We were lucky to catch up with Imani Lee recently and have shared our conversation below.
Imani, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
Imagine a mother walking into a building with three young children. The mother looks nervous and anxious as she’s mentally and emotionally at the lowest point in her life. She’s coming to you asking for help from a system that’s already weighed her down. You’re asked to be emotionally intelligent, compassionate, and resourceful, but you’re a social worker just trying to be a beacon of hope and light to someone in their darkest times. Every day you go to work, you have to put aside your own problems to help women and children you’ve never met. You listen to their stories of pain and heartache, but somehow you manage to keep an open heart and an open mind. The average person would become numb to the pain and disconnected from the person, but not you. You keep your chin high, put a smile on your face, and welcome every single person that comes through with open arms as if they were your own children. Somehow, you’re able to turn pain into passion every single day. When you’re finished at work, you head home, reflecting on the day, reflecting on the painful parts of human existence, and how small you feel in the grand scheme of life. Purpose chose you for a mission that is greater than yourself. You step up and accept that purpose because when you get home, purpose looks up at you in the form of five children.
As a child, I watched my mother every day as she poured love and wisdom into her children. She wasn’t perfect but she displayed a level of resilience that I’ve never seen before day in and day out maintaining a household, managing bills, cooking, cleaning, and educating us about our history. She poured her soul into us because we gave her purpose. A cosmic deal for agreeing to live this human experience together. In other lifetimes, we were all soldiers on a spiritual battlefield, fighting for what was right. In this lifetime, she was our mother fighting against the pressures of everyday life not to become a statistic. She fought to raise four men and one young woman. For that, I honor her resilience, courage, and fighting spirit. I don’t just honor those attributes with words, but by living my life in a way that pays respect, honor, and love to her. I wake up every day and try to model her resilience in my personal and professional life. This is where I get my resilience, especially as I grow my startup Black Stock Footage.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Growing up, I was always fascinated with the power of observation. I realized we could take charge of our narratives. I picked up videography and photography because I wanted to share more stories and help people present themselves to the world how they’d like to be seen and heard. From weddings and corporate videos to music videos, my job is simple: tell a great story. In 2020, I left my government day job, where I was a producer, in pursuit of betting on myself as a freelance videographer and photographer. I started a company called Imani Lee Creative (www.imanileecreative.com), where I have been able to work with clients from nonprofits and Fortune 500 companies to small businesses and musicians. Some of my clients wanted to use stock videos to create a brand story and one in particular told me they needed to be inclusive of Black representation in the final video.
Stock videos are pre-made videos and photos that anyone can use for their marketing materials versus filming or photographing custom content for your company. Stock content provides huge cost savings rather than spending money to create original content. I searched existing platforms and realized there was a big gap in stock content of authentic Black narratives on camera. I spent too much time and money searching for the right content and was still dissatisfied. I asked myself, “What if I could build something better to improve the access, visibility, and creative equity of Black representation in the stock content industry?” In that moment, Black Stock Footage was born. (www.blackstockfootage.io)
I’ve become laser-focused on my vision to turn my startup Black Stock Footage into the largest supplier and distributor of stock videos and stock photos specialized in Black representation. I have this burning desire to solve problems and create solutions that benefit the greater good. I’ve always been a helper and a listener, and now I can finally create a platform that has a real direct social impact and will be an economic engine for people in the content creation spaces.
To date, we’ve won two grant funding from pitch competitions and amazing entrepreneurs like FUBU’s Daymond John. This money was spent very responsibly to build the first iteration of our platform. We recently launched our platform and we are proud of the fact that we managed to break down that first barrier of turning an idea into a functional product that people can use today. What’s exciting about this opportunity is that this platform will help so many people find the stock content they are looking for in terms of Black representation. It’s exciting that we went from talking about a problem to creating a meaningful solution that everyone can benefit from.
We reached our first goal which is to create the “stock video” component of our platform. Now, we’re launching a sponsorship campaign to raise awareness and sponsorship funds to build our “stock photos” library and to create more stock content for our platform. As a business, our platform needs to offer both Black stock videos and Black stock photos to our customers because they go hand-in-hand. In order to be competitive and offer the maximum amount of value to anyone searching our stock content library, we want any potential customer to be assured that Black Stock Footage has the best stock videos and photos of Black people in the world. We’ve already identified the technology build costs, which is very cost-effective for developing a tech platform of our size. We’ve had several strong wins since the idea for Black Stock Footage as born and we’d love the community to support our upcoming sponsorship campaign before we go to market in 2024 in honor of Black History Month.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
My first piece of advice is to make sure that you have resiliency in your journey. Many people think they are going to be a successful business owner overnight, or that just because we won a couple of grants our startup business is at its peak of success. Starting a business is challenging. But I don’t use that as an excuse. I use it as motivation and to prove a point that anyone can make a difference if they are resilient in the pursuit of the greater good of humanity. Resilience is not just weathering the storm, but also being able to come to terms with the current situation at hand, and being able to make do with what you have for now. Resilience is planning for the future and taking action every day to reach that specific vision or goal despite the obstacles.
My second area of advice is to be resourceful. In today’s times, resources are more available than ever, but it also seems to be more and more scarce. You have to understand how to problem-solve by being resourceful with the tools that are within your reach. Understand what stage you are at in your life and where you want to be. The resources will change at every stage in your life and some will be there more than others. If you don’t look for them, you’ll never find them. Being resourceful allowed us to use our initial grant funds to build our platform. Being resourceful allowed me to amass the camera equipment that I have today to film over 4,000 stock videos myself. Being resourceful doesn’t mean being cheap, but truly it’s about understanding different perspectives of the tools, people, situations, and experiences that you can use to get to where you need to go – of course, in a positive way.
Even though I have big visions to change the world, I have to change myself first. My third area of advice is personal development, specifically don’t be afraid to ask for help. This is an area that I’ve personally struggled with. Growing up in a single-parent household, we became so resilient that we didn’t learn how to ask for help properly. This wasn’t intentional, but I saw my mother struggle through challenges for so long that it became normalized. I am still learning today how to ask for help and not feel like I’m annoying someone or asking for a handout. I created this magnificent business that is still in its infancy stage of what it will become in the future. I’m learning how to ask for help and also learning what to ask for. Help may come in the form of advice, a referral, a monetary gift, or just a chance to connect with someone in the moment to exchange ideas. There’s the old saying, “Closed mouths don’t get fed” and this is extremely true.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
Yes, we are absolutely looking for partners and collaborators! Here are four easy ways you can get involved today:
1. Discovery Research Campaign
We’re seeking companies who’d be interested in doing a discovery call with me, Imani Lee. We would love to hear from more marketing agencies, advertising agencies, public relation firms, and anyone in the video content creation industry. We want to learn more about how Black Stock Footage can offer value to your organization. This information will help us improve our platform experience, stock content development, and continue the honest conversations about DEI in the creative industry.
If you’re interested, please email us at [email protected]
At Black Stock Footage, we believe in the transformative power of better Black representation in the stock content industry. Our Adopt-A-Stock campaign is an impactful opportunity to directly uplift Black visual narratives for everyone who uses stock videos and photos.
1. You Choose a Theme, We’ll Create the Stock Content
Choose from a variety of categories, such as business, education, healthcare, and more. Our team will create a minimum of 50-200 stock videos and photos that represent your chosen category.
2. Company Recognition
Your company’s logo and adopted productions will be highlighted as a featured stock content storyline.
3. Social Media Features
You will be tagged in a highlight reel featuring your adopted stock content that will be shared on our social media platforms including YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
4. Early Access To Stock Content
We’ll send you a link to directly download all the best stock videos and stock photos from the productions you’ve adopted before making the content available on our platform.
More information can be found here: www.blackstockfootage.io/page/
3. We’re seeking new filming locations
We’re looking for people who would like to volunteer their personal or business location for us to film and photograph content in. The spaces we use can’t be branded with intellectual property or logos for legal purposes. In exchange, we’d give you some of the best stock content we create in your space. We’d love for you to be a collaborative location partner for one-off stock video productions or ongoing stock productions in the following spaces and more:
Business and Professional: Offices, workspaces, doctor offices, hospital settings, rehabilitation centers, construction sites, real estate, co-working spaces, and more
Schools and Education: STEM, classrooms, test labs, study rooms, libraries, at home, and more
Small Businesses: Brick-and-mortar storefronts, small business shops, retail space, shopping centers, and more
Lifestyle: Residential homes, travel locations, recreational locations, and more
If you’re interested in volunteering a location, please let us know by filling out this form: https://forms.gle/eRBUteSxa3Y97zYm6
4. We’re seeking new volunteer on-camera talent
We’re seeking volunteer on-camera talent of Black people and all other ethnic groups. We live in a diverse world and specializing in Black representation means we want to show Black people in different settings while interacting with different ethnic groups!
We want to explore the ranges of faces, colors, shapes, and sizes of people within different Black communities in the Tampa Bay region. We specifically need to show more faces of children, adults, and elders participating in everyday activities including school, business, cooking, traveling, religious activities, and so much more. You don’t need any prior experience and we’ll share some of the best stock content we produce with you from our time together!
If you’re interested in volunteering to be an on-camera talent, please let us know by filling out this form: https://forms.gle/eRBUteSxa3Y97zYm6
Contact Info:
- Website: https://blackstockfootage.io
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackstockfootage/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blackstockfootage/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blackstockfootage
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/blackstkfootage
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@blackstockfootage
- Other: GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/increase-black-representation-with-video-platform
Image Credits
Photos By Black Stock Footage, LLC
