Finding your niche as a filmmaker

“Put yourself in a box” - Jordan Brady

This advice seems, at first, counter intuitive, but the idea behind it is quite fascinating - it’s about packaging yourself in a way that’s easily recognizable.

How? Have a niche.

It is important to find a niche, and I believe it doesn’t have to be “niche” in the traditional sense of the word:

“Oh, I make fashion videos”

“I produce food commercials”

“I specialize in drone videography”

Yes, these are perfectly fine examples of niches, but speaking from the perspective of a production house, being too boxed in is not such a good idea.

For me, it’s something bigger. It’s your voice, your style, your tone, your personality, expressed through the medium of film. That’s what draws people to you. 

It’s not about the topic. It’s about how you tell a story.

“How you tell a story” is affected by two things:

• Your influences

• Your personality

If you are an introvert, likes to spend time in nature, values human connections and watches Woody Allen religiously - that will spill over to your filmmaking, or any other creative endeavors. Our job is to recognize this, recognize our voice, and honing our storytelling techniques, so we can better translate it to screen.

So to sum it up, don’t stress too much about chasing a niche, instead focus on telling stories in a way that stirs something inside you. Then repeat, again and again.