The Glow Up Year
If you’re ready to chase your own dreams, fuel your passion, and see what it takes to rise to the top, you’re in the right place. This podcast is your front-row seat to my journey as I hustle, learn, and level up my modeling and acting career in real time. From auditions and photoshoots to script breakdowns and behind-the-scenes chaos, we’re diving into the ups, the downs, and everything in between.
The Glow Up Year
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.
If you listened to last week's episode, I'm out of the funk, which is great. I just wanted to give you guys an update. I was on hold for a Maine tourism commercial from my new agent. Thank you very much and Welcome back to the Glow Up Year. I'm Meg, actress, model and your behind-the-scenes bestie when it comes to chasing dreams and building something big. After years of navigating the ups, the downs and the wild in-betweens of the entertainment world, I am stepping fully into this next level chapter. This podcast is your backstage pass to all the real stuff Auditions, photo shoots, mindset shifts, script prep, career curveballs you name it. I'm sharing it all the highs and the hard lessons in real time. If you're ready to go all in on your glow up, take some brave steps and see what it really looks like to grow in this industry, grab your favorite drink, get cozy and let's dive in together. Hey y'all, I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you for sticking with me. If you listened to last week's episode, I'm doing better, we're getting better. We're glowing back up. We're going back up, we're growing back up. I just wanted to give you guys an update. We have some amazing things to talk about today. First off, we have to start with some celebrations. Some celebrations, some celebrations. I was on hold for a Maine tourism commercial from my new agent Thank you very much and I got the email a couple days ago that I booked it. I booked the first job, first job of the year. It's the first job of the year. We're booking the first job of the year and it's in Maine, which is crazy, because I don't have to drive that far. Normally I have to drive like hella far. This is like literally the perfect job for me. It's great. I'm so excited. I've been thinking about this and I might do a come with me episode to set that day. But I will, I'm going to keep. I'm going to. I'm going to see how this other one lands first. We're going to see how Coco Rocha lands first and then maybe we'll do a come with me episode to set. But yeah, I'm excited, it's going to be great. I started talking with the stylists about what I had in my closet already and sent in some pictures. So I'll keep you updated. I'll keep you updated. I'll let you know how it goes. But first booking of the year Not bad, not bad. We're glowing up one bold move at a time. We have a few things that we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1:I did this test shoot prior to Coco Camp, but it got so busy and crazy that I wasn't able to tell you guys about it About, I think, a month ago with Ev Gagne and she is somebody that I met at my day job and we networked we just recently planned a shoot together. That was so much fun to work with. We literally we had like a really basic, very broad idea going into it and then we showed up on the day and we just kind of like had fun, tried some different looks, tried some new things. She wanted to get a lot of different facial expressions, so we did some crazy different facial expressions, which was fun. It was great to get to do some practice. It had been a while prior to that shoot, I believe, since I had done a photo shoot, so it was fun to get back out there.
Speaker 1:Ev has this awesome studio location that we went and shot at. It's beautiful. It's like right on the river, these big, gorgeous windows, and you know what the other awesome, amazing, wonderful, incredible, amazingly great thing about Ev was. I actually got my photos back really fast Not to diss on other photographers, because I'm not here to diss on other photographers, but sometimes it takes a while to get your photos back and I get why. It takes a quite a bit of time and post to go through, to edit everything, to fine-tune it and find the vibe and the style that you want. What was amazing about Av is she kind of knew exactly what she was going for while we were shooting and so she was able to get through that entire process so quickly, so quickly.
Speaker 1:We tried using props, which was fun. We used some sunglasses, a hair scarf, a big floppy hat. We just had a grand old time and honestly, it didn't even really feel like work with Ev. It felt like we were just like hanging out and doing some fun stuff together. I always love when I can support somebody in growing their career and while they're also supporting me in growing my career, because then it doesn't feel so one-sided. We both are helping each other level up, which is awesome. Ev was just incredible Great to work with, so fun, such a chill vibe. She's low-key, really fucking hilarious. She's low-key, so funny she makes me die. Oh, I love her so much. It was such a wonderful, amazing, great shoot day. I'm hoping and looking forward to working with her in the future and being able to keep helping each other kind of grow our books and grow our looks and grow our styles together. I'll link Ev's contact information down below. So if you want to book something, you're in the New England area and you want to do a quick, fun, amazing collaborative shoot that's not going to be stressful, go see Ev. She is amazing. I'll link everything for her down below. Really highly, highly recommend. She's so awesome.
Speaker 1:And I also have some news. I have some news. I have some news. Part of my quarter, two goals and I got to do a quarterly review here. I haven't even done it yet, eight days past, when I should have done my quarterly review. But this past quarter I wanted to update my marketing materials and I did that with my modeling marketing materials. I did, don't get me wrong, but it's time to start updating the acting reel. It really is it's time. I had a few ideas. I'm going to kind of walk you through the process of how this works for me and how I'm doing it, not on my own, but how I've built a community that will help me make all these projects happen. I came up with just a few ideas of things that I felt like was lacking in my reel. I feel like my acting reel is very outdated and old. I don't know that I'm necessarily in a market where I'm going to get a lot of film and TV opportunity, but I like to keep it up to date. You never know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1:I have a script that I wrote that is two pages. It is about me and it two pages. It is about me and it features my dog, d-o-g that's his name, d-o-g. So I wrote a script. I started with an idea that just I kind of got like inspired inspirations, turned it into a script 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 and now I'm at the point where I'm reworking the script and getting it to what I want to be my locked and final cut.
Speaker 1:The goal is to do three different short scripts, and these are like micro shorts because for my reel, each clip is going to be no longer than 20 seconds, so I don't need a five minute long movie or even a 10 minute long movie or even a 15 minute long movie. I literally need a good 20 second bite. I'm kind of writing these scripts with those thoughts in mind. I want a good 20 seconds, so the script doesn't have to be long, as long as I can create a nice arc, a character arc, within which is hard to do in two pages, but that's the goal. Each of my scripts are going to be less than five pages. The first one that I've already written is two. I have another idea for a script and then I'm still figuring out my last script idea. Right now I'm in the process of writing everything and getting everything locked.
Speaker 1:Once everything is locked, I've already talked to some of my local community to see if they would be willing to shoot this, and it's sounding like next month is the opportunity if I want to shoot at least one. I have a few people that I love to rely on to help me produce and take off some of those added parts. I do want to be involved in some of like the storyboard, directing part of it, but I don't want to direct myself. I don't like having to direct myself. I love having somebody else to collaborate with in terms of that.
Speaker 1:While we're in production for this. We will look for a gaffer. We'll hopefully have a script soup. We'll have a sound op of a DP, maybe a PA, maybe a few other small things, but we'll keep it very small and light.
Speaker 1:Like I said, as I'm writing these things, I'm thinking about them in terms of what's easy to shoot. Let's stay at one location, like where, realistically, could we shoot this? That would be easy. How are we funding it? When I talk about funding these things, they're micro, micro, micro, micro, micro, micro, micro budgets. When I'm thinking about funding them, my guess is, each one of these projects is probably gonna cost me somewhere between 500 to $750 each. I'd love to pay people to do it, but the things that I'm paying for is likely gear rentals and crafty and making sure everybody has lunch if it's going to be a longer day, all of those types of things. That's where my money is going to go to, versus it's not necessarily going to go to the people who are helping me, which at some point, we'll get to that point where we can bless all the people around us and that will be amazing.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of in the writing and the very, very beginnings of producing stuff right now as we keep going along this journey. I'll keep you updated every new episode on what's happening with the shorts. Let me know in the comments if you guys want to read the script, because I'm down to share it publicly. I don't necessarily want feedback on my script, but I'd love to share. I'd love to hear your thoughts and maybe we even will do a read through on the show. Who knows? But if you're interested in that, let me know down in the comments so that we can make this podcast as beneficial to you as it is to me.
Speaker 1:Today's a little bit of a shorter episode. There's been a lot of moving parts lately, a lot of amazing stuff happening. I'm out of the funk which is great and back feeling like normal. Megan, there's so much going on right now I can't keep up with getting episodes as fast out as I want. We're just going to do the best we can. We're doing the best we can.
Speaker 1: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, and thanks so much for listening today. That's it for today's episode of the Glow Up Year. Thanks for hanging out with me. I'm seriously so excited to have you along for the ride, and we're only just getting started. The best is yet to come. If you felt fired up or inspired today, hit that subscribe button, leave a quick review and pass this episode along to a fellow dreamer in your circle. Want more BTS pep talks and updates? Come find me over on social at Meg Salisbury official. I'll be sharing more of my journey there. Links are in the show notes. Remember your glow up is unfolding, one bold move at a time. Keep showing up, keep dreaming bigger and I'll catch you on the next one.
