We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Hall. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.

Sarah, appreciate you joining us today. The first dollar you earn in a new endeavor is always special. We’d love to hear about how you got your first client that wasn’t a friend or family.

When I was 19, my best friend told me about this conference for Native American youth that she’d been to before. Her and I hadn’t seen each other since graduating high school and knew that if we got accepted, we’d get a free trip to Vegas. We decided to apply and see what happened. The conference centered around agriculture on tribal land, so it was completely irrelevant to my dream career. However, one of the application questions was “What is your passion and how can you use that to better tribal agriculture?” Since I really wanted to go on this trip, I whipped up an elaborate answer on how I’d use videography/photography to create analytic content for the sake of advancing conditions in agriculture. After that I submitted the application and waited thinking nothing of my answer. A few weeks later I get this email from the organization telling me that I got accepted, but they also wanted to know if I was interested in a business opportunity. From there I hopped on a call with one of the top dogs, and next thing I know they hired me to shoot the entire event. I’ll be honest, I was over the moon for a chance to make a lot of money, but I had nothing! I didn’t have any equipment; I didn’t have access to reliable editing software (broke college student struggles), and at that point, the only other experience I had was some small video projects from high school! This was quite literally my very first paid project, and I definitely bit off more than I could chew. Though that week in Vegas was amazing, I spent about 90% of my time running around like a chicken with its head cut off! I’m extra grateful for how gracious my employer was at that time because they let me use their DSLR camera. They also let me take my sweet time with the project and in all honesty, it took me about 2 months to get it done. Looking back, I definitely benefited from the experience because I began learning the ins and outs of videography so now, I actually have an official business process. So, a huge thank you to Kelsey, Donita, and Ross from the Intertribal Agriculture Council!

Sarah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Oki! (Hello in my traditional language) My name is Sarah – Pearl Hall and I’m from the Blackfeet Indian reservation in Browning, MT. I currently live in Houston, TX where I founded my company, Pearly Hall Productions. Pearly Hall Productions is a photography and videography company that specializes in business commercials, product advertisements, public service announcements, special events, and short films. This company began as a passion I discovered when I was in 5th grade. I always had desires to be in the entertainment industry, but I had no idea how to get started. Then when I was 11, my mom took me to an open audition for Disney out in Fargo, ND. Being around executives in the business, meeting other audition participants, and getting my first call back gave me a determination to learn more. I’m also Native American and up until recently, have never seen positive representation of my people in mainstream media. This fact has only fueled my determination to break stereotypes against Indigenous people and give our voices the volume they deserve. From 2014 to 2018, I went to Sherman Indian High school in California where I worked closely with Pitzer college to create video content. The content we made centered around improving social justice efforts for marginalized people. After high school, a short film I made was selected for the 12th annual LA skins film festival at the iconic Chinese theater in Hollywood. Since then, I went on to get my associates degree in Media communications from Haskell Indian Nations University. Now, I do videography and photography as a career path and continue to make short films. I hope soon that Pearly Hall Productions will go on to create feature films that will show throughout the world, highlighting Indigenous talent.

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

I’m actually in school now exploring a new career field! I can’t share much about it now but I’m super excited to expand my horizons and add the new experience to my resume! What I will say though is it’s vocational and in a booming field that involves a ton of hands-on creativity. I’ll definitely spill the beans about it on my social platforms once I actually graduate.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Ugh! I wish I would’ve known you can actually rent camera equipment, that would’ve kept my videography work more consistent! Even though I’m happy I own a bunch of cool equipment, it’s fun to experiment with different gadgets and learn more advanced techniques. I also wish I knew before venturing into self-employment that it involves a WHOLE lot of marketing skills. I’m a natural introvert so talking to people, even if I know them, is not my favorite thing in the world. With this job though, I’ve learned to go about advertising my services in a way that works for me and still gives the client a full experience. I usually just let my portfolio do all the talking!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pearlyhallprod/
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@pearlyhallprod
• Other: tiktok-https://www.tiktok.com/@pearlyhallprod?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Image Credits
Pearly hall