This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Is scouting cool locations for film sets a job you can do on your own? A job you can do as a side hustle, I should say, and without any Hollywood connections. What if you're in a different city? What if you were far from those classic film set cities such as Hollywood? Well, in this episode, we're gonna explore the surprising ways city explorers can turn their local knowledge into income.
Filmmakers, photographers, influencers, anybody who's hunting for the perfect backdrop. We've got a caller who is in Philadelphia. She spends her free time wandering the city, finding hidden gems that could be perfect for an album cover or a content creator or a short film. And she's wondering, could this be a real business? How can she actually get paid to do location scouting even if she's not part of a formal crew?
Let's talk about it. Detailed question and my answer coming up in this short action-packed episode. And by the way, thanks so much for being out there. All right, stay tuned. [Music]
Hello, this is Jenna from Philadelphia.
I love exploring my city and finding all kinds of interesting spots. Old alleys, neon lit storefronts, rooftop views, you name it. Lately, I've been wondering if I could turn this into a service for indie filmmakers, photographers or even influencers who are always looking for cool locations to shoot in. The problem is I'm not part of the film industry and I've had no idea how people actually hire location scouts, let alone how to price something like this. Is there a way to do this as a one-person business without needing a bunch of industry connections?
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Jenna, in this case, you're not really trying to compete with big Hollywood productions. You're targeting a completely different market. As you mentioned, those indie filmmakers, photographers, content creators, YouTubers, brands doing small scale shoots. So those people are not often looking for big studio services in the first place. They would love to have a shortcut to visually compelling locations.
And often they're just kind of doing it themselves. So basically you're trying to say, let me do this for you, I can do a better job. I kind of think you should position it as a creative concierge offering, not just location scouting. Whenever you can package something or come up with your own terminology for a product or service, then sometimes it's a little bit easier to sell it or to overcome price resistance. So in this case, you wanna offer a package like five unique urban locations for an indie music video or three natural light spots, a one-day walking tour perhaps of cinematic backdrops for a potential brand shoot.
Maybe it's not a full day. The point is you're creating some kind of curated package. And then you need to find your people. Again, your clients are not film executives. They are creators, photographers, small businesses, production students maybe.
So look for indie Facebook groups, discord servers, Reddit subs like filmmakers, photography, city specific subreddits, and maybe even platforms like Backstage or Fiverr where you could test some interest. I think that's how you start at least. If you can package your passion for visual spaces into a service that saves people time and makes their work look better, then you're onto something. Let us know how it goes. sidehustleschool.com/questions.
Listeners, feel free to pop in as well. You can download the complete archives of the podcast more than 3,100 days and counting all completely free. And of course you can subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes. A new one comes out tomorrow in fact, and I hope you'll join me for it. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is Siduscleschool. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
