Filmmakers Making A Social Impact: Why & How Michael Hole of Girl Director Is Helping To Change Our World
The whole purpose of Girl Director Academy is to create a ripple effect in the world. Our training focuses on teaching and empowering people to spread their message with video, to create their own impact on the world. When we empower 100 people, and they empower 100 more each, then that’s how we create lasting change and growth on a massive scale.
As a part of our series about “Filmmakers Making A Social Impact” I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Hole.
Michael is the Co-Founder of Girl Director and has spent the last 30 years focusing on expanding individuals’ minds and creativity. Having studied psychology, computer science, and philosophy, as well as spending 20 years as a musician and artist, Michael brings a unique perspective on marketing to the film industry and its creative process. Beyond creativity, Michael also writes, directs, and fine-tunes budgets for various projects.
Thank you so much for doing this interview with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit. Can you share your “backstory” that brought you to this career?
I have always loved movies and music. I never watched movies in the same way other kids did. I was absorbed by them, but I was also fascinated by how the directors told their stories, the way the scenes were edited, the pacing, how they developed the characters, and the way they used musical themes to paint each scene and the main characters.
My biggest revelation came when Star Wars first came out. I saw it at the cinema. My world change at that very moment when the Imperial Star Cruiser flew over me. It was like I was in space and my view of life was never the same again… When Star Wars came out on video, I watched it over and over, freezing the frames on certain scenes to understand how they made them. I was fascinated.
I was raised to have a sensible career, working in IT and Finance for a long time. I did a couple of courses in editing and made a few music videos for my bands, before joining my partner, Rachel in her video production business that was called Girl Director. I started by being her one-man crew for low-budget corporate videos — shooting, lighting, sound recording and editing. She’s come from working on high-budget TV and Music Videos, so this was different for both of us. We worked well together and built a great business, becoming teachers in video production and launching our Girl Director Academy, whilst also making high-end promo videos for clients. In 2022, we are launching our new video Agency business. It is wholly focused on producing high-end epic videos for people who want to become icons.
While all this has been going on, I have been writing a feature film and novel called The Execlintians. It is my biggest passion project of all. It stars intelligent plants that lived on Earth 100 million years ago. The images of it came to me first in dreams and over time I committed the story to paper. It begins with the birth of one such plant creature as he discovers an alien and yet familiar world. It is an epic adventure of survival against the elements and dark forces that seek to manipulate the world around them. There’s a lot to the story. I’ve completed the novel and am now at work on adapting it for film. I like to classify it under a new genre called Organic Science Fiction.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your filmmaking career?
There’s some kind of universal law that says as soon as you start filming outside someone will make a horrible noise to ruin your takes. It happens all the time. Whether we are shooting in a remote countryside location or in someone’s back yard, suddenly a helicopter decides to land next door (seriously!) or the neighbor starts using their whipper snipper. Once we were filming in one of the wealthiest suburbs in Sydney on a perfectly quiet day. We set up camera and sound, started filming and suddenly fighter jets started doing a display right over us for the next half an hour. Luckily, we had enough time to get our takes done.
Who are some of the most interesting people you have interacted with? What was that like? Do you have any stories?
I have worked with a few celebrities, and some have become good friends. They have all been interesting people, but some of the most interesting people I’ve worked with are what you might call ‘every day’ people. One who comes to mind is a female Shaman called Kerri Chinner. We filmed a few videos for Kerri, and the conversations with her were incredibly explorative and mind-expanding. We delved deeply into the spiritual and creative world, assimilating real-life experiences with indigenous teachings.
One of the most memorable experiences with Kerri was when we took her on one of our exclusive high-end retreats. Just as we were leaving for the airport to pick her up, our beloved cat, Theo, was run over right in front of my eyes. It was a horrific accident where he died in my arms. Kerri knew Theo well and suggested we bring him with us to the retreat location. Under her instruction, we swaddled him up and laid him in the bath of the mountain cabin. We covered him in petals and spoke to him while Kerri opened a sacred space to help him transition. Both Rachel and I had a true feeling of his expansiveness all through that weekend. He became bigger around us and a guide for us both. We played music all weekend and one song resonated through us… the hypnotic: “Be Here Now” by Ray LaMontagne.
On the last night of the retreat, we buried Theo while I sang a song I’d written for him when he was still alive. Then Kerri closed the sacred space, and we knew that he had transitioned. The next day we found a dead bird on our doorstep. There was no damage to the bird. No sign of trauma. We took it as a message that he was around us. He’s been with us ever since.
Which people in history inspire you the most? Why?
- David Bowie — he’s so creative — musically, stylistically, and poetically. I always loved how he could reinvent himself into a new character for a new era. Even though I knew he was just a man, it always felt like he was from another world.
- Akhenaten — the renegade Egyptian Pharoah who transitioned ancient Egypt from a multi-theistic society to the world’s first monotheistic religion. He was represented in carvings as almost effeminate and alien. He was the uncle of the famous Tutankhamen, but after his reign all traces of him were removed from the temples, to wipe him from history. I’d love to make a film about him, to explore his impact on the world. He set a precedent that changed the course of history.
- Eleanor Roosevelt — She was a staunch feminist and started the United Nations Human Rights Commission. As the First Lady to FDR, she created massive progress and change behind the scenes. As his number one confidant, the two of them changed the course of history. She also said this: “When it’s better for everyone, it’s better for everyone.” The more you think about that, the more powerful a truth it becomes.
Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview, how are you using your success to bring goodness to the world? Can you share with us the meaningful or exciting social impact causes you are working on right now?
The whole purpose of Girl Director Academy is to create a ripple effect in the world. Our training focuses on teaching and empowering people to spread their message with video, to create their own impact on the world. When we empower 100 people, and they empower 100 more each, then that’s how we create lasting change and growth on a massive scale.
Our clients come from all industries. Some examples of what they are at work on are: Women’s health for over 50-year-olds, Conscious Governance for company board members, visual arts education, organic feed products for the agricultural industry, occupational therapy for children on the autism spectrum and a charity that raises awareness and financial support for victims of child sexual abuse. We have worked with hundreds of businesses over the past eight years and they are all different.
Rachel and I also have our own personal high-impact projects that we are at work on behind the scenes. Rachel’s is called Through Elephant Eyes, and mine is The Execlintians. Both delve into the intelligence, communication and consciousness of other living beings. One as a documentary, the latter in the form of speculative fiction.
It is always our intention to open peoples’ minds to what they are capable of, and what is truly possible beyond our inherent paradigms. That’s what I think makes our work so interesting.
Many of us have ideas, dreams, and passions, but never manifest it. But you did. Was there an “Aha Moment” that made you decide that you were actually going to step up and take action for this cause? What was that final trigger?
Rachel and I are life partners. We have become excellent at manifesting what we want in our lives. We were together for 10 years before we began working together full-time. I left the finance industry in 2012 and spent a year working on my novel and other business projects, whilst also doing Extras work on TV shows and commercials, but none of them were leading where I wanted to go.
I was dithering around but really wanted to work full time in the film industry. Rachel and I had complementary skills to work together, but it was risky to put all our eggs in one basket and rely on the one business income. After all, we had two mortgages and the industry was not very stable.
Then one day Rachel gave me an ultimatum: to either take a leap of faith and jump into business with her or go back into the finance industry. She said, “Take as long as you need but don’t come back until you’ve made a decision.”
I am big on journaling, so I walked down to the beach (we were living in Bondi then) and wrote out the Pros and Cons of what I wanted. It didn’t take me long. Half an hour later I was back in our apartment saying I was joining Girl Director! Then something amazing happened… An hour later Rachel had a call from a financial planner who wanted a promo video made. Rachel told her all about how we worked and how I used to work in the finance industry. We got the job straight away and 3 days later we were shooting her video. It was the beginning of Girl Director Agency and within months grew into what would later become Girl Director Academy.
We started making seriously good money from the start and haven’t looked back since. We’ve built our life around this business and get to live by our terms in a paradise part of the world. Every time we focus on what want together it comes to fruition and we’re working on even bigger projects now, especially in the film arena.
Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
No More Fake Smiles — Tracey and her daughter Annie came to us wanting to learn video. They had a compelling story of how they had suffered from sexual abuse in the family and how they had come through the other side of it. They set up their own part-time charity and ran a few fundraisers to help other victims of child sexual abuse. Then COVID hit and they couldn’t do these live events anymore.
That’s when they joined our Academy and started learning how to make their own videos to promote themselves and raise funds. Within 3 months of working with us, they were filming and editing higher quality, strongly messaged videos. Within the first month of working with us, they raised $20K with an online video campaign (with no paid advertising). That was more than they had ever raised before. Then they turned one of the video ads they’d made under our guidance into a TV advert (the quality was that good)!
Since then, they have been asked to speak at several events and charity galas. Both Annie and Tracey are becoming known as advocates for their cause at the grassroots level.
Are there three things that individuals, society or the government can do to support you in this effort?
- Tell people about the incredible work we do — There are so many people who can benefit from the Girl Director movement. That’s why the best way to support us is to tell people about us, especially business owners who want to expand their reach on video. What we offer is a unique service, with a unique perspective on business, manifestation, and brilliance. People can go to our website, Facebook Page or YouTube channel to find out more.
- Government Grants — Grants for small businesses are a brilliant way to support the people we support. Big business usually has large budgets for marketing and PR, but for small businesses marketing is often seen as a luxury. High-end video is possibly the most powerful way to transition a small business to the next level. Whenever grants are released to small businesses — especially grants for marketing purposes — we find that they become fully subscribed within hours. That just illustrates how much demand there is for this kind of government support. The fact is, small businesses employ more than 50% of the workforce, so the more support there is for small businesses, the more jobs there will be.
- Share our Content — The last area of support is for people to keep sharing our content online. Over the past 10 years, we have produced hundreds of videos that are full of great content. This content is free, and the more people get to consume it, the more they will learn and grow.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
- Expand your team faster than it feels comfortable — it’s common for small business owners to do everything themselves, and it’s common for small business owners to be good at lots of things. While this might seem admirable, it is the biggest hindrance to business growth. A few years back I learned the technique of writing down everything I did in a day, week, month, quarter… I circled the things that were repetitive, and the things I didn’t want to do. And then I created what we call a Linda List… a Linda List is the compiled list of jobs that we plan to give to our next employee (until we knew who that person is, we call her Linda). Sometimes we’ve had more than one Linda List at a time, realizing we have multiple roles… This is a great process I recommend for easily working out the job description of your next employee!
- Find quality people for your team — In the book Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about “Who’s on the bus”. I love this concept. It’s all about finding the right people first and then working out what you’re going to do to grow the business with that team. It recognizes that a great company is created by great people working together, and I don’t know about you, but I LOVE working with great people.
- Keep your prices high — It’s so easy to drop your prices to try and get people to buy, but the fact is, no matter how low or high your prices are, you’ll still have the same objections from people. Why? Because price is relative to people’s expectations. Let’s take $80 for a moment… For that money, you could have a cheap meal out for two, or maybe a new Wacom tablet (a high-tech device for your computer). You could also buy a decent bottle of gin for $80. How about a one-hour massage or a tank of gas? You could buy a big, beautiful picture book that took someone years to put together or a toy for your child that they play with for one day and never touch again. There’s also half-day, one-day and weekend workshops sold for $80… I pay the same amount for a term of Pilates classes…
Do you get my point? Who places the value on anything? Why is a Louis Vuitton handbag so much more expensive than a handbag in a market that looks virtually the same and with all the same properties?
Many would say it’s the consumer who dictates the price, but the fact is, the seller is the one who chooses the price and creates the value in their product… You set the price of your product, not the market… Once you understand this more and you start placing value on your brilliance, then you might just find that you want to start raising your prices to represent what you are really worth…
4. Focus on one product first — It’s easy to get excited about new products and keep creating more and more offerings for the market, but in my experience that is the best way to send your business down the gurgler…
At year 3 of our Girl Director, we realized we had done exactly this, and it nearly sent us broke. We had 8 offerings — three were video production packages and five were training programs of varying price. We realized that people were too confused with which product to buy. I did some calculations and realized that the package that was taking up 50% of our time was only giving us 30% of our profit. In amongst all our offerings, there was one premium package that we wanted to sell, but we weren’t selling it due to its higher price point and the confusion we were creating in our sales process.
So, what did we do? We went on the road for six months and took a break! Then we started selling just one product… our premium package. It was the only thing we needed to talk to clients about and they started buying it, and they loved it. We turned our business around within a few months. We focused just on this product for the next five years and out of that our business grew and grew to what it is now. That’s our Academy, and now that it’s well established, we are launching our Agency again, only this time we are doing it with a far stronger foundation than before. We also have the right team now…
5. Let it be fun — All of these lessons tie into one another, but this last one is what makes business easier. I used to think that running your own business or having a career was all about hard work. But when I look back on my favorite jobs and my biggest business successes, I can see that they happened when I was having the most fun! When we’re having fun — learning, creating, teaching, connecting, exploring — then everything flows and the passion builds.
Mark Twain once said, “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” That’s my motto these days. Love what you do, no matter what.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
The biggest agents for change in this world are individuals. Governments respond to the movements in society. It’s this kind of grassroots activity that builds a movement. Most people don’t know they are starting a movement until they’ve already got it going. Think about what is most important to you. Come up with an action you can take to start making an impact, even if it’s just posting a video where you’re talking about how you feel the subject. People will notice you.
Just think of Greta Thunberg. She didn’t set out to create a massive worldwide movement. She just started taking a stand for what she believed in by protesting on her own outside parliament. People started to join her and it grew and grew with more people by her side, the rest is history that we all know. It was her passion and her intelligent confrontation of the truth that has made such a massive impact on the world.
We are very blessed that many other Social Impact Heroes read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, whom you would like to collaborate with, and why? He or she might see this. 🙂
I would love to work with Stephen Spielberg or Peter Jackson on my film of The Execlintians. They are both visionary directors who know how to take a great story and make it even better on the big screen. The Execlintians is the story of intelligent plants that lived 100 million years ago on Earth. The film is going to be the most visually spectacular immersive world you have ever experienced. This is a story that needs to be told with full hyper-real CGI and motion capture because, at the core of it, there are no human characters, only the many and varied forms of Execlintians.
This is a hero’s journey where the hero is a very relatable plant creature called a Miwinien. He is born into a world that we have not seen on film before — one that is alien and yet familiar. As we follow him from the moment of his birth, we learn of this strange place and the sea of clouds, called Qualia, that threatens his species. We learn of their customs that are totally different to ours, and when our protagonist is forced into this ominous sea of clouds he is lost. That’s when the adventure really begins and a struggle ensues that will threaten all Execlintian life. It will be an epic film where the subtext is centered around how fragile the earth is and the threats posed to the environment by egoist, meddling minds. But it’s not all hopeless, for as the Toog clans say “Hope does not come alone.”
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Man must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; otherwise he cannot be in harmony with the Formless Intelligence, which is always creative and never competitive in spirit.” — Wallace D. Wattles.
This is the most powerful lesson I learnt from reading The Science of Getting Rich. When we focus on competing all the time we limit ourselves, we are narrowing our genius and losing sight of what is possible. We, in fact, become smaller. When we stop competing and focus on creating, the possibilities are limitless. We don’t need to worry about what others are doing anymore. We start creating our own niche, our own space for business and ideas, and whatever else we want to explore. People who get caught up in what others are doing all the time are in a rat race, and that’s usually a race to the bottom. Whereas people who focus on unlimited creativity are in a world of total expansiveness.
How can our readers follow you online?
Girl Director:
www.youtube.com/girldirectortv
The Execlintians:
This was great, thank you so much for sharing your story and doing this with us. We wish you continued success!
Thank you!
Filmmakers Making A Social Impact: Why & How Michael Hole of Girl Director Is Helping To Change Our… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.