'm out there looking at all these sites. So anything I find a copy and paste it on mine to help people. That's awesome that you do that. Cause I feel like I always try to do similarly. Like if I find a gig and it's not for me, then I try to just text my network. Hey guys, not just like let it go to waste, but help out your fellow artists. Like being an artist, especially full time is just so difficult. And um, I think it's just good karma as well. I get a lot of people, a lot of directors say, do you know anybody for this? Cause they know I know a lot of people. So I'm always helping to promote people that way as well. That's awesome. So that if you wanted to know that site, it's, it's basically facebook.com backslash independent streak magazine. Okay, cool. I think that we should, while we still have some time here, try out the owl app and give some people some calls. Um, let's see. I'm, I'm looking at some people maybe in the entertainment. Devin, how are you? Good. How are you? I am fantastic. I thought you would be a perfect person to call. I'm here with Rachel Galvin. She is an actress, a writer, um, an editor, former podcaster, networker. Um, the list goes on. She lived in LA for a couple years, working with different agencies. And Steven is a comedian and teaches comedy as well. And he lives in LA. So I thought that he would be a great person to chat with here on owl. Um, so Steven, do you have any questions that you would like to ask Rachel? Yes. How long have you been acting? Okay. Well, I started in 1998 as an actor and I started in theater and eventually worked my way into film. So it's been a long time. That's awesome. And you say that you're a writer as well? Yes. I've been a writer. Um, since a little after that, I started writing in earnest and, um, actually I'd seen the movie almost famous and that was when I decided that's it. I had done one writing gig working for talent magazine as a theater critic, which is not in LA anymore. But after that, I came here to Florida, didn't know, like I said to you earlier, I didn't know how to get into the business doing anything. And I saw that movie and I thought, you know what? I have those tear sheets from that writing gig. I'm going to become a writer. Wow. I started just local newspapers saying, Hey, I want to be a writer. And it took quite a while until somebody gave me my first gig. What's your favorite genre to write? Well, I'm a journalist, so I'm writing about pretty much I was given, you know, whatever they gave me. So I did a human interest stories. Um, I like to write about art. That's probably my favorite to write about and film since I have a film magazine, which you should know about. It's called independent streak magazine. If you weren't listening already to our show, then I also like writing about food and wine, love those events and travel. I'd like to do some more writing about that. That's, that's awesome. Awesome stuff. So when you, uh, you do your travel, what are some of the places that you've been? Well, I wrote about London, which I went a couple of years ago with my dad and I wrote a whole thing about London. And every time somebody goes to London, I'm like, let me send you the article. I was so excited about London. I loved it there. I mean, I feel like the arts scene there and the acting is amazing. And I have a friend that went to acting school there and I studied abroad there and saw some great, um, shows in the West end. And yeah, it's amazing. I was so excited to go to the globe theater. It was great. That's awesome. Do you have any questions for Steven? And yeah, Steven, where do you teach? I teach out of the comedy Chateau, which is a comedy club on Lancashire and North Hollywood. I have a resident show there on Thursday nights and Sunday nights. And then we have our auditions on Sunday afternoons at four. We call it comedy church. I also do comedy workshops with some of the newbies that come out of that. And I also do some drill down one-on-one from my workshop. And I also do a film festivals and I do international call for comedy films and I'm a podcaster. So what I will do is I will, at my film events, I will put together panels, which consists of comedians that are involved in film in some way, either they produce, direct, write, or act in a film. So I'll have them on the panel and then I'll have podcasters that will either do, um, articles or interviews or podcast shows about, uh, comedy in the film industry. And then I have comedians that'll be on. So it's kind of a triangle triangulated filmmaker podcast, comedian type of trifecta that, um, that I pretty much focus on and it's pretty fun. And I also own my own outdoor drive-in movie theater. So whenever we do a film festival exhibition or we do anything that has to do with an outdoor movie experience, um, I'll put my content up on the screens before we show the film blocks. And before we show the features, so I get some exposure there and it's a lot of fun to see your podcast on a 40 foot screen. It's pretty cool. Yeah. I actually have a friend that's in Indiana now. That's going to be doing something similar with a drive-in and with his film festival. So that's interesting. And, um, I actually did comedy class when I was in LA. I was in, um, comedy sports. If you remember that it was called comedy sports. Yeah. Um, and I have contacts out in LA, so we should definitely stay in touch on owl so that I can, you just have to get your log in. And I can help your friend in Indiana get some, uh, driving gear as well. I also am a, uh, a vendor for driving equipment. Oh, perfect. Okay, great. Yeah. He'll be excited about that. Yay. Look at that guys. When are you coming out to LA next? Oh, I miss LA so much. When are you coming out to LA next? I don't know. I need to come out there. I miss I loved Cantor's deli. So I like yeah. Cantor's is great. That was my hangout with Dave Chappelle. I can't do it. That's that's one of his hangouts. I hung out there and I was, I was in there and I called up a friend of mine. I'm not going to say who the actor is, the big time actor. And I called him up and I said, Hey, I'm at Cantor's. What are you doing? And he said, Oh, I'm hanging out with a Warner brother producer and we're watching his latest film. Did you want to come over? Yeah, right over. Yeah. I love Cantor's. Yeah. Oh, well you guys definitely need to connect on owl. Um, and for anybody who's watching, you can call both Steven and Rachel on the owl app. Yes. And Steven, I'll give you a little, what's your, Steven's an ambassador. Do you have a code, Steven? Comedy. Comedy guys. Comedy is my code. So if you download the app today, you don't have it already. Use comedy and you'll get $10. All right, Steven, we're going to go, but thank you for chatting with us. Thank you so much. I'll talk to you soon. That was awesome. Bye. I'm going to be in Florida for podfest January, so I'll see you. Yay. Are you going to be a podfest? I don't know about podfest. We need to talk. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm hosting, I'm hosting the comedy panel. So yeah. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Yeah. It's just a great, it's a live podcasting event in Orlando. It's huge. Um, Jason, I actually didn't start working here until the week after podfest last year, so I didn't get to go, but I've heard amazing things about it. Um, there are a lot of influencers and different people that go. And, um, usually we take some of our ambassadors with us. Um, so it should be fun. Yeah. I actually had an ambassador call me last night and I wish I knew her, her name. I forgot. She was so great. Oh, you can actually look at your history and find out who it is. Fun fact. So yeah, everybody watching, if you go to the hamburger menu on the left-hand side of the screen, um, and you go to your, where is it? Um, accounts and payments, I believe. Yeah. Accounts and payments. It shows you all of your call history, um, and everyone that you spoke with. So, cause I've had a couple of people say like, Oh, I talked to this person. I forget their name. So that's how you can find it. Okay. Um, but I think our time is up. Do you have any, any last words, any, any words of advice, I guess, for someone who's, um, looking to break into your industry? Okay. Well, for actors, I, like I said, I started out in theater and that's probably the best route to go. You, you learn a lot in theater. And then the next step is taking acting classes is really important. I've done a lot of different classes through the years and, um, you can take all different types, but I think on camera, if you're going to be a film actor, eventually on camera is the most important because you get to see yourself and film is so different than theater. I know I used to do musical theater and like I did one film acting briefing when I was in LA and it was so different. Yes. They were like, you need to not move your body. Like I was used to the right thing. Yeah. And they're like this little tiny movement with the eyes. Like that's all you need. So it was really different. Yeah. And that's something I learned. My eyebrows were like all over the place when I first watched myself. So that's really important. And the networking is the other big thing is just getting out there and meeting people because sometimes you might be brand new, but you might get a big role just by knowing the right people. I, yeah, I still think with all the technology that exists, having one-on-one real conversations either in person or on out, like talking and hearing the tone of someone's voice is so important. And I'll just do a shout out to Florida Arts Network. They're trying to really build that and they have events. I'll have to check that out. Florida Arts Network. Okay. Awesome. And then where can people find you, Rachel, if they want to get in touch besides OWL? The best way to get ahold of me is Facebook. I'm always on Facebook. So it's just under my name, Rachel Galvin. And I also have an Instagram account, which is Rachel Galvin 969. Okay. If I remember, I've been trying to do TikTok as well, which I'm just kind of starting in. Yeah. So you can find me in all of those. And we'll be posting her on our account as well and tagging you. So yeah. All right, everyone. Well, thank you for watching. Thank you. Post-production for the OWL podcast is done with care by Ocean Tree Creative.