Creating The Good Edit Club™
Hey, my name is Callum Jackson and I'm the founder of The Good Edit Club™.
My journey began during the first lockdown. In my second year of university, a group of friends and I had this idea to bring together creatives from across the world who were isolating, living alone with little to no income. We wanted to unite and connect young people who were starting their journey in a time of real uncertainty, documenting their stories in the hope that someone out there might feel a little less alone.
I think that seeing those people, who I related to, really inspired me to push myself and continue to help people. I had a lot of friends who I used to create visuals for like posters, motion graphics, music videos… and naturally I started to develop my own style but it was pretty tough time. I had moved home with my parents during COVID, was working on the veg section at a supermarket, studying for my uni degree all while trying to discover who I was and get my name out there. It had a real toll on my mental health and I’d find myself in constant creative ruts, just feeling really uninspired.
However, things start to change for me when I began building my own library of templates and resources that very quickly transformed the way I worked. Instead of constantly creating from scratch, I was able to tap into this pool of pre-made art I created in batches which shaved off hours of editing and animating, eventually enabling me to work in a far more efficient way. I used to fear taking on projects knowing that the end goal was so far away because time was short – I was a student, after all. Then one day, I sort of had this light bulb moment and thought, what if I could share these assets with other creatives?
I put this new-found confidence into my studies and later became the first in my family to graduate with a Bachelors degree, yet when it came to taking the plunge to work freelance full-time as my sole source of income, I couldn’t do it. I was too afraid.
Reluctantly, I had to close down what felt like just another unfulfilled dream of mine, and work to achieve someone else’s. After months of searching for work, I somehow managed to get a job through a friend of a friend at a start-up company as a Junior Creative Producer, whilst I had about just £200 in my bank account. I worked there for about 18 months travelling the country making Netflix-style documentary videos, pouring every ounce of effort I had, and was very quickly promoted to hire and manage my own team of video editors as a Post-Production Lead. And yeah, the ‘imposter syndrome’ was real.
Fast forward a few more months, I left full-time employment, had no source of income, my mental health was in a really bad place, my relationship and everything I loved was on the line and I needed to do something about it, quickly. And this time, I decided to actually take the leap, work for myself and relaunch my business as The Good Edit Club™.
Over the coming months, maybe years, I hope to move closer towards achieving my goal. The Good Edit Club™ has already inspired countless creatives globally, but it is now time for growth, and for it to slowly become what it has always meant to be: an outlet for inspiration; a stage for those whose voices need to be heard; a platform to showcase next-generation talent; a place to source knowledge and opportunity.
Here’s to curiosity. Here’s to tomorrow.
