Building Your DIY Acting Reel (With a Little Help)

This week on The Glow Up Year, I’m celebrating a huge milestone—I booked my very first job of the year, a Maine tourism commercial through my new agent! 🎉 In this episode, I’m sharing what that moment meant for me, how I’m easing back into the glow-up after last week’s funk, and why I’m so excited for what’s ahead.

I also take you behind the scenes of an amazing test shoot I did with the insanely talented photographer Eve Gagné (seriously, go check her out!). From playful props to experimenting with big facial expressions, this shoot felt less like work and more like hanging out with a friend. Eve’s gorgeous riverfront studio, fast turnaround time, and hilarious vibe made the whole experience unforgettable—and reminded me how powerful collaboration can be when two creatives come together to help each other grow. 

You can find Eve’s work and connect with her here: Instagram | Website.

Finally, I dive into the next chapter of my own creative journey: updating my acting reel with a series of micro-short scripts I’m writing and producing. I’m pulling back the curtain on how I’m approaching the writing process, collaborating with my community, and keeping it realistic with micro-budgets and small crews. If you’ve been curious about what it really looks like to build your own work as an actor, this episode is packed with inspiration, behind-the-scenes details, and a reminder that your glow up unfolds one bold move at a time.

✨ 2025✨ is about to be huge, and I want you to be part of this journey. Let’s glow up together.

🎭 Follow My Journey: Stay connected and get behind-the-scenes insights!

📸 Instagram: @megsalisburyofficial

🎬 TikTok: @megsalisburyofficial

Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with your fellow dreamers—we’re all in this for the long game!

Let’s glow up together—because your breakthrough moment might be closer than you think.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you listened to last week's episode, I'm out of
the funk, which is great.
I just wanted to give you guysan update.
I was on hold for a Mainetourism commercial from my new
agent.
Thank you very much and Welcomeback to the Glow Up Year.

(00:32):
I'm Meg, actress, model andyour behind-the-scenes bestie
when it comes to chasing dreamsand building something big.
After years of navigating theups, the downs and the wild
in-betweens of the entertainmentworld, I am stepping fully into
this next level chapter.
This podcast is your backstagepass to all the real stuff

(00:55):
Auditions, photo shoots, mindsetshifts, script prep, career
curveballs you name it.
I'm sharing it all the highsand the hard lessons in real
time.
If you're ready to go all in onyour glow up, take some brave
steps and see what it reallylooks like to grow in this
industry, grab your favoritedrink, get cozy and let's dive

(01:19):
in together.
Hey y'all, I just want to sayfrom the bottom of my heart,
thank you for sticking with me.
If you listened to last week'sepisode, I'm doing better, we're
getting better.
We're glowing back up.
We're going back up, we'regrowing back up.
I just wanted to give you guysan update.
We have some amazing things totalk about today.
First off, we have to startwith some celebrations.

(01:40):
Some celebrations, somecelebrations.
I was on hold for a Mainetourism commercial from my new
agent Thank you very much and Igot the email a couple days ago
that I booked it.
I booked the first job, firstjob of the year.

(02:01):
It's the first job of the year.
We're booking the first job ofthe year and it's in Maine,
which is crazy, because I don'thave to drive that far.
Normally I have to drive likehella far.
This is like literally theperfect job for me.
It's great.
I'm so excited.
I've been thinking about thisand I might do a come with me
episode to set that day.

(02:22):
But I will, I'm going to keep.
I'm going to.
I'm going to see how this otherone lands first.
We're going to see how CocoRocha lands first and then maybe
we'll do a come with me episodeto set.
But yeah, I'm excited, it'sgoing to be great.
I started talking with thestylists about what I had in my
closet already and sent in somepictures.
So I'll keep you updated.
I'll keep you updated.
I'll let you know how it goes.

(02:42):
But first booking of the yearNot bad, not bad.
We're glowing up one bold moveat a time.
We have a few things that we'regoing to talk about today.
I did this test shoot prior toCoco Camp, but it got so busy
and crazy that I wasn't able totell you guys about it About, I
think, a month ago with Ev Gagneand she is somebody that I met

(03:04):
at my day job and we networkedwe just recently planned a shoot
together.
That was so much fun to workwith.
We literally we had like areally basic, very broad idea
going into it and then we showedup on the day and we just kind
of like had fun, tried somedifferent looks, tried some new
things.
She wanted to get a lot ofdifferent facial expressions, so

(03:24):
we did some crazy differentfacial expressions, which was
fun.
It was great to get to do somepractice.
It had been a while prior tothat shoot, I believe, since I
had done a photo shoot, so itwas fun to get back out there.
Ev has this awesome studiolocation that we went and shot
at.
It's beautiful.
It's like right on the river,these big, gorgeous windows, and

(03:48):
you know what the other awesome, amazing, wonderful, incredible
, amazingly great thing about Evwas.
I actually got my photos backreally fast Not to diss on other
photographers, because I'm nothere to diss on other
photographers, but sometimes ittakes a while to get your photos
back and I get why.

(04:08):
It takes a quite a bit of timeand post to go through, to edit
everything, to fine-tune it andfind the vibe and the style that
you want.
What was amazing about Av isshe kind of knew exactly what
she was going for while we wereshooting and so she was able to
get through that entire processso quickly, so quickly.
We tried using props, which wasfun.

(04:29):
We used some sunglasses, a hairscarf, a big floppy hat.
We just had a grand old timeand honestly, it didn't even
really feel like work with Ev.
It felt like we were just likehanging out and doing some fun
stuff together.
I always love when I cansupport somebody in growing
their career and while they'realso supporting me in growing my
career, because then it doesn'tfeel so one-sided.

(04:52):
We both are helping each otherlevel up, which is awesome.
Ev was just incredible Great towork with, so fun, such a chill
vibe.
She's low-key, really fuckinghilarious.
She's low-key, so funny shemakes me die.

(05:12):
Oh, I love her so much.
It was such a wonderful,amazing, great shoot day.
I'm hoping and looking forwardto working with her in the
future and being able to keephelping each other kind of grow
our books and grow our looks andgrow our styles together.
I'll link Ev's contactinformation down below.
So if you want to booksomething, you're in the New
England area and you want to doa quick, fun, amazing

(05:33):
collaborative shoot that's notgoing to be stressful, go see Ev
.
She is amazing.
I'll link everything for herdown below.
Really highly, highly recommend.
She's so awesome.
And I also have some news.
I have some news.
I have some news.
Part of my quarter, two goalsand I got to do a quarterly
review here.

(05:53):
I haven't even done it yet,eight days past, when I should
have done my quarterly review.
But this past quarter I wantedto update my marketing materials
and I did that with my modelingmarketing materials.
I did, don't get me wrong, butit's time to start updating the
acting reel.
It really is it's time.
I had a few ideas.

(06:13):
I'm going to kind of walk youthrough the process of how this
works for me and how I'm doingit, not on my own, but how I've
built a community that will helpme make all these projects
happen.
I came up with just a few ideasof things that I felt like was
lacking in my reel.
I feel like my acting reel isvery outdated and old.
I don't know that I'mnecessarily in a market where

(06:34):
I'm going to get a lot of filmand TV opportunity, but I like
to keep it up to date.
You never know what's going tohappen.
I have a script that I wrotethat is two pages.
It is about me and it two pages.
It is about me and it featuresmy dog, d-o-g that's his name,
d-o-g.
So I wrote a script.
I started with an idea thatjust I kind of got like inspired

(06:59):
inspirations, turned it into ascript and then I sent it out to
my community and I said, hey,pick this apart, what's wrong
with it, what could be better,what do you think?
And I got all the feedback andnow I'm at the point where I'm
reworking the script and gettingit to what I want to be my
locked and final cut.
The goal is to do threedifferent short scripts, and
these are like micro shortsbecause for my reel, each clip

(07:19):
is going to be no longer than 20seconds, so I don't need a five
minute long movie or even a 10minute long movie or even a 15
minute long movie.
I literally need a good 20second bite.
I'm kind of writing thesescripts with those thoughts in
mind.
I want a good 20 seconds, sothe script doesn't have to be
long, as long as I can create anice arc, a character arc,
within which is hard to do intwo pages, but that's the goal.

(07:40):
Each of my scripts are going tobe less than five pages.
The first one that I've alreadywritten is two.
I have another idea for ascript and then I'm still
figuring out my last script idea.
Right now I'm in the process ofwriting everything and getting
everything locked.
Once everything is locked, I'vealready talked to some of my
local community to see if theywould be willing to shoot this,

(08:03):
and it's sounding like nextmonth is the opportunity if I
want to shoot at least one.
I have a few people that I loveto rely on to help me produce
and take off some of those addedparts.
I do want to be involved insome of like the storyboard,
directing part of it, but Idon't want to direct myself.
I don't like having to directmyself.
I love having somebody else tocollaborate with in terms of

(08:26):
that.
While we're in production forthis.
We will look for a gaffer.
We'll hopefully have a scriptsoup.
We'll have a sound op of a DP,maybe a PA, maybe a few other
small things, but we'll keep itvery small and light.
Like I said, as I'm writingthese things, I'm thinking about
them in terms of what's easy toshoot.
Let's stay at one location,like where, realistically, could

(08:48):
we shoot this?
That would be easy.
How are we funding it?
When I talk about funding thesethings, they're micro, micro,
micro, micro, micro, micro,micro budgets.
When I'm thinking about fundingthem, my guess is, each one of
these projects is probably gonnacost me somewhere between 500
to $750 each.

(09:09):
I'd love to pay people to do it, but the things that I'm paying
for is likely gear rentals andcrafty and making sure everybody
has lunch if it's going to be alonger day, all of those types
of things.
That's where my money is goingto go to, versus it's not
necessarily going to go to thepeople who are helping me, which
at some point, we'll get tothat point where we can bless

(09:29):
all the people around us andthat will be amazing.
I'm kind of in the writing andthe very, very beginnings of
producing stuff right now as wekeep going along this journey.
I'll keep you updated every newepisode on what's happening
with the shorts.
Let me know in the comments ifyou guys want to read the script
, because I'm down to share itpublicly.
I don't necessarily wantfeedback on my script, but I'd

(09:51):
love to share.
I'd love to hear your thoughtsand maybe we even will do a read
through on the show.
Who knows?
But if you're interested inthat, let me know down in the
comments so that we can makethis podcast as beneficial to
you as it is to me.
Today's a little bit of ashorter episode.
There's been a lot of movingparts lately, a lot of amazing
stuff happening.
I'm out of the funk which isgreat and back feeling like

(10:15):
normal.
Megan, there's so much going onright now I can't keep up with
getting episodes as fast out asI want.
We're just going to do the bestwe can.
We're doing the best we can.
Let me know how you're doing.
What's going on with you?
How are you glowing up?
I'd love to hear it all, andthanks so much for listening
today.
That's it for today's episodeof the Glow Up Year.
Thanks for hanging out with me.

(10:36):
I'm seriously so excited tohave you along for the ride, and
we're only just getting started.
The best is yet to come.
If you felt fired up orinspired today, hit that
subscribe button, leave a quickreview and pass this episode
along to a fellow dreamer inyour circle.
Want more BTS pep talks andupdates?
Come find me over on social atMeg Salisbury official.

(10:57):
I'll be sharing more of myjourney there.
Links are in the show notes.
Remember your glow up isunfolding, one bold move at a
time.
Keep showing up, keep dreamingbigger and I'll catch you on the
next one.