Hello and welcome back to Gracie Meets… According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment for video and film editors is expected to grow 14% by 2028. That means there will be plenty of jobs readily available for people who love editing things from YouTube videos, to blockbuster movies, and everything in between. To help get you hyped up about the increase in jobs, I invited Mr. Tony Lymon onto the show. Go ahead and take a listen!
Show Music: 2019 07 25 cello pizz 01 and 250109 rhodes 02 by Morusque used under Creative Commons License CC BY. No alterations were made to the original composition.
Cover Art: Kyleigh Kinsey. Instagram: @ato._.noodle
TRANSCRIPT
Gracie Solomon 00:11
Hello and welcome back to Gracie Meets… According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment for video and film editors is expected to grow 14% by 2028. That means there will be plenty of jobs readily available for people who love editing things from YouTube videos, to blockbuster movies, and everything in between. To help get you hyped up about the increase in jobs, I invited Mr. Tony Lymon onto the show. Tell the listeners a little bit about yourself Mr. Tony.
Tony Lymon 00:42
My name is Tony Lymon, I’m from Petal, Mississippi, which is a kind of sleepy bedroom community outside of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where the University of Southern Mississippi is where I attended college. And I have a creative design business. Of which one of the things that I do a lot of one thing that I enjoy is film and television production.
Gracie Solomon 01:09
So what kind of projects have you worked on in your film career?
Tony Lymon 01:13
The biggest thing I probably do are web ads, where people hire me to, if they want to do an advertisement on social media, and they want to have quick, kind of quick cut flashy videos to advertise their product or their business and they hire me to do that. Or I do commercials that actually air on television, mainly for local businesses; services. I also do short documentary and promotional films. Let’s say you want to interview someone from your school or church or, or you have a one of the things I did recently was a capital campaign for a church where they were trying to raise money to, to build a new building and just kind of get some human interest stories on people in church, things of that nature. I haven’t done any blockbuster films yet.
Gracie Solomon 02:05
Did you always want to do this as a career? And if so, when did you know you want to do this?
Tony Lymon 02:11
Never! This was never on my radar. When I was your age, you’re in 10th grade, I was heavily into music at your age. And so my, my goals were when I was your age to either, actually at that point in 10th grade, I wanted to play in a symphony orchestra. And I wanted to make a living with music, which I also do as a part of my creative design business and other things that I deal with. So I can say that somewhere around my late 20s, I met a guy who did TV and film production and he did 3D animation. I thought it was so cool. The creative process was very intriguing to me because it was very similar to what I did in music, and I like the audio visual coordination of everything. And so I just kind of pursued it from there.
Gracie Solomon 03:00
How did you get into this line of work? Did you touch on that?
Tony Lymon 03:04
Well, yeah, I, I was in actually a rock band. And we were, we were touring America. And this was the late 90s, early 2000s, when a lot of digital technology became accessible on a consumer level. So one of the coolest things at that time was this technology called a CD-ROM, where you could take your CD and put it in your computer, there was additional media content on there. And we were an independent band. And we couldn’t afford to hire a firm to do this. So I just kind of sought out some people that were doing it locally. And that’s when I met this guy is actually his name’s Matt Belk, who did a lot of the production side of it. And that’s how I got into it. I was trying to find a way for us to be ahead of the game on this technology for my band, and here I am today doing it for a living.
Gracie Solomon 03:54
I think it’s cool. I worked on the sound and stuff like that at my church for my high school ministry, I didn’t learn that much on it, because I only did it a couple times. But I thought it was fun.
Tony Lymon 04:09
It is very fun because there’s a there’s a little bit of technology wizardry involved that feeds your techie brain, your nerdy brain, but there’s also the creative side of it that you are actively participating in how the music sounds and they can’t sound their best until you unless your involvement is as much as there is, if not more.
Gracie Solomon 04:34
Why would a teenager want to think about this career for their future?
Tony Lymon 04:38
I think because it involves a lot, just like I talked about before. I think it involves a lot of things that people who are multi-talented or people who are have a lot of interest, especially in a creative domain, or people who have who are really into the technology side of things. It’s a great avenue to kind of explore all of those sides of yourself. Also it’s something that’s not going away, it’s only going to become more and you can participate in the growth of that of this this idiom.
Gracie Solomon 05:09
What do you think makes your job not so normal?
Tony Lymon 05:12
It’s not so normal because I don’t have, I don’t go into an office every day, I don’t have a desk and I don’t have to like, I don’t have a boss. Really, I’m own boss. Every day is different. I get to choose what projects that I want to work on. It’s a lot of fun for me, because that’s just how I’m wired. I like for things to be different every day. And so I really get to participate in my success there. The sky is the limit. I don’t have to wait on anyone I can as much as I want to do or as little as I want to do is all up to me. So there’s a lot of autonomy involved in what I do. And I really love that.
Gracie Solomon 05:53
I like how you get that freedom to do whatever you want, and it reminds me of a lot have teenagers because teenagers don’t really want to follow the guidelines, you know?
Tony Lymon 06:06
Exactly.
Gracie Solomon 06:07
They want to stray from everything that they’re being told to do. So I think this is a good job for them.
Tony Lymon 06:12
Exactly. I have a 13-year-old daughter. So I completely understand we’re talking about structure versus being a free spirit and where the appropriate break of that point is in her life right now. She’s a new teenager, so 13. So we’re working on that right now. And that’s difficult for me, because that’s how I’m wired to be the free spirit, but I also have to give her some kind of foundation. So yeah, I see what you mean by that.
Gracie Solomon 06:42
What has been your biggest achievement in this career?
Tony Lymon 06:45
Ah, I would say I did. For Petal High School, I did a virtual graduation. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The school was unable to hold a traditional graduation where everybody was in an arena and do the whole tossing of a hat so they hired me to come up with what would this look like virtually. And so I was able to record students especially the choir who normally sing the national anthem. I recorded them individually had them send in their, their videos, and I mixed them all together and they were able to sing together on this actually had them in a virtual Orpheum Theatre in New York City that I built the entire room and put them inside of it. And I was able to get the superintendent and the principal and valedictorian they all did their own parts and I put it together all in the Orpheum Theatre in New York City. So that was a lot of fun. We wound up getting 17,000 views in a day on that graduation. And from that YouTube actually called me to see if they could license some of that footage for their national graduate together video. So that’s probably of what I do, that was probably the biggest thing.
Gracie Solomon 08:03
Yeah, that’s really cool. What are some tips you would give to someone who is just beginning this job?
Tony Lymon 08:10
YouTube. Be, I still YouTube, I have graduated from YouTube University. There are there’s so many smart people out there and just as many different people there are, different perspectives and ways and angles that they have come into the industry and come into the business and they share it all. So you can go in and get tutorials or get points of view or get educational supplement stuff and it’s most of it is free. And you know there, the amount of knowledge you need is vast and you can’t know it all. So I often use it as a reference because there are certain parts of this that I don’t touch on every day and when I find myself back into the algos, well, how do I do that again? I’ll just go to YouTube and, and do a quick search and I’m back into it. So I would say, go on YouTube, figure out what it is you want to do. And then find someone who does exactly what you want to do and above the mess out of like just bug them and find out everything you can from most people willing to help.
Gracie Solomon 09:24
That’s like my podcast, I just got new editing software. And there’s so many things that me and my dad are working on to figure out how to use it. And so we are like, oh, can we lock these things? All let’s go to YouTube and figure it out. So I think there’s a bunch of similarities in these type, these types of things like the audio and visual aspects of things. So I think that’s cool. Is there a best time to start this profession?
Tony Lymon 09:56
I think the best time is when you’re excited about it. When you see something that sparks your interest or something that, that whenever that moment, that that light bulb goes off and goes, I really want to do this. That’s the best time. I think the old idiom is strike while the iron is hot or something like that. I’m sure I got that wrong, but do it while you’re excited about it. Because that’ll help you get through difficult times because there’ll be difficult times where you get frustrated you try things out, I’m sure when you first got this equipment that you’re working on it at first, it seemed pretty daunting. But you were excited about the possibilities beyond that. So you use that excitement as a means to drive through the adversity when you first start trying to learn about the difficult things.
Gracie Solomon 10:45
Well, thank you for letting me interview you.
Tony Lymon 10:48
Awesome! Good luck with the podcast.
Gracie Solomon 10:50
This job definitely reminds me of any hobby a person could have. There’s no real best time to start something especially a job like creative design. You can have the freedom to edit whatever projects you want and have the freedom to take breaks whenever you need to. Plus, this job is perfect for all you tech savvy listeners out there. No normal person could start a special career out of a passion. But then again, show me a normal teenager. Thanks for listening.
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