Meet Micah Taylor | Film Director and Owner of Electric Soul

We had the good fortune of connecting with Micah Taylor and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Micah, what’s your definition for success?
Our mission at Electric Soul is to elevate and empower people through our work. When I began this company in 2016, I was really discontent with the state of the commercial production industry. In the film industry, people are expected to work incredibly long hours (12-16 hours days) while being asked to take less money and often have to wait one to three months to get paid. That’s not sustainable. People aren’t commodities, they aren’t tools; they are valuable, creative, hard-working souls who are trying to provide for their families by creating something.

So Electric Soul really began with the mission of changing the industry (or at least the small part of it where we have influence) to create something that was sustainable for the artists and laborers who pour so much into it. The incredible thing is that that very belief has been the core of how we have grown. I think when you treat people with a great amount of respect and seek to empower them, you attract and build up the best people. Because we’ve formed such an amazing community of crew members, we’ve got to create TV series, contribute to shows and documentaries for Magnolia, HBO (MAX), Showtime, CNN, and more. We’ve also created commercials and content for Coca-Cola, Lowe’s, FIFA, Marriott and other great brands. While all of that feels like “success,” I think those are byproducts of what I believe success is rather than how we fundamentally define it.

We gauge success in how we empower others: from our crew, to our clients, to the person who ultimately views what we’re making. When I have a crew member who texts me a picture of their house or car or engagement ring and tells me that working for us helped them achieve that, when we have clients tell us they cried or felt a new sense of pride and purpose watching something we made for them… those are the touch points that make me feel like Electric Soul is accomplishing what we set out to do.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Professionally, I have always strived for two things: excellence in my work and inspiring the value in those working alongside me. This means that professionally, I have created a people over profit model that is honestly the hardest and often the least rewarding way to run a business. Seeking to constantly elevate and create a better product and to empower those around you means you often bypasses the path of least resistance in favor of the path of lowest profit.

But I think that it’s the right thing to do. And while it can be a hard, sometime isolating experience to make big decisions for a company without any other framework of other businesses who have made the same decisions and succeeded to tell about it, I have been blessed that some of the hard choices I’ve made have come back to… I don’t know, what’s the opposite of “haunt me?” Paid off, I guess.

For example, at Electric Soul, I have taken on projects with budgets over $100,000 that, in the end, the company didn’t see any profit from at all because of the decisions I made for how to pay and take care of our crew and how to elevate the creative and take the project to the next level. Obviously at that point you have to make some adjustments and set yourself up for success the next time around. But every time I’ve made that choice, the end product has always won us bigger and better projects… and all of the crew wants to return to work on the next thing!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
First of all, I’m a coffee enthusiast, so I’d take any friend on a tour of our best shops: Bridge City, Methodical, and Flying Fox. We’d have to make stops at Fork & Plough, Society, and Bobby’s BBQ, and M&J’s Wings for lunch, Urban Wren and Frankie’s Pizza for dinner, Claire’s Ice Cream and Scout’s Doughnuts for desert (though people will fight me and say breakfast) and Fireforge for beer. I’m also a book nerd, so we’d have to go to Mr. K’s and Borderlands comics. Then after we’re basically bankrupt from eating our way through the city, walking it off at Conestee Nature preserve.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I have received so much encouragement over the years and so many other people have worked to build Electric Soul that it’s hard narrow it down. But possibly the most influential people have been Brent Christy (once a gaffer now a film director) who from one single interaction showed me you could be kind and intentional in the film industry; Greg Ward (owner of Bridge City Coffee) who has a very similar calling and mission with his company and is a constant source of encouragement that what we’re trying to do isn’t inane or unattainable; and my wife Jessica who, if I’m honest, none of this would even exist if she wasn’t the biggest supporter, cheerleader, sounding board, critic, and enabler of my work and my mission.

Website: electricsoulcreative.com

Instagram: electrcsoul

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmicahtaylor/

Image Credits
Carter Tippins, Marc Pagliuca, Taylor Cash