Best selling author of Better Videos, entrepreneur, documentary film-maker and founder of Girl Director.
I am here to help you dive deep into video, to find your message and amplify what you are here to do using video. This will help you to have more passion with your marketing and an edge over the others in your field. It will also help you grow your business with more depth.
I have been working with video, film and stories my whole life. I have worked in the TV, music video and advertising world as a Video Director and Motion Designer for over 25 years.
I have an instinct when it comes to ideas for clients when they work with us. I have a very strong intuition on what works and what doesn’t.
Having worked with pretty much every kind of business over the years, as you can imagine I have come up with hundreds of successful video, marketing and advertising ideas. This alone has saved businesses thousands of dollars and years of time.
Video is a Tool, and when you tap into the way we teach you how to use it, it becomes something you will be able to use forever.
How It All Started
Have you had a dream so big that it is the driving force for every breath you take?
It is like your inner compass, guiding you every step of the way, no matter what turbulence you encounter.
When I was little, my dad was a part-time muso, a guitarist, in fact, and he gigged all around the country around Mt Gambier where I grew up.
Some of my fondest memories are of being carted around in the back of his van squeezed in amongst the band equipment and road-tripping to and from venues. These memories are etched in my mind and are still a part of me.
Dad went on and bought an old record shop. From what was a small dive of a joint, Dad worked hard and turned it around to become the go-to place in Mt Gambier to buy music!
I wanted to be a music video director
I spent years in the shop with Dad, playing my favourite songs, creating the window displays and serving people. This was my taste of being an entrepreneur and how important it was to help people. Dad was a great businessman and he taught me the importance of going the extra mile for people.
So it was only natural for me when at the age of 15, sitting on my white plush pile carpet and watching music videos on RAGE, I made the decision to become a music video director.
University wasn’t for me and I had the insight back then to know that spending 3 years at uni was only going to slow me down from where I wanted to go. I enrolled in Media Studies at school and went on to study media at college for a few months before landing my first job in TV. I was an animator for a kids show called Mulligrubs. It only lasted a few months before the show wrapped but it was a great start to my career.
Plagued with Huge Egos
I soon took on a position at Channel 10 in Adelaide putting TV commercials to air. I was on the 4am shift, down in the “dungeon” – a dark, horrible place underneath the building with loud industrial noise and no natural light! I had to watch every single advert go to air and I felt like I was going crazy, but I worked my way up and soon moved up stairs into the motion design space.
But what I was about to face in the years ahead through my convoluted journey through the TV industry is something I never saw coming.
In the mid 90’s I moved to Sydney as a Senior Motion Designer at Channel 10 and also started my own business directing music videos for bands in my time off. It was hard work but I did have some great experiences. I got to work with incredible people in front of the camera as well as behind the scenes. People like John Williamson, Ita Butrose, Jackie O, Bert Newton and Ian Thorpe. I produced and directed for many great stars, including a couple of music videos for Vanessa Amorosi, one of which, Shine, went to number one for a number of weeks. Over the years I’ve directed hundreds of people in front of the camera and worked with fantastic mentors behind the scenes to whom I am forever grateful.
But my journey was also tainted with setbacks, mistreatment and intimidation. From what I experienced in the industry, it was plagued by huge egos and I was a WOMAN behind the scenes – not the sparkling news reporter or show host that everyone loved.
I was the plain Jane working behind the scenes, trying to get ahead, trying to make a name for myself. No matter what I did or how hard I worked, I would never be enough.
To give you an indication of just what I’m talking about, it became so bad that one of the biggest instigators, the squeaky clean weatherman, screamed abuse at me in front of everyone. He would say things like my ass was too big for the chair, or I was a f**cking slut if something didn’t work. I was yelled at whilst working with this man every night, and because of who he was, when he screamed at me and NO ONE…NO ONE stood up for me.
There were other experiences that came later like when I presented in front of the camera and the guys in the shared studio where I worked laughed at me and tried to cut me out of the studio videos. I felt humiliated. I hated being in front of the camera, and was totally uncomfortable about it.
Needless to say, my self-esteem plummeted, my health deteriorated and my belief in myself collapsed. I physically and emotionally lost my voice. The Rachel I knew became worthless. The enthusiastic person who wanted to be the best music video director in the world started to crumble.
No matter what she did or didn’t do, and no matter what others did to her – NO ONE NOTICED.
Why then would ANYONE ever again want to notice me? And how could I ever believe I was enough?
There was no #metoo campaign to give female’s a voice back then – we just had to suck it up and soldier on or slide out the back door and give up.
While these experiences nearly ruined me, I never gave up. After I was made redundant at Channel 7, I took some time out, reset my priorities of what was important and came back with a new sense of excitement and enthusiasm.
I learned a very important life lesson through all of this – by hiding away and not speaking up, by not sharing my story and not living my fullest life I was letting those people WIN. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
So now, more than ever, this is why I and my team help women to be everything they can be using the power of video. I don’t want anyone to go through the humiliation I went through.
I am determined, driven and dedicated to carving my own path in life. Every day I am making a success of myself and helping others do the same. I am ENOUGH. I am NOT invisible, and I do matter!
And the same goes for you reading this. You are enough, you are NOT or should NEVER be invisible. YOU matter.
Everyone’s story matters
Everyone’s purpose, passion, business, brand – BELONGS and DESERVES to be seen and heard.
And that is why we are driven to work with people all over the world to bring their brand, their business, their backstory to the front and centre, for everyone’s eyes!
We love to direct meaningful content that alters people’s thinking, helps humanity to grow! And that includes your story!
This is why I am so passionate about helping people who have been hidden and feel unworthy of being on camera. I have been there too and I don’t want you to feel that way any more.
Michael and Rachel join forces
After I left the TV industry and started working as a freelancer, I created a character called Girl Director. I wanted to create a video superhero. She was a cross between the Bionic Woman, James Bond and Tomb Raider – a character who helped people with their video problems.
After a while of working as a freelancer, in 2013, Girl Director took a new direction. I wanted to use the name to help women to learn video and go online to grow their businesses and make change in the world. One of the best decisions I made was to encourage Michael, my highly talented life partner, to join me in growing Girl Director as a company.
For Michael to join a business called Girl Director wasn’t an easy decision. “Hi, it’s Michael here from Girl Director,” sounded a bit weird! But after some careful deliberation and realising how much he loved to help people, we discovered that he had masses to offer our clients and the business as a whole. So after leaving his full-time job in the finance industry he came back to me and said “Let’s do it!” It made me the happiest person in the world.
In Michael’s words:
I love the creativity of film making and how it works with music. I love growing businesses, being in control of my own destiny and with that I love the creativity of entrepreneurialism. I also love helping people and enlightening them with my knowledge… my love language is about being of Service. Put that all together and that’s what we’ve created with GD. It’s what inspires me and gets me up and running every morning.
What more could I want than my life partner and I taking on the world together and creating a life we both love!
Living under our own terms, sharing the highs and lows, working through the challenges and growing as people. We have both done so much personal development and continually improve ourselves to be better people with better skills to help those we serve.
Michael is so amazing and brings so much to the company. We are equal partners and opposites in how we work, which is fantastic.
Michael is the detailed one who works one-on-one with our clients through Zoom. He teaches the technical side of things like editing, marketing funnels and Facebook Ads. He makes sure everyone’s campaigns are working and will take the time to make sure each client is looked after. He is also a whizz at managing the finances, our team and the systems side of the business, and often helps our clients with that side of things as well.
Michael has an IT and music background, and has also directed music videos off his own bat. He spent many years being an Extra in Home and Away and other commercials and TV shows, so together we are the core of the Girl Director community.
It has taken us over 10 years of working together to get to the level we are at now. When we first started working together in 2008 (we ran another production company for a while), there was so much work in finding our own place and acknowledging how we both worked. Now we’ve got it down to a fine art.
So many people who work with us often say how inspiring it is to watch a couple who support each other, lift each other up to be the best we can be. We are very aware how much our energy affects those around us. That’s how we hold space for the people we work with so closely.
Enter Jada
Jada de Goey is the third full time member of our team. She took over the role of our previous Events and Client Manager, Sophia, in 2021, and has advanced to becoming our Business Operations Manager and a Business and Marketing Coach in Girl Director Academy.
You might recognise Jada’s name in other GD materials, as she was one of our clients for many years before joining us. She was previously the CEO of Brisbane’s biggest Latin dance school, Rio Rhythmics, and in 2021 she decided it was time to leave the family business to pursue her own ambitions. Rio is still going strong because of all the video, marketing and management Jada and her husband, Tarcisio, have implemented over the past few years.
What’s so great is that Jada brings a wealth of practical business knowledge to our training for clients. You don’t run a successful business for 30 years with 20 staff without learning a thing or two about business and marketing!
We love having Jada on the team. She’s not only loved by our clients, she’s full of great ideas and a massive asset to the Girl Director growth and expansion plan.
A Growing Team
We have a number of part-time contractors and crew who work with us in various ways. Some of them you’ll get to know if you come to our events. Others you might meet if you join us on shoots.
We are always on the lookout for great new people who can add value to our team and want to grow with us. If you want to speak with us about some possibilities, go to the Careers page on this site and get in touch!
What’s Your Story?
So what’s your story? Every business, every entrepreneur has a great story to tell but very rarely do they tell it. The fact is, your story is likely to be your best marketing copy of of all.
Remember how on the first page of this site we talked about your Messaging? As you’ve read this far then that might seem like a long time ago, and that’s a good thing, because the truth is, if you’ve read this far then it means you have become engrossed in the Girl Director story… Otherwise, why would you still be reading this far in? It’s a good story, hey!
So, here’s the question again… WHAT IS YOUR STORY? How would you like to get it out on video? How would you like to share it with the world and see your business and your brand catapult through ether space? It’s totally possible. All you need to do is click the link below and start telling us your story… Then we can talk about how you can start sharing it on video. Are you up for that?
There’s a great line in the Matt Damon film, “We Bought A Zoo”, where he says that it just takes 20 seconds of courage to do something that can really change your life. Well now is your moment to do just that! Take 20 seconds now and start telling us your story… It doesn’t have to be the whole story… just enough to get started and we can go from there!
