How You Can Get Paid for Shooting GoPro Videos

Everyone who loves extreme sports seems to have a GoPro, the cool camera that is designed to go anywhere and shoot anything while you’re in the middle of the most amazing experiences of your life. As someone who is not all that into extreme sports (I am the mother of four and safety is a big priority for me, you know), I don’t own a GoPro, but I’ve used one. We take a family vacation every summer to the mountains in Northern Tennessee to Norris Lake where we bring the boats and spend the week doing nothing but playing on the water from morning until evening. We jet ski, we water ski, we tube, we buy the extreme REALLY cool tubes and the boat drivers make it their point to see how badly they can maim the adults on the tubes and rafts and how quickly they can knock us off them…it’s a lot of fun.

This past summer, we even found a bridge that sits above water that’s 50-feet deep, so we thought it would be fun to jump off that into the water. So, okay; it wasn’t that much fun. I was too scared, but after watching half the kids do it and thinking that they were not about to outdo me, I did it, too. We filmed the jump and it was quite hilarious and pretty fun to use the GoPro to see us going down, me next to the person holding it and the terror on my face. It made me realize that GoPros are actually really, really cool. And it also made me realize that my bridge jumping days are long over. Over, over; I’ll never do that again thank you very much.

But, it’s fun to use a GoPro and film some very cool experiences, and it’s even more fun when you get paid for it. I’ve never been paid for it. No one wants to see my horror and terror jumping off a 25-foot bridge for the first time after four kids ages 5-7 did it without any fear over and over again in their little princess and super hero life vests (I’m the big baby) did it without fear or hesitation. But you could potentially earn a nice income doing it yourself. It’s not a difficult job, but it is one that will pay you well if you know how to do it, where to get into the business and how to make it work for you.

GoPro has an online marketing portal designed to help you make money if you have high-quality videos you’d like to sell online. These do require a license, they have to meet very specific and very stringent guidelines and they do have to be pretty good videos. And even the best videos might not earn anything depending on what clients are looking for and what you have to film, but it really does not hurt to try – and we have some information about it for you right here. The people that buy this footage do so to use in their marketing campaigns, which could prove quite profitable for you.

What to Know

You cannot just sell your videos to anyone and make money. You have to go through some hoops first, and not the kind that you get to film and sell for profit. You’re going to have to apply for GoPro Licensing. Unfortunately, that is something that does take a while and it does mean that you’ll have to wait patiently. You will have to wait for notification that company is accepting new licensing applications.

Another unfortunate aspect to this is that a 6-month license is going to cost you approximately $1000. That means that you’re going to spend heavily to get one, which means that you will probably get paid handsomely when someone buys your videos – if they buy them. While GoPro has not yet announced what or how they will begin paying the people that submit their videos to the site, the fee that they are charging is enough to tell us that the price for the videos is probably well worth the price you will receive for selling them. This is a good thing, so embrace it.

How to Improve your Skills

While you are waiting for GoPro to accept your licensing application and make a go of it for you, you should brush up on your video making skills. You’ll need to scour the internet to see what makes people want to watch a video. Is it something that makes you say “WOW” or something that pulls so tightly on your heartstrings that you simply cannot stop watching? Go check out videos online that have a lot of views and shares and see what makes them so appealing to the general public. Take notes and use your own newfound advice to ensure you are making the kind of videos that people are willing to pay big money to see.

Another good strategy is to target something very specific. If you have a niche or you know you can get into something good, make a series of GoPro videos that will encompass that kind of nature. When you do this, you narrow the playing field to you; companies want a campaign that covers everything that they need – including your videos. Make sure that they are very good videos, too. As a videographer, this means your resolution has to be amazing and the filmography has to be perfection.

What people are looking for in your videos might differ from video to video, and that’s all right. But what they need to do is notice that you have something to offer. This is going to help them remember your name and your work so that they are more likely to contact you and use your work from that point forward. Go for it; there are many unknowns still at this point, but the company is rolling out more and more information everyday to make it easier on you.

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