Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tyler Aug. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Tyler, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
I have actually been able to earn a living from video work! I spent a few years after college (while working a pharmacy delivery job) finding my experience with video through developing an associated style on a very healthy social media outlet. This process (of moonlighting) consisted of nearly 60+ weeks straight of producing, shooting, and editing a web series; with homemade (often trippy) experimental commercials for everything from local businesses, shows, and everything underground (and above) for the arts and culture scene in Rochester, Minnesota. The video project featured a new subject mini-doc story each week. The year long endeavor consisted of weekends for shooting interviews and skits all day on Saturday, then go on a late night Sunday editing bender, and we would start every Monday with a new episode to run through the week, that year of work was insane to think of now, but the connections made through through producing that experience changed my life. Today that social media page has evolved into what is now The Rochester Posse, and it still acts as a content page for sharing all things arts and culture in Rochester, just not as many videos, since, well, video life is busy elsewhere. Anyways, the point of this web series story was, anyone who wants to make something for a living, needs to be doing it every day, or at least planning for it everyday. I’m obsessed with video, and I have to work on videos every day, so I think about it constantly in one way, shape or form. By getting into a consistent habit of content creation for a show with no rules, creativity is the best way to build a skill set for what you want to do, even at the cost of personal investments towards content, you’re either buying advertising or developing organically anyways, and mixing both is a good combination. In other words, your work is your calling card, and the more work you have out in the ether, the better off you are. New ideas are everywhere when it comes to representing life’s happenings through video, and by associating yourself with a flow of constant content, you will attract individuals, who will become creative clients, and will pay money for your video capabilities and sometimes even request your style! You can apply this to all trade skills in so many ways, in the case of starting a career in video production, it wasn’t applying for the experience of work, it was making the experience of work, so that people would see my work. I said I wanted to make videos since the 6th grade, and money never stopped me from making videos since then (thousands of videos over the last 20 years), so making a living from a craft that is rewarding in so many ways, is always surreal to me. So, I’m still doing music videos, local commercials for just about everything, tutorials, web series for others, event recaps, documentary story shorts and the list goes on…
That’s how the story went, and with what I know now, I don’t think I could’ve done things differently to get to where I am now. The process of producing videos is always changing, and the opportunities for that production are always changing as well. I rather enjoy the chaos of not knowing what might be coming next, since I have always had the bad habit of saying yes to anything video. One thing will always lead to another, whether its a wedding video, a theatre commercial, a music video, or even a motivational speaker, make sure you get the chance to do as many variations of style as you can. What gets me through working for others, is the ability to invest in my own projects and interests, and always finding time to work on a full length documentary or book. The research and development process for a person project always allows for that freedom of creativity, and there is nothing else like having the time and energy resources to protect my own love of work that only has real value to me.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m a graduate of the University of Minnesota. This is my tenth year of commercial video production. My passion for video started in the 6th grade with movie and music video parodies, and even school reports, all the way through high school. After college I spent years creating weekly web series episodes before I took on video production full-time. I’m a freelancer with an average of 20-30 clients a year, some consistent, some maybe once a year. My video reputation has been achieved from experience in just about every facet of video production, both visually and technical, and still learning all the time. I’ve worked with crews, but I mostly work alone. I enjoy working with clients that allow me to have fun experimenting with my hyper style, and use of in-camera transition editing tricks that aren’t software based, but I’m always flexible to others ideas. I can’t really claim that I have a brand as a video dude, but my work speaks for itself, so I can carry that with my name professionally. The importance of media’s capability to send a message and entertain an audience has always fascinated me, so I feel as tho its my duty to be able to convey both of those elements together in my work, especially for clientele looking to achieve the best possible outcome through video.
I’ve spent the last 10 years of my career creating thousands of videos. My work started with music videos and weddings, turned into storytelling, and finally commercial work of every kind (i.e. Event Recaps, Conferences, Politics, Commercials, Promotions, Highlight reels.)
I love selling short documentaries to public television, and showing personal full-length feature projects in local theaters.
I am also an amateur photographer, with social media collections featuring hundreds of architecturally significant homes and roadside history through a midwestern odyssey. I recently finished a 300 page draft of the concise history of RED OWL grocery stores, featuring nearly 300 never before seen archival images and stories taken from a full-length RED OWL documentary that is still under my production. I’d love to find a publisher for this project soon, and hopefully help finance a RED OWL Museum in Stewart, MN! I’m really excited about my next project on the history of Dinosaur Parks that is in development, so stay tuned, this subject will definitely be all kinds of amazing fun!
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
My goal as a video artist is to create an environment that I can be independent from relying on the need of others, and more in a position that I can serve my own artistic goals and find freedom in that personal time for creativity. I think great things might come out of that opportunity! The mission to find this special place is always on my mind, as much as I love to work with others, video life has really been non-stop honestly, and even with the weight of it all, its really nice to just find a true sense of peace in my own video world, especially time to really finish a full length project, or even a book that comes with it. The journey and creation is always the best part, when a project is finalized in some way or you’ve exhausted a project, closure is really a breathe of fresh air.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being a video creative is not only the ability to carry a visible body of work with you, but that special moment right towards the end of finalizing a single video, there is a special high, like a drug that cannot be purchased! When a great video comes together, or a project is born, there is nothing that compares to that feeling. The first time I sold out a showing of my first full-length mokumentary called THE CROWS was a really special trip, and again while showing a full-length horror feature called HERESY that was based on The Yellow Wallpaper story and shot over Halloween weekend 2020 at a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright’s chief draftsman Jack Howe. In my line of work, the amount of people I get to meet every year is really a privilege and always a blessing in creative happenstance. The video work is always different and changing from one project to the next, so I couldn’t imagine a more rewarding circumstance for myself.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @tylertheusonian @franklloydwrightland @redowlmuseum @brucegoffworld @roadsideodyssey
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therochesterposse
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@OBEYAUGGY
- Other: Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user139060070 My commercial content is scattered all over the place, so the links are from older personal work collections.
Image Credits
Dinosaur Park Sign – John Margolies (Public Domain) Library of Congress