How to make extra income working from home as a filmmaker

As a filmmaker, screenwriter, editor and an actor sometimes the work dries up and you need another stream of income to help you with your day to day living expenses. Or, you just want to top your bank balance up by making extra money working from home.

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There are plenty of ways to make extra income on your off day and today we’ll breakdown the many ways to make extra income working from home as a filmmaker.

How to make extra income working from home

Here are a few ways you can make extra income as a filmmaker to help build a diverse income stream.

Stock footage

Think of all the footage you have laying around that you don’t actually use or will not be using, but it would be potentially perfect for someone else’s project.

At the moment especially there is a huge increase for stock footage in these increasingly difficult times, companies are looking to keep growing their content marketing and stock footage is key to their work.

A few websites that work well for stock footage can be found below:

Shutterstock
Getty
Pond5

Remember, you won’t begin to earn money for a while, but once you start to clock up the usage it will provide you with a form of passive income you can keep adding too with additional footage.

Also, there are companies out there that will take care of the admin side of uploading stock footage if you are put off by all the information you have to complete to have your footage uploaded. The company that takes care of this is called: Blackbox.

Create a YouTube channel

This one is a bit of a long burn, so if it’s a quick turnover you may not be as interested, however, YouTube has the potential to become a full-time career but there is a lot of hours to put in to develop content, write scripts and promote before you’ll even see a cent.

However, this is the perfect platform to partner with another income stream – by this, we mean work on it at a steady pace and you’ll have fun, won’t feel the pressure and slowly build your audience and content as you go – hopefully, to transition into this as a full time job.

Here are a couple of ways to make money from YouTube:

Become a partner – once you reach 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watched hours you can become part of their partner program.
Create Merchandise – I know you are probably sick of hearing this, but unfortunately, this still works, once you gain a following they want to be part of your movement and one of the ways fans love to connect is buying merchandise.
Create sponsored content – Creating sponsored content or partnering with a company for a video pays very well, first you’ll have to build up your audience. But an active following will allow you to partner pretty quickly.

Copywriting

This is especially helpful if you are a screenwriter already, you’ll have a creative flow paired with an eye for a story arc. This is exactly what companies need is someone who can capture the imagination of their audience and take them on an adventure.

The best way to look for these roles is on job sites but to also target companies directly. Find out who the head of marketing is and message them directly. Remember to check out the job boards on companies websites that you may be interested in working for.

Make sure you have a couple of examples prepared, these can be from previous work or spec copywriting. A spec copywriting article can be written about a product or service you are already familiar with and maybe write a sample for the company you are interested in partnering with – this may help sway them to have a conversation with you.

A helpful resource to consider is The Freelancer’s Year.

Video editing

Here are a couple of websites that have a lot of video editing work. Both are paid, but you can usually recoup the subscription fee after one job. These are:

Shooting people
Mandy Network

Make sure to have your showreel up to date and look at separate you film and commercial reels, it will allow you to target more specifically and the more detailed and specific your resume looks the more opportunities will open up.

Screenwriting and script editing services

Screenwriting and script editing services go hand in hand as there are so many opportunities out there, but sometimes you find a filmmaker is looking for a rewrite or they are looking to partner with a screenwriter.

By offering both services you’ll find a lot more opportunities coming your way and you will also be more than qualified to work on both.

If you have a personal website attach a new column offering screenwriting services and a basic form. Make sure to write a blurb and build out your online resume to build the SEO.

Look around through filmmaking groups on Facebook, Linkedin and check out Mandy Network and Shooting People for a lot of opportunities.

We hope these were useful ideas and if you have any more, fire them over to us at ifilmthings – We’d love to hear from you!