We were lucky to catch up with Tyler Cruz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tyler , appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

Going from passion to career wasn’t easy, but in order to get anywhere in life you got to start from the ground and work your way up. Learning the ins and out of the equipment was without a doubt the most important part. My camera, lighting techniques, and the editing process, I couldn’t sell any of it or even bring myself to until I understood it all and could explain it to my clients. Trusting the shooting or editing process with either watching peers or simply YouTube videos with people I aspired to shoot videos or photos like, was a tremendous help. Taking those notes and applying them into the field, I would get inspired, research my topic, and reach out to friends to either help behind the scenes, or even act in it, I would say the most crucial is allowing the creativeness to flow continuously but making sure I’m executing them with intent rather than just sitting on it and waiting.

Thankful for the content creators out there Max Novak, Jakob Owens, Avanish Parker, Peter McKinnon!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

What’s going on, I’m Tyler Cruz a fulltime cinematographer and photographer and I run a production company called Vividly Rah. My company provides video and photo services for any and all clientele. We specialize in Films, Short stories, Music videos, and Weddings.

I’ve been a full time creative for over 4 years now and have been learning my craft for the past 7. I got into the production/Film industry as a child actor before I decided to go another route and get behind the camera.
I was very early into the start of the full time journey only a little over the year before we got hit with the unfortunate virus we all know and love.
Just got off contract with a travel dance company where I was apart of the video and photo team, we hit about 24 cities before I decided to come back to the valley and start working more creative outlets, I got to say I definitely missed them.

What sets me apart from others is my ability to take the references or ideas from my clients and bring them to life, of course a lot of people would say this but only few go the extra mile. Not only writing out the entire screen play but building the sets, test shooting the locations, making multiple advertisements for promotion, and making sure our clients not only love the content they get back but they have a great time on site making it as well!

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

Just like Gary Vaynerchuk I cant get enough of these NFTs. I think for the artists and creative community they’re amazing. It gives back to the artist ten fold, no longer is there a need for management a label or even an agent. You can represent yourself and join a community with the same intent and aspirations for their art. I believe that’s the best part about the NFT movement, Its regular people coming together for the sake of art and creation rather then this infinite pool of money. Yes the money is great and grand depending on the collection and creators, but what most don’t see is the foundation behind these successful collections that started their communities years prior to release. They allow you to network with like minded individuals and get insight to how they got to where they are and how they plan to give back to the early supporters. I know its a confusing cloud for some, but trust me, take the time, do a little bit of research and you’ll find yourself joining twitter and discord spaces in no time.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

some backstory on this:

Circa 2017 I got picked up as an editor and B cam or second shooter for this production company in Arizona. The first event I did for them was at a ranch for this charity event. Their main guy couldn’t make it so I was filling in for him by myself. I came to the site thinking I’m gonna cover this event so well they’ll want me to be their main guy, and push this guy out for me. Of course it didn’t turn out that way, it ended being I was under prepared for this specific gig and had to let them know I was falling short on some circumstances, which thankfully they were okay with and understood, I was simply there to get footage of the speeches taking place at the event, but decided to go a little further and get additional content. It wasn’t until I started editing the footage for the event that I realized their main guy had gotten it all. I mean b-roll shots, drone coverage, every little thing you can think of he had it covered and uploaded, I sat there thinking woah this guy knows his stuff. For me this was an ego check, I came to this team thinking I was better and could produce better individually but I was so wrong. They had a system in place for success whether it was a one day shoot or a compilation of months of shooting. Its a good thing to because I was kept on board with them and their main guy later become a mentor for me teaching me what he knew.

One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was leave your ego at the door. There’s nothing more frustrating then assisting on set or during production whether it be on site or post, and you haven’t a clue what’s going on but you act as if you know it all or could do it all seamlessly. No one including the people your working under want to hear or feel that type of energy. You are apart of a team and that team has the same exact goal in mind as you, There’s no reason to get on board with anyone if you have this idea your better than everyone. Movies, TV, and all those broadcast based areas all come with teams of people for their specific department, everyone’s role is just as important as each other, one cannot and will not work without the other.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.vividlyrah.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tuckinfyler/ https://www.instagram.com/vividlyrah/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vividlyrah
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/VividlyRah

Image Credits
@wassupmeesh