Meet Kyle, a young photographer, videographer and social media advisor from Montreal. At a young age, he has already opened his own business, is passionate about photography and making films, and also helps people advertise their businesses.
Isabella Focsaneanu for Her Campus McGill (HC McGill): To start off, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Kyle Turner (KT): My name is Kyle Turner. I am an entrepreneur and multimedia designer/marketer. I started my first company at 17 years old doing photography and videography for local businesses in Montreal with the goal of creating daily/weekly content for them to post.
My partner and I got our first few clients and were building things slowly, but after the first year my partner decided he wanted to go to university to continue his studies. I did the opposite and dropped out of Graphic Design at Dawson College so I could expand my knowledge and client base outside of school. This meant that I had to close up shop on my first company and start doing freelance work by myself.
Within the first 6 months of freelancing I bought a high-end camera and doubled down all my time and energy into creating a brand for myself that would provide value to everyone that I interact with. With my camera I started making cinematic videos and taking really cool photographs, which was able to communicate the vision of the brand I was working with. Continuing this for a few months I worked on some very creative/interesting projects and even put out my first short film on Christmas, titled “Your Eyes”. The video gained a little bit of traction on Facebook and introduced me to some really cool people.
At this point, I started taking my work a lot more seriously and wanted to put my skills to the ultimate test. I decided to start a t-shirt brand and see where I could take my own company if I put 100% of my own money and creativity into it. Within the first month I bought a portrait lens and started taking pictures of models and running advertisements on Facebook. And it was at that time that I really started learning about what it was like to take creative content and push it to a targeted audience. I spent a ton of money on courses from some of the top advertisers and E-commerce entrepreneurs in the world, just so I could maximize the amount of value I could create for myself and for the others that I worked with. It’s now been two months since I started my t-shirt company Benjamin’s, and I’m starting to use my advertising/visual skills to help other Montreal businesses increase their brand awareness and revenue.
HC McGill: What do you like to do in your free time?
KT: In my free time I try to rest, hangout with supportive friends and meet new people, models, etc. Time has recently become super precious to me, and I’m starting to maximize it to get the most benefit possible out of it. This means eliminating any people or activities that directly affect the attainment of my goals. I also spend a lot of time reading/listening to books. This week I read somewhere around 8 books. Whenever I want to learn something I buy a course or a book on it, and I’ve trained my brain to always take action when it comes to learning. I stopped worrying about the price tag a few months ago because I realized that if I want to become successful I’ll need to invest A LOT of money into myself. Besides that I spend a lot of time eating food with people; I almost never eat alone, and if I do eat alone I usually have a book or YouTube video that I’m watching to maximize the amount of knowledge I intake in one sitting.
HC McGill: What is Benjamin’s and how did you decide to start it ?
KT: Benjamin’s is an online t-shirt brand that uses cool designs to express emotions and stories. I started the brand a couple months ago when I realized I was capable of creating cool designs, beautiful pictures and great advertisements. The cool thing about the brand is that every t-shirt has its own emotion/story behind it and it means something different to whoever wears it. For example, our most popular shirt says, “Montreal, je pense que je t’aime” – the reason I decided to make this design was because everyone has a love/hate relationship with Montreal. The winters suck but the summers are fantastic. Of course people would love to wear a shirt that shows how much they love their city, and it’s cool because you can even wear it when you don’t like the city so much. It’s like this with a lot of our shirts. For example, our “Days Go By” shirt is a shirt that represents fleeting events/people in our lives. Nothing lasts forever, whether it be a moment in time, a job, or most importantly, relationships. From time to time we all get hung up on things in the past, so I decided to make a shirt that lets us LET GO and become present with those memories and relationships. I believe we all want to wear shirts that mean something to us and look good at the same time, so that’s exactly why I created this brand and the t-shirts!
HC McGill: Can you tell us a little bit about your films ?
KT: So in general, I make tons of cinematic films – whether it be promotional content for my clients or the short films to express myself and the things I’ve experienced/experience in life. I don’t really have a reason behind why I do films. I believe I’m really good at communicating things visually, and video is one of the easiest ways to communicate to people without speaking to them directly. When I work with clients the first thing I ask them is, “What do you want to communicate to your audience?” From there it’s all about creating a video/story that leads directly to the end goal – communication. My first short film was an expression of love and my experience with it. It was titled “Your Eyes” and it had to do with relationships I’ve had where I have not fully expressed myself or stated my intentions, and therefore, lost what I potentially could have experienced. Within the film I go through the idealizations and realities created in a relationship, and the whole “love at first sight” experience that many of us go through from time to time. The tagline I used for it when it was released was “A Montreal Love Story” simply because that’s exactly how I saw the story play out in my own mind. Film is such a beautiful thing: we have the ability to create, manipulate and communicate whatever we desire and I totally adore that!
HC McGill: You also mentioned you work in advertising! What kind of ads do you do ?
KT: Yes! As I said, I started advertising for myself, my t-shirt brand and a few other businesses/artists. Basically I help people communicate the vision of their art, product or service and then use paid advertising to generate fans and customers for them. It’s a pretty simple process, but what really takes time is learning how to create the perfect visual, the perfect ad and the perfect sales funnel. That’s exactly what I do when I work with my clients. I show them how to take their business from 0-100 using our most useful tools. Not a lot of people know how to use Facebook/Instagram ads effectively to generate revenue or fans. People think you can just spend money and magically people will like you or buy from you when it’s a lot more complicated. I basically take all the complicated stuff and simplify it by doing it for you.
HC McGill: Thank you for your time! Where can our readers find more information about you and the work that you do?
KT: My facebook. My instagram. My website.
Here are a few more photos taken by Kyle:
All images provided by the interviewee.