I watched some your stuff and liked what you are doing. I am no expert but I would say film festivals will help maximize your exposure (no pun intended) and possible lead to distribution, which can make you some money. Sending demos to commercial houses may work, but they are sometimes very closed shops - doing everything for themselves, which is something you may consider - opening your own shop (you've gone a long way toward this anyway) and selling services to TV stations and advertisers.
Best of luck!

I'm sure in Medellin, you can make money from video the same way you can elsewhere.

Advertisers need videos for TV.--Look for locally produced ads for small business, especially ads already running that aren't very good. Then go to the business and say you can do better.
Companies need web videos for --internal communications, websites, training, etc.
Community groups, churches, social organizations, tourism boards, etc need videos from time to time.
Everyday folks need video production for big events, especially weddings.

Hospitals need video for in-house training.

Jack

Also if you meet other missionaries ther tey also need videos done for thier ministries. they may not pay a whole lot but they would pay for good work. I do some of that here in Ukraine.

I started by doing our church services for the local cable channel (freebeee, didnt know anything at the time)

I got really seriously good at that and took a videography job offered by the local cable channel.

from that i seriously got a lot of experience with new equipment (all supplied by them and tought by them along with vegas).

from that i started getting referrals to people looking for good coverage mostly focused on audio knowledge which i totally focus all my efforts along with the artistic qualities i bring by using still image transitions i honed doing my church services.

now i get lots of referrals via word of mouth that i am the best local videographer.

it doesnt in the slightest rival the money i bring in off my main jobs but if i had a wider area and the ability to hire others to do the shooting and leave me to the editing i could do better with it. about 6 organizations rely on me for work. the only piece of equipment i have bought is a used sony pd150 from the cable channel, a few odds and ends of cabling which they run out of that i need like a power strip, 50' cord, an outlet adapter for their laptop to stop grounding buzz. the rest of the equip comes free of use via them including a mackie 12 line mixer, long audiotech shotgun mike, crown table mics, wireless lavs, mike stands, 100's of feet of xlr cableing, bogen tripod et al.

i suggest you affiliate yourself with the local cable channel, hone your skills and let the word get out of your efforts.

oh, and as of 9.0 i bought video vegas - i felt it was time though i could keep going by using their equipment, i have my own projects i want to work on which i am not allowed to use studio equipment for.

Organizations that I have done work for:
5 local churches
League of Women Voters
NAACP
Local day cares
Public Libraries
Memorial services for recently departed individuals.
Local Governmental interests
Private People looking to get something on TV
documentaries
lectures
Other stuff I don't recall, but piles of tape and dvds would turn up.

i could so take on weddings with personally owned equipment. I would fork
out the extra 3000 bucks for that if videography was my main job.
my videography comes as a last in priority to my other jobs. I could grow it if
i wanted or needed to, but my other 2 jobs pull in more cash currently so
i schedule it below this.

Wow. lots' s of good ideas adn advise.
Thank you all very much. I greatly appreciate your help and interest.

I was hoping for something like "yeah, you can make a thousand bucks a month editing for this website www.getrichquick.com...enjoy and spend wisely"! But somehow life just doesn't work like that does it?

Have you guys ever done like stock footage? They charge an arm and a leg for that stuff.... I thought about trying to go that route cause I get some pretty unique stuff as I travel but for some reason I got the impression that it owuld be a dud. Any thoughts?

I really like some of your ideas and will think it all over and see if there ae any routes here that I might be able to follow up along those lines....

Thanks again and peace out all,

Joshua

ps. loved the coment about the hammer.....lol.

"Have you guys ever done like stock footage?"

No but I have thought about. The good libraries charge a lot of money, it's probably sold on consignment. They have certain standards though so you need good (expensive) kit. Do some reseach, if there's not much in current libraries from where you live and there's some unique places around your country then it's worth considering.

The other angle is to be the go to guy for overseas crews. You know about what they use, you find out about where to get what they need, how to get where they want to get to etc.

Bob.

as bob (farss) points out - you really need good kit to get the sort of 'money' shots that people will pay serious money for - but as he also writes, it's worth seeing if you can be a 'stringer' or pick-up shot man for other crews / networks / producers / whathaveyou.

i shoot with a v1p and (thanks to my contacts made over the years), often get asked for pack shots, eye candy, etc., of regional australia from producers in sydney through to israel. i usually work around the $20 a sec mark for pack shots (horses in a paddock, combined harvester, sheep round up, etc.,). if they want longer shots - well, i'm very flexible on costs ;-)

good luck,

leslie

for videography I get $30.00/hr - minimum for showing up is 2 hrs (1hr setup - 1hr shoot time, after the 1st hour of show I charge in 15 min increments). my other jobs average out to 110/hr so thats why i work them more.