ON STARTING A YOUTUBE CHANNEL
My brief thoughts on the current and future state of the documentary industry
I know I said in an article a few months ago that I wasn’t going to start a YouTube channel right away, although it is in my pipeline. As you can tell, well, that has changed. Here is my thought process behind the change and why I’m going this route.
As I spend more time pitching my projects, I’m learning first-hand just how difficult this industry really is. You read about it all over the place, the struggle to get funding for your films. I’m a learn-by-doing kind of person, and I’m learning this first-hand.

For reference, I didn’t truly need to pitch my last two documentaries – the stories came to me with funding attached. My first doc was an exercise for me – I needed to prove to myself I could make a documentary – and I didn’t concern myself with finding funding for it, as I knew it would be almost impossible as a first-time filmmaker to do and I didn’t want that to stop myself from creating.
The Current State of the Industry
It’s not just me at the moment, it seems the industry all over the world is having a very difficult time. I haven’t yet broken into the “traditional” Canadian system, so I don’t have full insights there yet, but even still, there are more and more filmmakers in the world now fighting for a smaller piece of the pie. And to top it off, we have to compete with creators using AI to do work like this (to be honest, it is worth the watch . There may not be much cinematic or the type of storytelling I am trying to create, but it’s pretty funny. )
If you read industry experts like Evan Shapiro, you can see the changes that are going on in the traditional ecosystem of film and documentary. His advice for creatives it seems is to go all-in on the content creation side.
In some respects, I agree – but, particularly in Canada, we do still have a strong – if somewhat difficult to access – public funding model. I’m wondering – is there a way I can straddle being a filmmaker first (making a feature every 2-4 years and maybe a short here and there in between) and build an audience on YouTube, without burning out? Especially while managing a very hectic and challenging personal life?
The Purpose of my YouTube Channel
I feel like it’s something I have to try. I’m not content with being gatekept – I’m going to create the stories I want to create one way or another – and I would rather build something on my own accord than go back and work for someone else again (although in reality, I may have to do that temporarily sooner or later).
The purpose of the YouTube channel is three-fold – to build an audience of people who are interested in my documentary work, share the behind-the-scenes process of creating documentaries, and help people learn from my experiences. It’s the same goals as this newsletter and my blog, just in a different format. But don’t worry, there’ll be additional advantages for being here .
I’m lucky in that I do absolutely love teaching, and feel that I have something to give back based on what I’ve learned so far, and continue to learn. I’m completely ok with being transparent on the difficulties of this creative life as well (including what happens when a project falls apart – something I will be providing an update for soon unfortunately). While it’s satisfying to have success myself, I also love seeing the successes of people I’m able to help along the way. It gives me an enormous sense of satisfaction that I can help people achieve their goals. I’m going to lean a bit more on that in the coming years as well.
With that said, you can watch my latest YouTube video, an update to my article on What is Impact, here. I hope you enjoy!
What are your thoughts on using YouTube as a Documentary Filmmaker? Let me know in the comments below!
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