- For BIPOC filmmakers,
Black filmmakers specifically,
the road to success just looks a lot different for us.
And so yeah, the main point of this video
is to show you what I've done,
that hopefully, you know,
you don't have to do exactly what I do,
but hopefully it just gives you
a frame of reference
of how I've gotten to where I've gotten.
(upbeat music)
Hey everyone, it's me Hallease,
endeavoring to persevere as always.
If you're new here,
I make videos about my chaotic good life,
subscribe, follow, social media, all the things,
do it, it's a good time do it, just do it.
So, every year on the channel,
I try to do some variation
of how I made a living the previous year.
And I usually try to put it out in Q1 of the new year.
So, I'm like right on the cusp with this one,
sorry all, little late.
But I figured with this one for this year,
I wanted to talk about how I self-funded,
this could have been an email, the Pilot episode.
So first things first,
let's actually just get into the production costs.
So to film the Pilot,
this could have been an email,
it cost about $20,000.
And if anything was probably a little over that,
(Hallease chuckles)
because I ended up
springing a little more for post-production
but let's just say it cost $20,000.
So, the first thing that really,
secured me being able to,
really start to set aside
a lot of money to film the Pilot
was becoming an Adobe Creative Resident.
So for those of y'all who don't know,
I am an Adobe Creative Resident.
It's a program through Adobe that,
essentially pays an artist a salary for a full year.
So my residency started in May of 2021,
and it'll end this May in 2022.
And what you do is you pitch them a whole project,
I've done past videos where I actually show y'all
my pitch deck and how I built it,
and all that kind of stuff.
I'll link to some of that
and cut to some of it for you.
One of the main reasons
I was able to set aside so much money
and invest so much money
into the production of the Pilot,
was because all of my immediate bills,
like, all of that was covered by my Adobe salary,
my W2 salary that I got,
and it's competitive, it's a good salary.
And on the back end with that,
with the Adobe Creative Residency,
my time is split half and half.
So about 20 ish hours a week,
I work on the project that I pitch to them,
and about 20 ish hours a week, I work on Adobe stuff.
So some of y'all may know me from Adobe creator camp,
where I teach lessons on there,
and I've been engaging with the community over there.
If you're interested in it,
I'll link down below in the description box,
so check it out.
I do webinars over there,
like, I'm over there, (Hallease chuckles)
like a lot, it's my job.
That is the big, big, big, big reason
I was able to bring this Pilot to y'all
as soon as I did is because I got this residency,
I will be sad when it's gone,
(Hallease chuckles) so yeah.
The second way that I make a living
and thusly was able to put money aside
towards the Pilot is Patreon.
So, I have had a Patreon for years at this point,
I think I really got going with it in 2018, '19,
more of 2019.
And at this point
I keep how much I make on Patreon public so you can see,
but over there I do exclusive content,
I do private weekly vlogs whenever possible,
I call them my Monday motivations,
I also do earth access to my content as well.
So, Patreon has provided a very consistent
reliable income for me to make a living.
And Patreon is actually how I paid
all of Evelyn's writing fees
at the beginning of this whole process for the show.
So I consider Patreon,
my Patreon producers as I call them,
sort of my early investors in the project.
Patreon is a really big important part
of my overall strategy as a content creator.
The third thing,
which is pretty new for me and this channel
are brand sponsorships and collaborations.
So, if you've been watching my channel for a while,
then you know that last year I did,
a huge brand sponsorship with a pretty big brand,
and it was a series of videos,
and I got to talk to all these different black female CEOs,
and it was a whole thing.
That sort of big partnership,
does not happen very often for most content creators,
I would say that epic of a brand sponsorship is whoa.
Doing that really helped to,
again, put more money towards the Pilot.
And keep in mind,
the main reason I was able to then,
take that money and put it towards the Pilot
is because I had the residency,
because I have the residency covering my rent.
Because otherwise I would just be living
off all the other stuff, right?
So I would get this big brand deal
or I would get, you know,
I would have that consistent Patreon money coming in.
And that's just how I'm making money,
that's how I'm making a living.
I can't really take any of that
and invest it in anything
because I'm using that to cover my bills.
So again, it kind of all comes back to the residency
enabling me to now have income
to put towards the project.
Brand deals are becoming something
that's exciting for this channel,
and for my business.
And it's been really cool
because the brand deals have been,
related to content that I would want to make anyway,
so, that's been really exciting too.
I've also gotten to do content
that I think is just important to create,
content around health and wellness,
any sort of interstitially thing
that you've seen me do.
And when I say interstitial,
that's the snazzy way of saying,
this video is sponsored by,
you know, any kind of content creator
you see doing that kind of stuff,
that's a way that they're making a consistent income
and a reliable income as well.
You know, this channel just started
getting consistent brand deals,
last year to where now it is becoming something.
But I would say in the past,
past video versions of this that I've done,
brand deals weren't really, (Hallease chuckles)
they were like,
ooh, exciting a brand deal, you know.
And now it's like, oh, okay, a brand deal so.
And then I would say one of the final things
that have been a really,
reliable source of income for me
is Skillshare, teaching on the platform.
Y'all may or may not know I am a teacher on Skillshare,
I have a few different classes
on different aspects of post-production work like editing,
and I teach you all the basics of Premier.
If you've never opened the project before you can do that.
I also have a class that's really popular on there
called how to tell a story in a minute or less,
that class is doing really, really well on Skillshare.
I actually just put out a class
earlier this year on the platform
called intro to after effects
and the basics of after effects,
where I show how I created part of my opener
where you see all those cameras
popping up behind me and all of that.
I basically walk you through
how to do something like that
in Adobe after effects.
So yeah, Skillshare has been actually,
a really consistent reliable
source of income for me as well.
So, I would say those are the four major ways
that I made a living in 2021.
And thusly was able to set aside that funding
to produce the Pilot
for this could have been an email.
Adobe Creative Residency, Patreon,
branded sponsorships, and Skillshare.
And I just wanna reiterate the reason why,
y'all see me sitting, getting so hype in the Indiegogo,
and getting so hype about the Indiegogo campaign
and everything like that,
is because y'all understand,
I really thought that I would fund the Pilot
and it would go live,
and then I would need to go and save again.
So my plan, my original plan for the Pilot
which now I think about it is like holly, girl, what?
But my original thought behind the Pilot was,
okay, got the money for the first one,
here we are, did it.
It's out, it's great,
now I gotta go save another 20 grand.
So, you know, I'll see y'all next year.
Like I really thought I would just be putting out,
one episode a year until we finished season one
which is five episodes.
So, you know, I really thought,
it would not be out existing in the world
until I was about 36.
And then we did the Indiegogo campaign.
The Indiegogo campaign is almost wrapping up now,
and yeah, what took me about
a year and a half to save up,
y'all in about 40 ish days, said bloop.
For me, I've just really been doing like this a lot,
like, I've just been here a lot, like,
because I just really thought,
that I would be chugging a way that,
this could have been an email,
for most of my 30s.
I feel like we'll be able to get,
all five episodes of season one done this year.
Y'all gonna hear me say thank you to y'all a lot
because this really would not be happening without y'all.
And I don't take it lightly
that y'all have shown that you want me to succeed
by investing in me as an artist.
I don't take it lightly,
and I'm just eternally grateful.
You know, it's just like, wow.
All of the different revenue streams
that I talked about,
took me years to cultivate, you know,
like, I've been on my Patreon for,
three ish years now,
and it's now gotten to a point
where it's really good, you know,
developing my teaching skills
to then teach on Skillshare took time.
Something I will say is that,
any creator you're watching on this platform
or any other platform,
it should be relatively easy
to understand how they're paying their bills
as a content creator.
You know, it should be pretty obvious
if you're not seeing them talk about their Patreon,
or talk about some sort of platform that they have,
where you join for a fee, you know,
YouTube has YouTube join as well now
with memberships, brand deals.
If you're not seeing that kind of stuff,
they probably aren't making a living
doing content creation.
They're probably making a living
paying their bills doing something else,
and they're in the growth part right now
where they're trying to cultivate an audience
and provide value to an audience
that then they can hopefully leverage for dollars.
So yeah, I hope that helps.
I want content creation and being on the internet
to be as as transparent as possible
of the process of making money
and making a living doing this because,
frankly I wanna see more of us doing this.
You know, it'd be lonely here for us sometimes.
Again, in the comments below,
if you have any more questions
about just more specifics of how I did this,
let me know down below.
If I see the same sort of questions popping up,
maybe if y'all hit that like on some of those questions,
you know, and use that like and dislike
like an up vote down vote kind of thing for me,
that'd be great too.
'Cause if I see enough people
asking sort of the same question
or liking the same question,
I'll just make a follow up video
where I go into more detail
on that specific aspect of it.
Again, I'm Hallease,
endeavoring to persevere as always.
If you haven't yet, go check out the Pilot
for this could have been an email episode one
of a five part comedy web series that I co-wrote,
and am the executive producer creator of,
with Evelyn from the Internets.
And yeah, I'll see you when I see you.
(upbeat music)