Pete Chatmon adopted his ardour for storytelling—and created a million-dollar, one-man enterprise alongside the way in which. He’s a TV and movie director who runs the manufacturing firm TheDirector in Los Angeles.
Chatmon has directed greater than 60 TV episodes, amongst them HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant, Insecure, Silicon Valley, and Love Life; You, on Netflix; ABC’s Gray’s Anatomy and Blackish; and Apple TV’s Mythic Quest. Not too long ago, Chatmon was co-executive producer for Cheap Doubt, a brand new present for Hulu.
Pete Chatmon’s love of movie sparked his million-dollar, one-man enterprise.
Chatmon’s manufacturing firm bought its begin creating branded content material for advertisers in 2014, counting on assist from a group of contractors. He branched out into producing podcasts (together with his personal, Let’s Shoot! with Pete Chatmon, the place he interviews administrators); brief function movies; commercials and direct TV. “It’s an ecosystem of artistic options, anchored round hiring me to direct,” he says.
Chatmon is a part of a fast-growing pattern: the rise of million-dollar, one-person companies. In 2019, there have been 43,012 companies with no workers besides the homeowners that made it into the $1 million to $2.49 million in income class, up from 41,666 in 2018, in response to the U.S. Census Bureau. One other 2,553 made it to $2.5 to $4.99 million in income, and 388 made to $5 million in income and past.
“I believe in at present’s world what’s actually thrilling for nearly any enterprise is that there have been various ranges of democratization,” says Chatmon. “For me, particularly, your telephone is a digital camera. Once I was arising I needed to go in debt at NYU Movie College to the touch a digital camera. The obstacles to entry have been lowered. Info entry has been heightened. You add your individual ardour and persistence to that cocktail, and there isn’t a lot you’ll be able to’t accomplish.”
After selecting up his first Tremendous 8 digital camera at NYU Movie College, Chatmon began his profession making brief movies, and went to the Sundance Movie Pageant along with his NYU thesis movie, 3D, through which Kerry Washington starred. He then wrote and directed the function movie Premium, which premiered on Showtime after a restricted theatrical run.
By 2017, his small store was doing effectively with branded content material for Fortune 100 firms and advert companies. “We might provide them with video content material for the model to share with their social media channels, primarily,” says Chatmon.
Chatmon moved to Los Angeles, the place continued doing branded work—however stayed open to different alternatives. “As TV directing grew to become the next quantity, that bought added to the portfolio,” he says.
It was throughout these years that he realized an vital lesson: “No matter your artistic pursuit is, it’s important to grasp your craft,” he says. “You need to be interested in what has come earlier than you and what’s is out now.”
However past that, he realized that to go the impartial route, he wanted to grasp the commerce of his craft, too. “You’ve gotten to concentrate on the enterprise facet of it, the specifics of your corporation,” he says. “It’s totally different for movie, TV, commercials.”
To maintain enterprise flowing, Chatmon works with purchasers to assist them give you content material that not solely meets their artistic wants however matches their budgets. “I admire the place a shopper is coming from,” he says. “If we now have $30,000 to make a brief movie, we’re attempting to make these numbers work.”
Chatmon discovered his enterprise grew throughout the pandemic. “Loads of the producers and distributors of content material acknowledged it made sense to stockpile extra,” he says. “There’s been much more manufacturing. Ought to this occur once more, networks are going to wish to have extra content material within the effectively.”
Not too long ago, Chatmon entered one other area: as a e book creator. Earlier this 12 months, he launched Transitions: A Director’s Journey and Motivational Handbook. “It’s stuffed with ideas I discovered, in hindsight, have been the North Star of what we’re doing,” he says. “It’s a e book I needed to learn all of the years I used to be looking for a technique to join the dots and be paid for what I used to be attempting to do.”