By: Sarah Summer

Allendra Royal-Freeman has spent her career where art meets pressure. One day, she was directing music videos for Beyoncé or PJ Morton, the next, she was watching talented collaborators chase unpaid invoices. After years of navigating chaos behind the scenes, she decided to build the infrastructure the industry had yet to provide.

That decision became Forreels, a fast-growing platform that blends verified profiles, AI-powered casting, escrow-secured payments, and project dashboards into one system for creative work. “I wanted to give creators what social media has yet to deliver,” Freeman says. “Real infrastructure, safety, and a path to help them get paid.”

A Filmmaker’s Perspective

Freeman’s roots are in New Orleans, where she grew up surrounded by culture, rhythm, and resilience. She survived Hurricane Katrina, an experience that deepened her sense of purpose. “I wanted to tell my father’s story and to make sense of what we lived through,” she says. “Film became my way of finding meaning.”

That passion took her around the world. After more than a decade of filming for artists including Beyoncé and directing for PJ Morton, Solange’s Saint Heron, Gucci Mane, and Fetty Wap. On those sets, she saw the same issues repeat: disorganization, missing payments, and an industry held together by text messages and luck.

“Creators would pour their hearts into a project and still end up chasing money for months,” she says. “I realized the creative world had all this brilliance but lacked structure to protect it.”

Seeking a different rhythm, Freeman spent more than seven years in Japan, working across production and creative strategy. The experience changed her. “Nothing felt rushed, and nothing fell through the cracks,” she says. “That’s when I understood I didn’t just want to make stories. I wanted to build a system that could help protect the people who tell them.”

The Broken Backbone of a Trillion-Dollar Industry

The creator economy is worth more than $250 billion today and is projected to exceed $1.4 trillion by 2034. Yet the people driving that growth often work without contracts or payment protection. Freelancers still depend on direct messages to find jobs, negotiate rates, and deliver content.

“It’s not just inefficient,” Freeman says. “It can often be exploitative. There’s little to no safety net for the people who actually create culture.”

In her view, the industry’s lack of reliable infrastructure is slowing down creativity. “When you spend more time chasing invoices than creating, the system is likely broken. Forreels helps to give that time back.”

Building Forreels

Freeman started designing Forreels in 2023, drawing from every frustration she’d experienced on set. She built the platform around four principles: trust, structure, transparency, and empowerment.

AI casting connects clients to verified creative talent in seconds. Escrow payments aim to ensure security on both sides. Smart dashboards replace scattered spreadsheets. Verified reviews help creators build reputations that reflect their real work, not just follower counts.

“Forreels is what Stripe, IMDb, and Upwork could look like if they were designed for the future of storytelling,” she says.

While many platforms focus on visibility, Forreels focuses on reliability. “I don’t want another app that claims fame,” she adds. “I want a tool that can help deliver fairness.”

A Community-First Launch

Instead of seeking early venture capital, Freeman turned to the creative community itself. The Kickstarter campaign funds SuperProducer onboarding, global location launches, and creator growth. Backers can access lifetime benefits like the 4 Percent for Life transaction rate, early beta access, and recognition as founding members.

“The people who’ve lived through these problems should be the ones helping to solve them,” Freeman says. “This isn’t a vanity project. It’s a movement to make creative work more sustainable.”

The campaign also introduced the ReelOnes | GiveBack initiative, where creators share their stories on social media for a chance to receive funding for their next project. The goal is to highlight the real faces and voices behind the platform.

“It’s not about celebrity,” Freeman explains. “It’s about community. Every filmmaker, every stylist, every editor has a story worth hearing. We want to amplify that.”

Lessons from Sport, Structure, and Survival

Before film, Freeman was an athlete. She played basketball, ran track, and competed in volleyball and softball. That discipline shaped her approach to leadership. “Teamwork and structure have always been in my blood,” she says. “When you grow up with nine siblings, both step and biological, leadership isn’t optional. It’s survival.”

That mindset defines how she runs her company. “I lead Forreels the way I ran drills,” she says with a laugh. “You can have all the talent in the world, but if there’s no structure, the game can fall apart.”

Global Vision, Local Heartbeat

Freeman’s global rollout plan for 2026 reads like a tour of creativity itself: Los Angeles, Atlanta, Texas, Miami, Nashville, New York, then London, Paris, Tokyo, Mumbai, Seoul, Lagos, and Nairobi. Each city launch will spotlight a local creator through short films and live “Forreels Speed Dating” events that connect artists, producers, and clients face-to-face.

“Every city has its own creative heartbeat,” she says. “We want to capture that energy and build communities that can thrive long after the cameras stop rolling.”

Freeman sees the global expansion not just as growth, but as a statement. “Forreels isn’t about replacing human connection. It’s about empowering it with structure,” she explains. “When people feel safe and supported, creativity can truly explode.”

Redefining Success

Freeman’s vision goes beyond fixing inefficiency. She wants creators to win. “I don’t just want fairness,” she says. “I want to see creators have the potential to become millionaires. Forreels gives them the foundation to turn raw hustle into meaningful success.”

Her leadership style blends empathy with accountability. She doesn’t believe in hustle for hustle’s sake. “Burnout isn’t a badge of honor,” she says. “Discipline, focus, and protection are what keep art alive.”

The Road Ahead

Her team is preparing to onboard the first class of verified SuperProducers, the platform’s elite tier that rewards leadership and reliability.

As she balances global rollout plans and ongoing development, she still sees herself first as a storyteller. “I’m still a filmmaker at heart,” she says. “Only now, my story is about building a system that helps other people tell theirs.”

In a landscape where creators often feel invisible, Allendra Royal-Freeman stands out by focusing on the invisible things that matter most: contracts, payments, structure, and trust.

“I built Forreels because the boom needed a backbone,” she says. “Creativity shouldn’t mean chaos. It should mean freedom.”

And that, she believes, is the real revolution waiting to happen in the creator economy.

Discover how Forreels is working to bring more structure and fairness to the creator economy, offering tools that help creators manage payments, connect with verified talent, and much more. Visit Forreels.com to learn more and see how it could support your creative journey.