Today we’d like to introduce you to Jamie Trusheim.
Hi Jamie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up in Orlando, FL, always interested in the Creative Arts as a kid. Making films on my Dad’s old VHS tapes or skateboarding videos. I was always around cameras since my dad loved to always capture and make family movies. For college, I decided to go to FAU for their architecture program and after one semester decided it wasn’t for me, I switched to a double major in business to follow in the footsteps of most of my family in the financial services industry. After graduation, I landed a job as a financial advisor and had a great two years but was still unfulfilled. I found myself working less, running out of motivation and my creativity dying. Right around early 2012, my old high school friend Myles Erfurth just moved to Miami from LA to extend a branch of his production company, Big Shot Productions.
After working a few jobs on the side doing Camera Crane work with him, I decided to drop my whole financial services career and go all-in on entering the film industry. I would work for Uber, delivery dudes and bartend on the side, all to be able to afford camera gear and learn as much as I could from whoever would bring me on a job with them. The struggle was real, but I told myself I would never take a 9-5 again and I would make this happen. One day working on a TV Pilot with a Miami Based production, Rum Bum Productions, Mike Zoyas, who was producing the project, told me I should start a rental business for the near camera gear I bought and name it “RentRonin.com” since similar sites did the same with other unique equipment and did really well. The domain was available and for $12, I entered the Miami Film Industry. Since the DJI Ronin was a very new piece of equipment and my website always came up first when people searched for it, I was getting emails and calls left and right. I was still extremely green into the world of cinematography, but I learned how to build and balance the Ronin better than nearly anyone in the city. This opened up the door fast for me to be on huge sets and make great contacts that I still work with today.
Myles and my other fiend William Graydon taught me how to operate and produce as I helped bring my business degrees into marketing and we helped build another film company called Stained Glass Eye Entertainment. Through these connections, I’ve worked with endless celebrities from bad bunny to wiz khalifa to Lil Wayne and all was great experiences, but I was still just a small part of a big set and wanted more. I decided since we do much more than just rent camera gear that I would change the name from Rent Ronin to “Ronin Creative,” where we would shoot, produce, edit and deliver high-end content for a variety of industries in the Miami market and worldwide. This journey has helped me employ and build a team of creatives local to Miami and put us in a position to bid on projects all over the US. I believe the right balance of creativity, resourcefulness and customer service goes a long way in our industry. We now specialize in social content, events, music videos, corporate commercials, and high-end destination weddings and travel. A key to my success is always investing in myself, every year I spend at least 25-40% of my paychecks investing in New gear and tools that will help my craft and keep my team and myself busy for the year to come. Being in so many industries has helped us stay busy through 2020 and adapt to the new way of business during the pandemic. With some sectors of business completely vanishing, we filled the gaps with live streaming and other niches that started to boom.
A few unique traits about me are that I race motorized one-wheeled boards down mountains and took first place for my division. This whole story started when I bought an “onewheel” from future motion to film off of. Little did I know that this board was going to be so much more than a film tool. Through Facebook, I met other people in the area with them and soon learned these boards could go off-road, and there was meet-ups across the US for people to race and do tricks. I fell in love with the sport and started chasing down every Mountainbike trail in FL to go ride. It feels like snowboarding and surfing combined and such an adrenaline rush. Tons of film gigs would hire me because I could ride this board at 20mph chasing down cars while holding a camera. Even music festivals loved it since I could float and Film through the crowd for smooth shots on any terrain.
As the years progressed, I started competing and racing and ending up winning my division float life fest three a National competition and meetup for one-wheelers around the world. My personal YouTube is dedicated to reviews, tricks and trail tours, all one-wheel related and I’ve picked up several sponsors along the way. Onewheeling led to my second interesting hobby, Hot Sauce. To be able to afford to go to the first big meet up I was thinking of ways to pay for the trip and decided why not make hot sauce since I was growing so many peppers already and make them all one wheel themed. Thinking who doesn’t like good homemade hot sauce? It was a huge success and I sold all 200 bottles that trip and started my hot sauce business. I make small batch extremely unique hot sauces, all one wheel themed 2-3 times a year and the community goes crazy for them. This last batch had blueberry ghost pepper, birds-eye coconut curry, chipotle apricot and a spicy sofrito. It’s been a great way to have friends and clients remember me and to see my sauces go viral and trend every time there’s a release on the various platforms.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Starting in the film industry is extremely rough. The pay and consistency isn’t there and if there’s a dry season or in the case of Florida, a very wet season you can see your jobs and paychecks vanish into thin air. On top of businesses wanting to pay on “net 30” or even “net 60”, you can find yourself broke and in debt even though you’ve been working all month.
Starting off, I’d work for Uber and delivery dudes on the side to help make ends meet. I never wanted to take a job that would prevent me from missing a gig in the film industry and would rather struggle and be free then give up and take a 9-5. Some of the hardest parts especially being freelance, is you are fully responsible for your schedule, invoicing, collecting, motivation to work, quality of your work, finding new clients etc the list goes on. It seemed to always be feast or famine either you are slammed and doing 60-70 hours weeks trying to work jobs and wear ten other hats or your sitting around hitting up your friends to see if there’s anything for you to work on to stay busy and make rent. Then at the end of the year, you get hit with endless 1099’s and payroll tax on top of your tax rate and paying your own expensive health insurance. It’s a huge barrier to entry that can be extremely difficult for people to exceed in their first year.
As you know, we’re big fans of The Ronin Creative. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
We are a team of creatives that formed a production company in Miami that focuses on content creation, events, music videos, corporate commercials, high-end weddings and travel content. We own vary unique camera equipment and always investing in the new film toys to create eye-catching content for our clients on time and within their budget. We’ve worked with major brands such as SLS, Adidas, Toyota, and Bud Light. We helped create some of the strongest events videos across the US with various teams working with clients such as Ultra, Insomniac, Nikki Beach, and e11even. One of our top projects we do every year is Model Volleyball in South Beach with Olivia Ormos and her agency OO&CO. We’ve been a top vendor for her for years and created dozens of videos for too brands with her agency.
What are your plans for the future?
I am extremely excited to work on a shift to documentary filmmaking. I love capturing real stories and telling them to the world. I’ve been around the world on a few projects and working towards a new one involved in a clean water initiative for all.
Pricing:
- Music videos from $3000
- Wedding video packages from $3500
- Monthly content creation from $2000
Contact Info:
- Email: Jamie@theronincreative.com
- Website: www.theronincreative.com
- Instagram: @Ronin_creative
- Facebook: www.Facebook.com/thejamiet
- Twitter: www.Twitter.com/TheJamieT
- Youtube: www.YouTube.com/thejamiet
- Other: www.Vimeo.com/ronincreative
