Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Garcia Mullins.
Hi Stephanie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’m your classic hustler. I have a lot of varied interests and education and experiences, some trying to focus on just one thing is not really going to happen. I kind of get restless easily, so I’m constantly trying to learn new things to expand my knowledge base and skill set. Being a church kid really imprinted that in my psyche. If I see a need and see how I can meet that need, I do all I can to help out. Sometimes, at the detriment of myself and my bank account. (I’ve learned to do better at that bit) Learning and doing something new really gets me going. I was an event designer for about 12 years and during that time, I dabbled in photography with the intent to create my own media assets to show my design work.
After maybe five years, people started asking me to take their photos and I started charging for my photography. After a while, other photographers started asking me to second shoot for them. I think I was still truly terrible and have no idea what possessed these people to pay me, but photographing people was a fun new thing to learn, so I kept at it. A few years later, I shot a thing for a local theatre and met Joey Maxwell, who was then a one-man-band with his new video production company that he’d just named The Studio Creative Group. We hit it off and before long, we were talking about working together as a team. I was getting asked about video services and he was getting asked for stills. We could have each done those things but wanted to focus on our own things that we were best at, so it made sense to join forces.
At the time, we just had it in our heads that we’d just do the same work we’d been doing, but before long, we realized we largely wanted to get out of the private client market and focus on commercial work. Over the course of just three years, I’ve become the COO of The Studio and we’ve gone from “Joey and Stephanie” to a creative team of seven amazing people. We’ve created photo and video assets for companies all over the world. Right now, we have some crazy cool original projects that are in talks with some of the big networks and streaming services. We recently won an Emmy for a virtual production we produced for our partners at a local theatre and we’re currently in our seed money round of corporate fundraising to expand to a team of about 20 in a huge new facility. It’s crazy and it’s an incredibly exciting time!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The biggest challenge I’ve faced is convincing people that what I do is as valuable as I say it is. There can be this disconnect between people saying, “Wow! Your work is gorgeous” and them saying, “Yes! I will pay that for your work.” Bridging that gap can be a challenge… finding your people who will value it. Another struggle is that Joey and I are creatives and we really hate to do the administrative and sales stuff. We do these creative jobs because we love to be creative and the grunt work things like closing contracts and managing schedules and asking people for money… both of our eyes just kind of glaze over. It just doesn’t bring us joy, so it bogs us down. The best thing we ever did was bring on Joan and begin outsourcing some of those tasks so we could be freed up to do the work people pay us to do.
I think the most important struggle has been learning where my work-life balance falls to be the most comfortable for me and my family. I’m loving what I’m doing, and I’d honestly do it for free. But I like having a home and feeding my kids, so I need to get paid… and I’m doing this work and investing myself in this company to improve my family’s quality of life. This is for them. So when we’ve achieved our goals, if our families aren’t right there next to us because we got so focused on the work that we lost our relationships with them, then we’ve failed our ultimate purpose. I’m working hard to bake that into our company culture in the policies in put in place and Joey and I are working to keep each other accountable to that (and now Joan fusses at us when we send emails after 5 pm which makes my husband happy).
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about The Studio Creative Group?
The Studio Creative Group is a full-service production house in Central Florida. We have both a commercial and a narrative division. Our commercial division is our bread and butter, creating video and photo collateral for television, web, and print. With my marketing education, I’ve been overseeing this side of things, intaking clients, writing commercials, and overseeing productions through to the close of the contracts. Our narrative division opened last year with our first short film, Coming Home (you can find it on Amazon Prime Video), and quickly launched into the production of pilots to pitch to networks and streaming services. We are currently in production for two pilots. One is a children’s program and the other features short-track racers and their families.
For me, what sets us apart is that we truly are a Group. Nobody has all the good ideas. It takes a team and the members of our team are ALL empowered to offer creative input and have good ideas. As we expand, I’m working hard to ensure that portion of our DNA remains an integral thread in all our decisions. And the fact that we don’t rely on just one person’s creativity means that we never run out of great ideas. My own personal experience in that was at a video commercial campaign creative meeting. I was really only there to take notes and kind of keep the meeting humming. I was also the only woman in the room. So the team had their story arcs but couldn’t figure out how to tie them to each other. After a while, I very timidly offered my thought. Joey pointed at me and said, “Yes. Write it.” And before I knew it, I was writing that commercial campaign and then planning that shoot. I’m a photographer! I have no business doing this! But it was my idea. And the client loved it and still uses the campaign. We’re most proud of that Emmy that now sits on our shelf next to our Telly award! But personally, I’d say that the day that a model from one of our commercial campaigns sent me a text with a photo of my work (an image of her) in a store… IN SOUTH AFRICA… that was stupid cool. I want the world to know that we’re growing and we’re an excellent investment opportunity. And as we grow, we will still be hyper-focused on serving our local small businesses and community. We live here. We have kids in these schools. The future of DeLand and Central Florida is really important to us.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
Oh… I have so many great memories from my childhood! I have no idea… Hmmm… I’d have to say that my first time at Disney World was pretty epic. I had it in my head that I’d wanted to go and I talked about a lot. I must have driven my parents absolutely nuts with how much I talked about it. But they would say it was expensive and they didn’t know how we’d pay for it and all the usual things. So I started praying that God would give us the money to go to Disney World. I would say it in my mealtime prayers and in my bedtime prayers and every prayer in-between. Seriously. I must have driven them batty with this. So one day, we got up and my parents announced we weren’t going to school but that we all needed to get dressed because we were going somewhere. We all piled in the car and drove and drove and drove and my dad said, “Hey, Mommy. Turn on the radio…” and the voice on the radio said, “Welcome to Walt Disney World Resort,” and burst into tears. It was probably the absolute most magical moment of my life. Wow! I haven’t thought about that in a while. Thanks for that smile.
Contact Info:
- Email: stephanie@thestudiocreativegroup.com
- Website: www.thestudiocreativegroup.com, https://wefunder.com/the.studio.creative.group
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestudiocreativegroup/
https://www.instagram.com/thestephaniemullins/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thestudiocreativegroup
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtsCydwc_TO0EOohMYqdnUQ
