We recently connected with SamHel and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, SamHel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

Yeah for a few years. I’ve made working behind a camera…work, as a full time job. Unfortunately work is a bit sporadic and pay is the same. It gets tough supporting a family on creative works. Hoping jobs come every month, or interested people wanna shoot and make something, or releasing a film that maybe people will like and wanna see? It’s all a hustling game. Networking is the major boost up! find creatives that you can work together and help each other… support others and stop trying to do it yourself.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

My name is SamHel… Sam if you see me in person. I am a filmmaker more so in the horror, transgressive art circle. I make shorts, features and boundary pushing creations mainly shown in small independent theaters and on physical media!

I fell into filmmaking. I didn’t think the film industry worked like how I run it, at all. I always thought films cost millions and a director sits in a chair and 30+ people are working to make your vision. Which is true… productions do run that way, but doesnt work that way the lower your budget is.

I fell into it as a fan of no-low budget movies and realized friends got together and made films they wanted to make and then the actors in their film, will want to make another film and the crew and cast hop around to keep making cool things. I showed up on set of Troma filmmaker Craig McIntyre (LA Ripper) and I brought cast to set or was helping hands… and one day I noticed James Duval (Donnie Darko) was there. Being on set kinda shook me and showed me there’s tiers to this and I could 100% operate in a world like this.

That was maybe 2013/2014…. I’ve been behind a camera ever since.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The business like I stated is flimsy unless you make a name for yourself. As I had my second child. The film industry especially in my niche area of work, didn’t really match up with bills! So I had to pivot into a 9-5 for a warehouse job…. However, that didn’t really pay or secure my family’s stability either. So I thought if I am going to struggle I rather do it for myself then to make someone else more money. I then swapped back to filmmaking and made more than what I made working the warehouse Job. Two pivots… only one mattered and that was focusing back on film works.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I still don’t have a built name or business… I have hit 3K followers 2-3 times. I am now on a solid 5K and I dig that more and more people are finding our work and such. I don’t entirely care to keep pushing for numbers if it happens, it happens. Post your work, don’t be afraid to swap up your presence and attack from other sides to get your work seen by any means necessary.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.samhel.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samhelfilms/
• Twitter: https://x.com/samhelfilms

Image Credits

SamHel / @samhelfilms
Jon Mora