Meet Lori Mc Crory

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lori Mc Crory.

Lori, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
It didn’t come as a shock to my mother when I announced that I dropped my biology major and decided to pursue a career in filmmaking. As a kid, I was in love with film and television. I studied every sitcom and every film like my life depended on it. If you asked me who won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1997, I could tell you with no hesitation (it was Kristen Johnston, by the way). I mean, I’m talking a HUGE tv/film nerd. Huge! And when I got my first Nokia phone, a little pink brink with a Hello Kitty charm, I quickly made a hobby of writing and filming my own little sketches. My best pixelated work made it to YouTube for my friends and my 50-some YouTube subscribers to see. However, it wasn’t until I got to college that I realized I wanted to turn this hobby into a career.

My brief stint as a Youtuber in my tween years helped me build the camera and editing skills that landed me my first couple of jobs as an assistant and a video intern. My first real job in the industry was working for this firecracker of a director/writer who treated every idea like it was the next best thing since sliced bread. His office was a revolving door of the strangest and coolest people I’d ever met and I was just there to film it all the wildness. It was the best intro to the industry I could ask for.

But when I graduated from UC Davis in 2019, I was eager to leave the internships behind and start working paid gigs. Unfortunately, the industry was not as eager to pay me. So, I reached out to people I worked with in my intern days and offered to work for free whilst I was juggling my many, many part-time jobs on the side. Eventually, I started getting paid gigs as a data imaging technician and camera production assistant for some shorts for Funny or Die, a couple of commercials, and music videos. As my network and resume grew, the jobs got bigger and bigger.

Somewhere along the way, I submitted a 1-minute video to a contest on a whim and ended up being selected to direct a featurette for the AT&T Revolt Summit. The next week, I used the featurette to apply for a production assistant job at Believe Media, an international production company. I landed the job, and a little over a month later, I became their Media Manager. Since then, I’ve been working on and off set for clients like Gucci, Google, and Urban Decay.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road to where I am now was far from a smooth ride. Did you know that moving to LA with less than $800 to your name and trying to get a job in the media/entertainment industry is, like, really, reaaaaally hard?

To make ends meet, I was scooping ice cream, making juice, and walking dogs in between film gigs. Any free time I had was spent going into job interviews, working on my portfolio, and shaking hands at networking events. Do you know how some people like to say that their body is a temple? Well, my body was a run-down Arby’s. I relied on the support of my family and friends during this time.

Despite it all, it was absolutely worth it. Would I want to live it all over again? No, thanks! But there is truly no better feeling than being on a set, running on a Red Bull and a banana (why are the bananas at crafty always so good?), and being surrounded by people who are just as in love with the craft as you are.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
Outside of my 9 to 5 as a media manager, I am a writer, photographer, and cinematographer. Most of my work centers around comedy. Currently, I work alongside other creators making multimedia content for web platforms, such as YouTube, Instagram, and Vimeo.

As a Black/Asian and LGBTQ+ creator, I am eager to work with other BIQTPOC artists!

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My childhood idol was Wayne Brady and not Hannah Montana, to give you an image of the kind of child I was. I worshipped the ground he improvised on. I think it was because I thought he was cute and we had the same haircut.

Anyway, my family would tape Whose Line Is It Anyway? episodes on those big, clunky VHS tapes and we would watch them together over and over again without ever getting tired of the jokes. I used to love standing up and recreating Brady’s jokes, even though I was in kindergarten and didn’t know what I was saying.

Wayne Brady, if you’re reading this, let’s hang out sometime!

Contact Info:

• Website: lorimccrory.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: lori.mccrory

Image Credit:
Lori Mc Crory, Haye Yukio

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