Today we’d like to introduce you to Tyler Johnson.
Tyler, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Every Day of high school my camera was around my neck capturing consistently. I’d take bursts of photos every time I shot something knowing I’d be creating video from the stills at ten photos/second. It was my own DLSR stop motion style I had developed that everyone in school seemed to love. This was back in 2009.
While shooting fisheye long exposures of the swirling lights at a carnival one night, I bumped into a man, Brad Schmidt, the creator and head of Media Production at GoPro. He asked to see some shots from my camera, so I ripped back through a couple of hundred photos showing him the stop-motion effect. We passed over some beautiful carnival work and cutting-edge hyper lapses I had recently shot. Brad was blown away and instantly offered me a job in California as GoPro’s youngest employee, and one out of 10 on the media team.
After making the decision to turn him down to go to college instead, I realized what an opportunity it was. Luckily Brad had given me the blessing to come work whenever I wanted, so at 18 years old, I dropped out of college and moved to California. My goal was to one-day film extreme sports for a living and little did I know I was stepping into just that.
For the next six years, I traveled the world filming, editing, and directing content for GoPro, getting the privilege to work closely with the highest ranked athletes over countless unbelievable productions. I was the head of the Skateboarding program and a Sr. Filmer/Editor.
Here are a few of my accomplishments while working there:
-Edited 3 National TV commercials and over 84 films on the Official GoPro YouTube Channel with over 74 million total views.
-I’m honored to have GoPro’s most viral video and the third most-watched official GoPro video with over 40 million views: Fireman Saves a Kitten.
-Won an internal video contest between GoPro’s massive media team: Grandma Flies a Drone.
-Traveled to 9 different countries and over 14 states.
-Personally requested to make GoPro’s Nick Woodman’s home videos as well as Nick’s and Shaun White’s “Ice Bucket Challenge” videos.
After living the biggest life you could imagine at GoPro, with what seemed to be endless money, times got tough, and layoffs started to occur more and more to stay afloat. Hundreds of friends around me were laid off over the course of a couple of years, and the 4th round of layoffs is when I eventually got cut as well. The small team of 10 had grown to be over 200 and then was back down to about 8 when I left.
About six months prior I had invested my life savings into what I knew would be the next part of my story. The bigger budget film industry creating commercial quality content. I put over $46k into RED camera equipment and lenses, taking all of the experience with me on my new adventure.
Only a couple months after the layoffs I started my company, OL’TJP Films – a Top Tier Cinema Quality Media Production Company creating beautiful, breathtaking content filmed on 6K RED cameras and 2019s latest gear.
We’re still up and running now a year later and have some extremely proud content to show for it. Going into 2019 we’ve lined up even more incredible opportunities and can’t wait to show you all what we’re up to!
One thing I never had at GoPro was recognition for the work I created.
It feels so amazing now to put my stamp on everything and claim it as my own.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
There are two sides to my current work, and both bring me so much joy.
My original work was based around making people wonder how it was filmed. That’s where my “Imagine, Innovate, Immerse.” slogan came from. I love combining multiple filming techniques and/or pieces of equipment to create something that makes you stop in your tracks and think about what’s happing. It’s been an incredibly fun challenge pushing my brain to come up with contraptions that accomplish that “how?” feeling.
The other side of my work is the gorgeous 6K slow motion (better than real life feeling) content shot on my RED camera and Movi Pro gimbal. I absolutely love filming events or moments in time that I can replay back to make people feel like they’re reliving it themselves.
Through both of these forms of capture, if done right, you can create long-lasting memorable content that you’d come back to watch time and time again.
It’s also a blast cutting the films to music people wouldn’t expect, yet fits together like glue. Another way I like to stand out.
For me, it’s always a treat to travel back in time through the archives and relive moments. It’s actually why I started shooting, to begin with, to simply remember. I feel it’s healthy to remind the brain of past events because we’re consistently burying it with what’s currently happening. I never delete anything I’ve captured, good or bad. Even a black frame or two I shot before getting the settings right because those mistakes could be just the thing to put me right back into that moment.
Being able to publish your work in front of billions of people around the world in perpetuity is, in my opinion, the most powerful opportunity this era has to offer. Generations to come will have the option to go back and relive their great great grandparents (us) when we were young and trying to make names for ourselves, unlike today with ours.
What do you know now that you wished you had learned earlier?
Mindset is everything. If you think you can, you can.
Start every morning with a win. Don’t hit snooze because you’ll have already lost the first challenge of the day and it doesn’t feel good. Wake up when you’re supposed to, make your bed, so you get the glory to see it clean and neat all day, then the amazing feeling of crawling back in that night. Also, write down three things you’re thankful for in the morning to keep thankfulness at the forefront of your brain. A win first thing in the morning can put you in the mindset of winning all day.
Creativity routines are incredibly powerful and needed to keep up this day and age.
Challenge yourself to create and post content 3x faster than you are now. This might be very difficult but what your doing is training your brain to be creative more often. Your building a routine that gets your brain in the right mindset to create all day, therefore, knocking out content left and right.
You can’t let ideas slip away. If you get inspired to do something, and you’re capable of right then and there, do it. That motivation might be gone tomorrow; it might be gone in 5 minutes. So many amazing ideas and thoughts slip away (even if you write them down) so you need to tackle them in the moment and make it happen. Plus later you’ll have something to show for it.
Always keep a high standard so your audience will be excited to see what it is you’ve created. But don’t let perfection hold you back from posting enough to be relevant.
Get off Instagram unless you’re posting or replying to comments. Care about your followers, and they’ll care about you. You might think it’s inspiring browsing Instagram, but really, it’s just a constant comparison of yourself to others and doesn’t help you in any way.
Every second of every day actually matters a ton. Don’t waste time. If you don’t have time, make time.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
@oltjp
oltjp.com
youtube.com/oltjp
facebobok.com/oltjpfilms
Contact Info:
- Website: OLTJP.com
- Phone: 970 903 3791
- Email: tyler@oltjpfilms.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/oltjp
- Facebook: Facebobok.com/oltjpfilms
Getting in touch: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
