Meet Stephanie McIntosh of The Machiavellian Hippies in West Side

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie McIntosh.

Stephanie, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I come by the way of Jupiter, FL. Arrived in LA after graduating from art school at Florida State University, worked in music for 2.5 years and now I work for a film/TV production company.

I work with many different mediums, I obsess over finding a way to fuse multiple perspectives into a digestible and universal context. My hope is to one day run my own production company, which will run like a collective supporting creators and empowering them to take control of their careers. Simply because I believe the culture is ready for the artist to dictate their own future, for art and commerce to blend in a profound and powerful way.

Has it been a smooth road?
Hardly, when I first got to LA, I was a Segway tour guide– I made very little, it was a struggle to accommodate with the high cost of living in Los Angeles but luckily, I have had a really great support system, friends who along the way have facilitated me and pushed me to keep going.

After guiding, I started working as an intern for an independent music label, I worked my way up to publicity manager and helped emerging artist connect with press and raise awareness for new releases. PR was pretty difficult, the industry was shifting so much in my tenure, it became difficult to maintain traction for many of my clients, fast forward a few years and I was compelled to try something else, entirely.

I’ve always been interested in film and things started to open up in that direction, so I decided to jump and dedicate my life to it. I don’t believe time is something you should waste and if your heart is telling you to do something, you should and not look back.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into you untitled collective’s story. Tell us more about the business.
Well right now, things are pretty infantile, I believe if you want to do something you should start flexing that muscle until it runs effortlessly.

I have connected with a few artists I believe in and we are starting to develop our own short films and other projects, just in an attempt to keep creating. I don’t have any expectations, I just find releasing pent up energy in a productive environment helps with such an intense 9-5 workload– It keeps me fresh. I can say this is a part of a decade long vision, it’s built off a singular and rare moment when the artist outsmarts capitalism.

Finding a way to take what I have learned and build it into something greater than myself, is important to me and that takes time– Especially if you want to do it right, I’m excited for the future.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I think it is about to be a fantastic time to be a creative, the world is shifting in such a fascinating way, we as a culture are learning about ourselves in a way we have never before. It’s inspiring, our generation is way smarter than we are given credit for; we are scrappy and we know what we want.

We are big picture kids, we take risks and it’s great– Especially when it comes to storytelling. Everyone has a story and there are more places to tell them than ever.

We just need to knock that door down and leave it on the ground.

Image Credit:
Sam Murray – @saamurray (Instagram)

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