Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tyler Allen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Tyler, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

I think a big problem with the Education System right now is that it incentivizes obedience. I think I got off really lucky in my case with the Video Production class I was able to take in High School, but truthfully most people will settle with a lousy 9 to 5 because schools basically destroy their creativity from early on. Most people think Accounting, or working at a Bank is their final destination. I think that’s why a lot of Neurodivergent people are so great at creative activities like drawing and writing. They don’t really get as boxed in, and don’t necessarily ‘conform’ as well, and so they actually get to express themselves. Students would always cast people like that out, and I really never understood it, because truthfully they were living a lot happier than we were.

I think that the whole system needs an overhaul. This has been said time and time again, but unless you want to get into something Engineering, or Medical, or some other technical field, most of the stuff you learn in High School is basically useless. We need to encourage kids to express themselves and loosen up this rigorous system that basically gets them used to being at a desk their whole lives.

Tyler, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Tyler Allen, and I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life growing up, and up until about 9th grade, I acted out frequently. I was loud and reckless, and I didn’t really care about anything. But then, in Sophomore year of High School, I decided to pick Video Production as an elective.

Almost instantly, I discovered my affinity as an editor. I was making lightsaber duels, I was making portals, I was cloning myself. Within a couple days, my video teacher, Mr. King, basically told me I could ignore what he was teaching and just work on my own stuff. And I loved every second of it, the filming, the acting, the writing, it was fantastic.

I shaped up. I became respectable. I started dressing nicer. And I started my first channel on Youtube, Skabarfle Studios.

My friends Josh, Caleb, and some others would make videos for Youtube. Funny skits that I would write, direct, and edit. The first one was Magician Criminal, and although now it’s terrible, at the time, it was awesome.

Eventually, Covid hit, and I was unable to make videos with others. I had to adapt if I wanted to keep making content, so I started doing solo videos with the help of my Parents and my Sister.

Making more videos, all while contributing heavily to the School News, basically managing my fellow students as if I were the instructor, I started to realize something. I really liked all of this.

I never wanted to go to college, but then I heard about Full Sail University, and I was almost instantly sold.

Working on Films, Editing, and Writing were all exhilarating. But I still didn’t know what specific field I wanted to be in when I left college and would have to pay that huge student loan I took out without reading the fine print.

Eventually, I decided I wanted to be an editor. I never really understood why my fellow classmates hated editing, but I thought it was a rush. Unfortunately, the industry did not want to make it easy for me.

Strikes, and a lack of work in my local area made it difficult to find a job. I made a nice website for my portfolio, and to offer editing services, but still no takers.

Just when all hope seemed lost, I got my first client: Taz Pinball.

It was a great gig, and the owner Ted Takvorian is a great guy. The first job I did for him was making a promo video for his upcoming Pinball Gameshow that he wanted to livestream, and although the pay may not have been insane, I needed something to get my foot into the door.

As I kept working with him however, more and more work started popping up. Things were turning around, and I’ve started editing for several social media clients and more.

On top of that, Ted has even introduced me to clients, such as a company named Liberty Staffing, and a Meteorologist named Eric Stone (Who happened to be the world champion of pinball, which is crazy.)

Eventually, I helped Ted film his gameshow, I’m actually editing it right now. But I still want more.

I’ve got goals. I want to make a video production company and do this for a long time, and I know I can. But something still feels like it’s missing.

I haven’t really made any comedy stuff recently. I’d like to get back on that. Because the truth is, though I may seem like an editor on the surface, I’m a storyteller who just wants to make people laugh, and soon, I’m going to be back to writing my shorts again.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Originally, editing was going to be a side thing for me. Although I was a very talented editor growing up, I never thought of doing it full-time. At first, I was doing some gigs on Fiverr, to make a little bit of extra cash. Nothing insane as far as clients go, but things really started to get serious when I had my first recurring client in High School, Drew Bentley.

Drew was actually my guitar teacher, and he wanted to start creating videos on Youtube to introduce people to the world of guitar. I was tasked in editing a lot of his content, and although the content would look great on a portfolio, it was for the most part, unpaid. I had to keep occupied during Covid, though.

Up next was Zay Rashod, a YouTuber who had 250k subscribers. It was interesting how easy it was for me to get in contact to become an editor for him, but it was another one of those situations where it was for “experience” rather than pay. Getting 10 dollars for a video that took 8 hours to edit is not fun.

Clients slowed down once I got to College, because I needed to focus everything on my learning. But as I started to do editing for school projects, I quickly realized, this was what I wanted to do.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I have a story, filled with action, comedy, drama, and all kinds of things. It’s a new take on storytelling and a great criticism of War for Profit and a lot of other societal things that dictate the modern world. I can’t say much about it now, you’ll just have to wait and see what I have for you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.skabarflestudios.com
• Instagram: skabarfle_studios
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-allen-07a2651a5/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs64fyRqbIYTXdtlKtmhwwQ