Today we’d like to introduce you to Hailey West.
Hi Hailey, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
I’ve always had an interest in photography since I was young, but I never really considered it a viable career path. My stepdad, Vic, was the one who fostered that hobby and bought me my first camera. It remained a hobby, and occasionally I would do a freelance job for portraits, but I didn’t really “get into the industry” until I was 30. It was honestly kind of an accident as well. After spending many years in restaurant work, I decided to go back to school for Occupational Therapy. During that time, a friend mentioned that his girlfriend needed some summer help at her production company and thought I might enjoy it. To no one’s surprise at all — I loved it. It’s funny because I remember having a conversation with my mom before I took the job about how I “better not fall in love with this because [I] have to finish school.” Sorry mom. After delving into the wild world of film and editing with a serious zeal, I became obsessed and quickly realized this was, in fact, what I wanted to do when I grew up. So, I ended up dropping out of school and pursuing this full-time. I worked for that company for a couple of years, learning as much as I could and then eventually pivoting to animation. The company managed to get through a lot of the pandemic unscathed, but I was let go in 2021 when they lost a big contract. After getting let go, I decided I would try freelancing for a while until I found a job with a different production company. Here we are almost 3 years later, and I’m still freelancing. I took being a remote freelancer pretty seriously and used the flexibility and remote freedom to work from all over the world. I’ve traveled and worked in 8 different countries since 2021. I very rarely work in photography these days, but I still view the field as what gave me my start. It was my gateway drug into editing and animation, which makes up a majority of my work these days. Since I got my start in such a small production company, I had to learn basically every role, and I still occasionally work on set, but I prefer the post-production life.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I feel like the pandemic was simultaneously a huge obstacle as well as a blessing when I got my start freelancing. So many companies weren’t hiring and cutting back, so finding a job felt like a full-time job in itself, but the companies that were hiring were hiring remote so that opened up my options for where I could apply.
I’ve also never been great at marketing myself. Chalk it up to Millenial imposter syndrome. As a freelancer, the only person who’s going to advocate for me is me. So, I’ve had to learn a few lessons about invoicing and sending deliverables before payment, but I’ve been lucky enough to never be put into a really bad situation on that front.
One of the big challenges of working and traveling has been finding stable Wi-Fi. There’s nothing like racing through the streets of Cairo to find a decent upload speed before a deadline. That’s kind of a self-imposed struggle though.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The bulk of my work is in online educational videos. It was a natural pivot from my work at the production company because we focused a lot on safety education videos. I have a couple of different clients who specialize in online education, so between them all, I am constantly having new subjects to create videos about. I feel like I’ve done a little bit of everything at this point from history to chemistry to computer science and genome editing. I think the series I’m most proud of was for a company that wanted to create helpful videos for young children. They had some great themes about self-advocacy and how to recognize when someone isn’t respecting your boundaries. They were super important lessons, and the videos themselves had a lot of creative freedom. They were a mix of green screen hosts and fun art assets so the series all around was just a blast.
What’s next?
Right now, I’m pretty happy with my client base and the projects I have in my pipeline. No big changes on my horizon as far as I know. Being a freelancer means things can change at any minute so I’m always ready to pivot and adjust. I still occasionally think I want to work for a company again and will send off a resume here and there, but there’s something about the freedom of freelance work that just calls to me.
Pricing:
- 600/day
- 75/hr
Contact Info:
- Website: https://vimeo.com/user134482291
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hwestmotion/
