Life & Work with Michael Showalter of Remote

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Showalter.

Hi Michael, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Let’s start with 2019. I recently quit my job at Yelp to pursue my ambitions to work for myself. I would determine that time as the initial wave of the “gig economy,” where our technology allowed young millennials like me to enter an entrepreneurial adventure. Yelp was great for learning sales, business, and marketing in a “tech” driven environment, but when most of my Yelp clients asked about videos & marketing content, I knew I had to jump on this opportunity. So I combined my podcast hobby with other millennial film fanatics. My friends Alex & James were savvier with the technical use of cameras & film, while I focused on admin & our clients: we created Snakebyte Media together. Working within our means as a lean production team of 3, we surveyed the valley, hitting up all the coffee shops and the local businesses I kept tabs on from my Salesforce pipeline from Yelp. Bicycle Nomad was the first customer that launched us to stick with coffee shops. After a few gigs, we were proud, but still much to learn; gigs started to get bigger, and everything changed with we started working with Infusion Coffee & Tea. We thought we knew coffee until we started working with Patrick O’Malley from Infusion. His coffee shop had a laboratory that made you look at coffee from a different point of view. Courting him for about a week, he allowed us to go to Honduras with him to see what he does in the “coffee world.” Our eyes widened with the novelty of a fresh new perspective on coffee—the industry as a whole, the “specialty coffee” on the rise, and the consequences of us as consumers oblivious to how we get our coffee.

Since then, we have launched in total independent filmmaking trajectory to bestow our first documentary on the coffee industry. No more small gigs for us! We dedicated ourselves to documenting the supply chain of coffee so that we can tell a compelling story in an attempt to change consumer behavior to a more conscious & sustainable lifestyle. It all happened so fast. Through coffee conventions & some of Patrick’s contacts, we gathered a little over 65K in sponsorship funds; this allowed us to trace the supply chain from coffee farms to the retail shops navigating Honduras, Ethiopia, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, and Taiwan—to name a few. Of course, as soon as we were going to close on another 30K sponsor, the pandemic locked us all down; just like everybody else, we had no choice but to pause for a moment. As we slowly rebuilt our efforts to finish this big project, we got an offer from Principal Media; it was hard to say no, but following our intuition, it was still premature to sell our documentary that was not finished in our eyes. However, we were glad we held out because we had just teamed up with another production company, Go AZ Production, with Shannon Gardner to help us expedite the remaining last segments of our documentary. And at such a pivotal moment for AZ and its film culture.

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Like life, it ebbed & flowed from smooth sails to high-stress breaks. On the layover back from Honduras, we stopped in Miami; venturing off to Miami Beach, we stopped at a coffee shop to kill time for our flight; we noticed our Uber was drastically late. We stepped outside, and across the street, we noticed cops blocking off traffic; and then we noticed the bomb squad van. We eventually talked to the cop, and she said there was a bomb threat that made them block off the marina. I remember we ran through the streets with all the traffic and juggling our luggage to find Miami’s Amtrak; that was our last hope. We barely made our flight.

Once, we got a one-way flight to Baltimore with the hopes of using a “buddy pass” back to Phoenix; we attended our first coffee convention hosted by the Specialty Coffee Association. Everything went very well during the convention, but not when it came time to head home; flights were full to the brim because of some hockey game, and we just about got stuck in Baltimore. Alex could fly back while James & I frantically took a bus down to New York, hoping those flights were not as congested. Luckily James knew of a friend in Brooklyn we got to stay the night until the following day. One seat was left for the “buddy pass,” and I gave it to James. I was stuck in New York & became a New Yorker until I humbly called my uncle, a flight attendant for American Airlines. Flight attendant “buddy passes” are stupid, but this was our only option until we gathered sponsorship funds. The last one I must mention was when we tested our new drone. We are next to the Chancellor’s building at a beautiful beer garden in Berlin. We did not know it was a political building, and Alex operating the drone, swooped & zoomed all around this fancy building. On our way out from the beer garden, we get chased by German police; they eventually confiscate the drone and lock us up for interrogation. I was excited to finally be able to use my recon training from my time in the Marine Corps, but they eventually let us go after realizing we were telling the truth about our film endeavors. Life is not always like the movies.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
I’ve always been on my agenda seeking novelty in all the rich culture surrounding us. I’ve always had to learn & adapt to new environments. Being born & raised here in AZ, I started at Maryland Elementary, went to Ignacio Conchos down south, then Cloves C. Campbell, to Cesar Chavez High, and finally graduated from Mountain Pointe Pride. I had to get out of AZ, so I enlisted in the Marine Corps, and then I was in NC, Camp Lejeune, for 4 years, and then went to Santa Monica College to use my Post 9/11. All this traveling allowed me to see how strict our perspectives can be. Our culture influences that; I am here to disrupt these antiquated belief systems about ourselves—the story & narrative we tell ourselves to “fit in” society.

I am known for staying versatile, constantly growing, and humbling myself when I get too arrogant, embodying my genuine truth with style. The film has always been an outlet for me to stay creative with story & narrative. Now that theatrics are becoming more individuated, I am beginning to work more 1:1 with people in a more holistic setting.

How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Like, share, subscribe, and, or reach me at: https://linktr.ee/mt.showalter

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.snakebytemedia.productions/
• Instagram: mt_showalter
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-showalter-5416a7a0/
• Twitter: https://linktr.ee/mt.showalter
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@snakebytemediallc3127
• SoundCloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/Xojxr
• Other: https://brewsed.squarespace.com/ 

Image Credits
Top left: Snakebyte Media: Alex Gomez, James Carroll, Very bottom: Frank Torchia & Dr. Prichard, Middle right: Sedona event; Native Shaman & Ayahuascera Prophecy