Kyler Schelling ’13 working on set with the New England Patriots’ Julian Edelman
Kyler Schelling ’13 encapsulates everything great about an Emerson graduate. He’s creative, he’s passionate, and, most important of all, he’s unique. He currently works as an Associate Creative Director with superdigital – you might know them as the folks behind those Julian Edelman pizza videos that keep circulating the Internet – but most of his job is spent directing the various video projects superdigital takes on as an agency.
“superdigital is a digital agency that focuses mainly on food products and consumer product goods as well as another element that is sports content,” explains Kyler. “We represent the social and digital presence of professional athletes. I generally direct all of the sports content that comes out and a lot of the food product content as well.”
Kyler works on set with athletes like Julian Edelman and Steph Curry and has a part in the company’s larger affiliations with athletes’ social media presence between Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. When asked whether Edelman was really as eloquent as he appears on camera, Kyler noted a lot of the real magic happens in post-production. “A lot of [the humor] is built with some writing and post-production… We know when to cut and when to get the lines out of him.”
It’s this kind of expertise which defines Kyler’s success as both a director and a content creator. He noted that much of his work has been self-driven and defined by his ability to negotiate and showcase his talents effectively whether it’s through massive documentaries or creative projects attracting the attention networks like NESN.
But truthfully, Kyler attributes his knowledge to two of his favorite classes back at his alma mater.
“There’s two favorite specific classes taught by the same professor that stick out in my mind – they’re taught by Robert Patton Spruill and they’re both his Film 2 course and his Directing Actors for the Screen course.” Kyler credits Film 2 for providing him with a different outlook on the filmmaking process. He describes direction as an “executable task” and relays just how important the technical pieces that make a production run really are – a point which Spruill emphasizes in an effort to describe creativity as only part of the larger filmmaking business.
On the topic of creativity, Kyler describes his biggest challenge in working within his industry as the grapple between his creative mind and the more career-focused aspects of paying bills on time and achieving a steady income. He notes that everyone has bills to pay and that the conflict between creativity and income is a burden which many filmmakers face.
“How do I apply [my creativity] to messages that a brand is putting out or that a brand is putting on display? What is that balance between creative condition and commercial work?”
These are questions which seem unanswerable or at the very least very intimidating to Emerson’s more artistic students wondering about their career future. Luckily, Kyler seems to have worked out a solution with his current workplace.
“I think superdigital has been a great blend for me because I’ve been able to tap into my creative world as a director while also contributing to a more commercial field.” Examples of his creativity are abound from the aforementioned pizza videos to amazing interviews with David Ortiz and many other big-name athletes both local and national. It’s the perfect mix for him – a position which allows him to develop content and tell stories through a specific and focused lens while gaining more and more professional experience on the back-end.
Between all of this talk of creativity and careers, Kyler notes that his most recent assignment has him heading to Mexico tomorrow for an NFL International project – a development which not only shows how exciting the work with superdigital can be but also how busy this Emerson alum has been since graduating with a degree in Visual Media Arts.
