Where I stay/ be shameless. Take two.
[SOUND]
Hey everyone it's me Hallease, I'm kinda breaking protocol, Anna's gonna
be so upset, she'll get over it though. I wanted to come to you all out, and
talk to you about a video series that I'm really trying to push,
and get on to this channel called Where I Stay. Before I kinda
get into it, let me just show the intro.
Hi my name is Hallease, I'm a video producer, and an editor. I
decided to start this journey to learn about myself as a Black
American, and how people of the African diaspora have influenced
cities, states, countries, and continents. I figured it would be
most fitting to start off in the city where I stay Austin, Texas,
and bring you all along to the ride. This is Where I Stay, Austin.
[SOUND]
So yeah, that's in a nutshell the video. The pilot episode that
I'm trying to finish is based in Austin, and where I stayed for
the past eight years or so of my life, and about the African American
community there. My goal
is to eventually have this show span across the country,
and then go global, and bringing the African diaspora, and all
its diversity, and its history, and its culture to you. And so yeah,
I've been working in this pilot now for the past year. I first
started shooting content for it in September of 2015 with
the help of Evelyn from Internets actually, and a few of my other
good friends. My friend Grace Hathaway, who's also an independent
producer in Austin. So essentially I've gotten the project as far
as I can get it with sweat equity alone. As you could see I've
used the equipment that I do have at my disposal to push
the project forward. I've used my own skills as a producer, and
an editor, and a little of bit graphics to push the project forward,
but essentially it's now at the point where it needs financial help to
become finished. It needs financial help in a few ways. One to
finish the graphics, and the animation that I wanna add to it.
Two to pay for the licensing fees for a lot of the historical photos
that I am using in the piece from the Austin History Center, and
the African American Archive. It is in desperate need of a sound
mix. Finally it needs PR. Once this first pilot episode
is finished, I want to work with my friend Anna Vargas who is a
public relations, and marketing professional, and she's excited
about the project too. And she wants to help me get it out there,
get it really hardcore funded, and get it to the next step, and that
requires building a press kit, media kits, reaching out,
building social for it, all that kind of stuff that I
can do, but I can't do as well as someone else. So I have all these
resources at my disposal, but not the financial support to utilize
these resources. And so that's where y'all come in. I want to
ask y'all,
what can I do? and what can I provide to you all to monetize myself
a little bit? Anna, and I have been talking back, and forth about
possibly allowing people to download some of my photography digitally,
and then from that, you can use it as your background if you want
to on your computer or take that digital, high-res digital photo,
and get it printed to whatever size you want, and now you have either
a wall mural or a simple framed photo, things like that. Maybe
I don't know. put it on a tote, put it on a pillow, I don't know.
So I'd be really interested if any of y'all have ideas
of how I should monetize myself, and what you would be
willing to pay for said monetization, because I want it to be
a reciprocal thing, I don't want you all to just give me your hard
earned money, I want to earn your money. Yeah if you have any ideas,
please let me know in the comments below. I have a PayPal account,
HALLEASE@GMAIL, it is there, you can
send money as a friend or whatever so you avoid the
fees associated with PayPal. If you blindly do that, just know
that you will be getting a producer credit
[LAUGH].
You will be getting some sort of producer credit on this piece, for
sure if you do that,
[LAUGH]
cuz you'll be like one of the original investors. But you'll notice
that I'm starting to try to build a schedule around my YouTube
videos, I'm trying to push out content every Monday at 12 noon,
Central Time. I'm trying to be on social media a little bit more,
a little more consistently, build a schedule, all of that. All of that is with
help of my friend. Anna. I'm really just trying to be out here,
the introvert in me, I forget that I need to just like tell you,
be shameless about it,
[LAUGH]
and whatnot. I hate telling y'all to like and subscribe, but you
know,
like and subscribe, because ideally, because here's the thing, ideally
I get brands to fund this, okay? I get brands, and their budgets
to fund this, and then ya'll are just reaping the benefits of seeing
it for free. That's ideally what I want. I don't want to take your
hard earned money, I wanna take their money, but I don't have influence.
I don't have a significant amount of subscribers or followers or
I'm not influential, so I have to become influential.
[LAUGH]
So that's the struggle, that's like the vicious cycle I'm in right
now.
[LAUGH]
So yeah, that's me.
[LAUGH]
And back to regularly scheduled programming, I will still
have a video out on Monday coming up. So yeah, I'll see you when
I see you. Don't forget to start your week with me. I push out
new videos every Monday at noon Central Time. And make sure to
follow me on social media, so you can stay in tune with everything
I've got going on. I'll see you when I see you.