Maggie McLean
Facing Freelance and Growing From Mistakes
Maggie McLean is a music video and short-form content producer.
Born and raised in LA, the industry called her from a young age since her mom is a production accountant. Together, they started Cheeky Films, a production company.
She came up the trenches in one of the most traditional ways: as a PA. She then became a production coordinator, then a production manager, and eventually, a producer.
She produced commercials for a while before finding herself in producing music videos. She’s worked with artists such as LCD Soundsystem and Cardi B.
This year, she’s produced too many cool videos with fancy artists that she can’t even name all of them.
One video she can name, though, is “Dollar” by Electric Guest. The video was also directed by Jorma Taccone, of The Lonely Island fame.
She made magic happen with a PSA for Planned Parenthood to promote their new comprehensive sex education chatbot, “Roo.”
And then there’s Rock Bottom, a short written and directed by her bestie, Dylan Meyer. It was shot by an almost all-female crew, premiered at Chattanooga Film Festival, and is showing in LA this Friday at Hollyshorts.
During our chat, we go deep on how lonely freelancing can be, why kindness on set is crucial, and growing from our mistakes.
Oh, and pivoting when your microphone breaks seconds before you start recording... Thanks for your patience with the audio challenges on this one.
Tune in!
xx cg
“The only way to learn is to mess up.”
-Maggie McLean
Episode Transcript
