During this difficult and uncertain time, film and TV production has been stopped for the foreseeable future. This means that filmmakers, directors and producers alike are facing job and income uncertainty.

To help you refocus your creativity and craft, here are a few new ways to earn as a filmmaker during quarantine.

Sell your stock footage and audio

With most people working remotely and virtually, once crisis management is under control many businesses will refocus their attention and resource on creating online content to share on social media. This could mean an increased demand for stock footage. So, with extra time on your hand, this is the perfect time to upload your stock footage to Shutterstock, Getty and Pond5.

You won’t start earning instantly, but this is a brilliant form of passive income you can maintain when the world starts to get back to normal.

Don’t fancy the admin side? Blackbox will help upload your footage and once reviewed, will deal with the next step of uploading it to stock agencies for you.

Offer paid tutorials and lessons

Share your valuable knowledge and skills in the form of online lessons, tutorials and step-by-step guides. Online platforms such as LinkedIn learning where you can apply to be an instructor in your chosen field are perfect for this. You can also reach out as a freelance tutor through your social networks or Gumtree. Facebook is a perfect platform for this; do your research to find and join specific groups where you can share your services with the community.

For example:

• Composers - Music lessons, a lesson on composing,

• Editors - Step by step guides on Adobe Premiere Pro

• Screenwriters - Screenwriting lessons

• Directors - Courses on how to become a director, directing on set.

Offer up your editing skills

This isn’t solely aimed at editors, but also filmmakers. Many of you will have great editing skills developed from your own projects, these are in huge demand! This is a time where several actors, composers and directors and other professionals will be refocusing their attention on old projects.

Become a freelancer

Offer your skills as a service on freelancing profiles such as Fiverr Pro, Freesy, Freelancer. You can quickly and easily create profiles on these platforms that will open multiple opportunities for remote ad-hoc projects. LinkedIn is the ideal professional platform to share your services; similar to sharing tutoring services on Facebook groups, you can do the same on LinkedIn by joining industry-specific groups. We recommend also reaching out to past clients to see if they have any current opportunities.

Create a YouTube channel

This is obviously a slow burner but it’s a great way to grow your income in the long run and use your extra time to focus on your online presence. Results won’t be automatic, but it’s a significant investment of time and energy. The aim here is not for you to become an influencer, it’s to have a YouTube channel that exhibits your portfolio and showcases your skills through tutorials. YouTube is the second biggest search engine on the web, so this will help drive traffic to your website.

This technique can be used across all functions in filmmaking (Directors, Storyboarders, composers, screenwriters, colourists, actors, filmmakers as a whole and so many more) as people are constantly searching for tips, tricks and filmmaking resources thousands of times a day.

We hope you enjoyed this article on new ways to earn as a filmmaker during quarantine, check out our other blogs here.

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P.S. Stay safe out there!