My first year as a freelance filmmaker.
It has been this really crazy and fun and scary journey.
I've had some of my highest points as a creative
where I feel like this is my purpose, this is my passion.
I was born to do this, and I've also had
some of my lowest points where I'm questioning, What am I even doing?
Should I quit
and just have this as a side passion and pursue a more traditional career path?
And in all honesty, I'm grateful for both the good and the bad.
It's taught me a lot as a person, as an artist, as a business person now.
So yeah, in this video, I will talk about why I took the leap.
What I liked about freelancing, what I didn't like about freelancing.
My goals for this year and advice for future freelancers.
So let's get into it. And also stay tuned till the end.
And I'll tell you how much I made from May 2021 to May of 2022.
All right.
So why I took the leap.
So from August 2017 to 2021.
I was working at Starbucks
and that was my part time job while I was going to school
and just figuring things out and just where I wanted to go.
And it was a great job just because it was so flexible I could get shifts covered.
And also I want to add another cool thing
about working at Starbucks, which is the connections.
And I actually met one of my friends, Omar there.
He was a regular.
It's crazy because in late 2021,
he actually hired me on
to do some freelance video editing for the real estate company
that he was working for.
So when I wasn't working, I was out trying to shoot and just kind of
cultivate my passion and just my excitement for filmmaking.
And sometime in 2018 I felt torn between picking school and filming.
And while you can, I think one will kind of suffer.
So yeah, I dropped out of school
and my main focus was just saving up money and making passion projects.
And then come the beginning of 2021 and I had finally invested into my first
like real cinema rig and I was able to create this really professional reel
that I felt like I was ready to show people to potentially hire me.
So I finally felt ready
and I got to say huge thank you to my amazing girlfriend because
without her I don't know if I would have had the faith in myself to take that leap.
She has been my biggest supporter.
She's believed in me more than I believe in my own self sometimes.
Without her, I would not be here.
I just got to say thank you to my best friend and come May of 2021,
I finally put in my two weeks and took the leap to become a full time
freelance filmmaker.
And now what I like about freelancing
number one, I got to say, it is just absolutely a dream
to be able to make a career out of what you like doing.
Just the fact that I was getting paid to pick up my camera and shoot
and edit versus going into Starbucks and making coffee,
that's something I don't even care about.
I got to say,
that's the coolest perk is just being able to get paid for doing what you love.
And also with that comes this insane flexibility of your schedule.
Freelancing is the closest thing you can probably get to being unemployed,
which I mean in a good way because you do have a lot more free time
than if you're working
like a typical nine to five and you can say
yes to a lot more opportunities that come your way
just because you don't have a part time job or even a full time
job holding you back.
So I've pretty much been able to say yes to every opportunity that came my way,
while also just having the flexibility to make a daily routine for myself.
So I think if you're a self-motivated person, you would definitely enjoy
the flexibility and the constant changes that freelancing can throw at you.
Another thing that's been cool as a freelance
filmmaker is that every gear purchase is a tax write off for you
because I already love buying different types of gear.
Before I was freelancing but now it's almost kind of like a perk
and it's like, I can do that because this for my business.
And then the cool thing about freelancing is just working with a super vast
array of just different types of people that hire you.
You can go from shooting a music video one day to shooting a wedding
the next or graduation portraits are just random things
that don't even necessarily relate to what your initial focus is on.
People will kind of
just hit you up for anything that's either video or photo related.
So now let's talk about what I don't like about freelancing.
So with all the positives that come with freelancing, there is an equal negative
or potential negative, you could say.
So the first one, I got to say, that flexibility can also be inconsistency
if you're not getting enough business, which the first few months
I really wasn't getting enough to fully call this a career.
There would be some weeks where I'd be shooting every other day
and I'd be like, Wow, I just made like $1,200 this week.
But then I would have no work the next three to four weeks
so that inconsistency can be so terrifying and it can be a driving factor to go out
and take gigs that you might not necessarily want but you need.
Then at that point, you're kind of putting
your creativity on the back burner and just focusing on trying to make money,
which is something that happened to me during those first few months.
I had almost given that up because I was just focused on
where's my next gig going to come from?
And that contributed to those moments where I felt like,
Should I even be doing this because I'm getting stressed out?
I'm draining myself of my creativity because I don't want to be creative.
I want to just make a living at that point.
And yet I would probably say the inconsistency
can be one of the biggest cons
if you're not pulling in enough clients each month, next step is getting paid.
What I mean by this
is that after shooting for clients, it's not Starbucks where they direct deposit.
You biweekly.
Some clients would take weeks to pay me and then that $500 day rate
I made for that day that I needed that week,
I wouldn't get it for another one or two weeks.
And it hasn't happened with a bunch of clients,
but it has happened with a few.
But the upside is that once you start having enough clients, you can say no
to some that you might not necessarily want to work with in the future.
So yeah, that's what I like and what I don't like about freelancing.
Overall, I would say my first six months were kind of slow
and I wasn't getting the clients,
but honestly, now these past few months have been truly a gift,
and the good just taught me to appreciate the fact that I'm making a career
doing something I really love and something I'm passionate about.
And the bad taught me to overall be more confident in myself.
Because if a client sees
that you're not confident, they're not going to have confidence in you.
So a good amount of my income came from shooting and editing real estate
videos, and another good piece of my income came
from shooting behind the scenes mini documentary work
for some talented photographers.
My goals for this year,
so now that I'm getting a steady set of clients coming in each month
and I don't necessarily have to stress about where my income is coming from.
My goal for this next 12 months is to just focus on more passion projects,
because I think it has been easy for me to get wrapped up in the paid projects,
but I also want to make an active effort to set aside a little bit more time
to create the projects that I want to create, not for money just for myself.
And as of right now, what that's looking like is just creating YouTube videos.
It's been really so fun and making these has honestly kind of
saved me from that burnout I can get from the paid work.
And now for some advice for future freelancers.
Number one, I would say just perfect your craft and your skills.
So that you're prepared when you do have to charge clients
that way, you know that what you're charging them is actually worth it.
Another piece of advice would be to know your worth.
Just know that you don't have to say yes to everything, especially
if it's more draining and time consuming than you're actually getting paid.
And lastly, I would say to have a set of two to three consistent
clients that come to you each month before you quit your day job,
that'll kind of alleviate some of the stress
of where your next paycheck or where your next gig is going to come from.
All right. And lastly, how much I made.
So from May of 2021 to May of 2022,
I made $29,923.84.
By no means is it a huge amount of money, but it is a stepping stone
in the direction I want to go.
So I am really excited and roughly that is about $2,400 a month.
But you've got to take into account I wasn't making that exact amount
every single month.
Some months would look drastically different than other months.
For example, the month of September 2021, I made a whopping $350.
But the month of February of 2022 I made $4,455.
So it completely varied and thankfully it's going a lot better than September.
So yeah, that's the end of this video.
I hope this helps any aspiring freelance filmmakers or just any aspiring
freelancers out there and feel free to let me know if you have any questions
in the comments down below and I'll see in the next one