Video production expert Ty Turner discusses balancing creativity and strategy

The following if a video from Tyrone Turner founder and CEO of FlashFilm Media, and of the Teachable school FlashFilm Academy. Ty is a former US Army Combat Photographer, who transitioned to corporate America as a Creative Director for a major fine dining food chain. After he realized how valuable his skillset was to major companies, his goal was to become a business owner. He started FlashFIim Media, which became one of the most trusted media production companies in Texas, consistently working with companies like Toyota, Google, Verizon, Samsung, Best Western, Kia, PGA, DELL.

FlashFilm Academy is designed to give students what Ty didn’t have. A clear modern road map to success in a world where every business needs content creation. Here you’ll learn the business and some personal lessons from a teacher who makes 100% of his income with his camera.

Video transcript

Today we’re going to talk about something that’s pretty important. It’s about a mind shift that I had to make in order to start to become profitable. And that is, when I started to place strategy over creativity, and we’re gonna talk about what I mean when I say that, but first, you know, we got to do we got to roll graphics, let’s roll those graphics real quick and let’s get right into it.

If this is your first time on this channel right here. My name is Ty, I’m a former Army combat photographer. And this channel is about the business side of content creation. If you want to learn about gear, if you want to just follow the YouTubers that teach you about a bunch of gear that get butthurt and mad when I started talking to you about how to really get the money, and they come out with videos with titles similar to mine go somewhere else.

But when you’re ready to make a profit when you’re ready to understand what it takes to learn how to develop the skillset, so that you can buy the gear that they’re sent for free, this is the channel you need to subscribe to. So make sure you hit that subscribe button, make sure you follow me and make sure you pay attention. And you’re here because we’re going to teach you what you need to learn to understand how to be profitable.

So today we’re gonna talk about the importance of understanding that your ability to strategize is more important than your ability to be creative. Even if you’re a YouTuber, and you’d like to talk about BlackMagic cameras and Fuji film cameras or audio for video. Even if that’s the case, your ability to strategize is more important than your ability to be creative.

There’s a lot of people who think they are creative, because they have a lens that has a shallow depth of field. And they can take a picture of a blade of grass with a sunset in the background. And they think that picture is of value. Unfortunately, they don’t know who that picture is of value to. The businessman understands how to make money.

With that picture, I want to talk to you about why strategy needs to be the first thing you offer your client when you go in with being creative. And I love it and I’m passionate, they don’t care. Remember, your business owner is not hiring you to be creative to be artists. They’re hiring you because they are in a world where they cannot survive without content. If they didn’t have to have a social media post every day to make it, they wouldn’t hire you. They don’t want to do this. They want to make money. They don’t want to post every day, they don’t want to be on Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, it’s a headache for them.

Just like you don’t want to spend money on your website, your copy. You don’t want to spend money and to do all the things you have to do. So you need to provide them with some strategy, then be creative with that solution. If you go in there with the idea that your creativity is what’s going to win you the job. Congratulations. This is what I want you to do. I want you to go and use all of this beautiful gear you have. I want you to take really nice pictures of the gear you have. Put that crap on Craigslist and sell it because you’re not going to make it all your gear is going to come from your nine to five or your credit card. You’re going to put yourself in debt, trying to keep up with all these people you see on YouTube that are receiving this year for free to try to sell it to you and you’re going to go into debt trying to keep up with those guys. That are convincing you that you need 22,000 stops of dynamic range to shoot some stuff you’re not making money on.

Meanwhile, we have people who follow FlashFilm Academy that are closing $50,000 deals, shooting with iPhones because they are solving the problems of their clients and their clients don’t care when it’s being shot on. Their clients realize that most TikTok videos that are going viral are going viral with an iPhone.

So if you say I can shoot something for you with an iPhone, that can get that amount of reach, let’s do it. It’s not about the device anymore. If you’re trying to sell quality, you’re not going to make it. Stop letting these YouTubers that are getting this stuff sent for free, convince you that you need to go out and buy all of this crap. Putting yourself in that, thinking that you’re going to land clients, because you’re standing on your Instagram page with this camera, as if your client knows what rig you get, as if they’re going to hire you as if they’re going to say, I need a training video, this guy has a bunch of camera crap, let’s hire him, it doesn’t work like that.

You don’t hire your dentist. Based off the type of drill they have. You don’t hire your mechanic based off the type of tools they have, they’re not going to hire you based off the type of camera you have. So what they do care about is how you’re going to take me from point A to point Z. The strategy, don’t care how you get me there.

Let me give you a great example of how this works. When you need a ride on Uber, when you say I need to get to this address, get me there. In most cases, you don’t care what kind of car picks you up unless you have a certain amount of people or you’re carrying something. Who is the first available person that has the ability to solve my problem? Get me there.

I love gear like you love gear. But focusing on the strategy allowed me to close clients and make the money to buy all the gear that I damn near never use. And this is coming from a guy who has $50,000 to $80,000 worth of gear, who does this for a living every day. I would be lying to you if I told you that I use every crane, jibs, slider, dolly that I bought. I can’t even fit it all in my van. I just wanted it because like you I sat through YouTube videos, and listen to guys compare pixels and make me think that I needed it at one point in time. And I bought a bunch of crap, just in case my clients said, you know, hey, you may need to do XY and Z I may need to clamp a light to a ceiling fan underwater on the third Tuesday of the month. So I can bounce light at 2000 degrees. That way I can have a hair light that shines through blonde hair and silver hair at this. It doesn’t make any sense.

Focus on your business, you will have the money to buy the gear that you need. I promise you, nobody that’s selling you any type of gear can promise you that it will bring you clients and business. I am trying to get you to shift your mindset so that you understand how valuable the skill set is that you have. Hey, keep in mind that the video you just watched contains clips from a longer lecture that’s available to our Gold members at flashfilmacademy.com. You can go to flashfilmacademy.com to watch the complete lectures if you want to get all the information or you can stay on the channel and continue watching some of our content here. Just click one of those boxes somewhere around here. You know where to go. Right up here somewhere. Wherever it pops up. You know you got this.