Rikard Tholén aspired to become a police officer in Sweden, but on the path towards the dream he found the magic of video editing, shifted direction and never stopped. His laptop, though, struggled to keep up with his creative endeavors.

ProVideo Coalition is always eager to showcase real-world experiences from professionals in the industry, how individuals utilize their gear and the thought process behind their hardware and software choices.  One of the sources for those stories are the companies who regularly distribute news releases showing how their equipment is used by the industry.

Although some readers may look at these stories as marketing – and yes, they are – the are also a path to discover how different professionals work. Other good sources for stories are Case Studies, which some companies publish or share regularly, and that’s what we want to share here, with this profile about video editor Rikard Tholén, who is part of the team of creatives at the Premiere Gal YouTube channel.

The Case Study, written by Kevin Bourke, was first published by Puget Systems, on their website, last December. When we read the story, we felt it was so compelling we believed it would be a good fit for the string of real-world stories we’ve published here at ProVideo Coalition.  We used the title “why I made 50 videos in 50 days” because it grabs attention. and wrote the introduction lines you are reading now, but the remaining text is Puget’s original Case Study, which we hope you enjoy as much as we did. So, without further ado, here is Case Study Series: Premiere Gal.

Kelsey Brannan is a video teacher, entrepreneur, and founder of Gal Media Creative LLC, a video editing house and marketing company that produces weekly content for the Premiere Gal YouTube channel, full-length educational courses, and motion graphics and video templates for the Premiere Gal store. Her “Premiere Gal” YouTube channel launched in August 2016 and now has over 500,000+ subscribers and is growing every day.

Kelsey’s career journey is impressive. She has worked with the language services team in the U.S. State Department to produce multilingual productions in Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, and French, just to name a few, and she received a certificate of appreciation for her video innovation from the U.S. Department of State in June of 2017. She’s also been honored to work with celebrities, former Olympic champions, and even A-list actors in her films. Today, her educational YouTube channel and training platform for video production and editing features online tutorials for software such as Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Photoshop as well as video product reviews.

While Kelsey has accomplished a lot in her career, she doesn’t do all of this on her own; she works with an impressive team of creatives to help drive her vision. One member of the team, video editor Rikard Tholén, has led an interesting career journey of his own. He’s played a critical role in helping Kelsey and the Premiere Gal channel reach the heights that it has, and his savvy editing skills are also helping fuel its growth. We caught up with Rikard to talk about his experiences as a video editor and how he came to join the ranks of the growing community of filmmakers and content creators who rely on Puget Systems to help them get their work done.

Unlikely Start

“When I was starting out, I actually wanted to be a cop in Sweden!” Rikard explained. “While I was applying for the Academy, I needed to find some odd jobs to pay the bills and maybe even find something interesting just in case becoming a police officer didn’t work out. And during that time period, I decided I was going to try my hand at making videos. I had never done it before, but I thought I’d give it a try. I downloaded a copy of VEGAS Pro and just started. I didn’t know anything about making videos, so I turned to YouTube. I actually learned everything I needed from countless YouTube tutorials! My first video took me 17 hours to make. And I loved it!”

“It was also during that experience that I discovered ‘the flow state.’ I realized I was sitting in front of my computer for 5 hours straight, but it only felt like 15 minutes. That’s how I knew I loved what I was doing and creating videos was for me. I never liked the idea of traditional work, I always hated it. It was so unfulfilling. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a hard worker, but I don’t like wasting time on things that don’t inspire me. So I threw myself into making videos – I made 50 videos in 50 days! It was so much fun and I learned so much! For the last video, I challenged myself to create it without any help; no tutorials, no YouTube searches – it was so fulfilling and I knew I found my passion.”

It was 6 years before Rikard landed his first professional job as an editor, with a Swedish electric vehicle manufacturer, where he became their producer and content creator.

“It was around this time, however, that I started thinking about starting my own business, inspired by my dad. He had his own company and that thought was very appealing to me. So I started my own graphics design company – the whole creative process was my life. But then COVID hit and I was forced to pivot again. This time I started looking to YouTube and landed a job after making a random comment on a YouTuber’s channel and he was looking for video editors! I remember that night so vividly; I was playing a board game with friends but felt this strong premonition that I needed to apply – so I stepped away from the game, sent the email, and I got the job! Out of 400 applicants, I got the job!”

Connecting with Kelsey

“And that’s how I met Kelsey – she had actually seen my work with this YouTube channel. She approached me on Instagram and asked if I wanted to do some work with her; it was at that moment that I realized who she actually was! That was an easy decision!”

Rikard dove in, taking on a variety of editing jobs for The Premiere Gal channel, and as time went on, the shots became increasingly complex and render intensive. “I was working on a gaming laptop, but was starting to run into some real problems. It was really starting to struggle with handling green screen and rendering, so much so it started interfering with deadlines! It would take 6 hours to render a video, nothing was working! I tried rotoscoping in After Effects and that wasn’t working. It got to the point where I was turning away projects because the hardware just didn’t work! It was clear he needed a new computer, so he reached out to Kelsey to let her know about all the issues he was having with his laptop.

“It’s Time to Call Puget Systems”

“Rikard had really been putting his former laptop to the test,” recalls Kelsey. “He was putting it through 8 hour plus days, rendering, it was just going going going! It was a decent laptop, but it was just at its limit. And because Rikard is doing far more editing than I’m doing for the channel, I knew we had to hook him up with a new computer! So I reached out to my friends at Puget Systems.”

Kelsey and Rikard actually documented that experience for her YouTube channel in a video featured on The Premiere Gal channel. In it, Rikard steps us through his process, and he naturally had some questions – and some preconceived ideas of what he thought he needed. However found his experience with the Puget Systems consultants quite informative! And the results speak for themselves.

“The more I learned about Puget Systems, the more I thought they would be the perfect fit for what I was working on,” continued Rikard. “I had heard from a lot of my fellow content creators that they really understood our space and knew exactly what my issues were. When I spoke with them, they asked me questions I never would have thought of! They asked about my set up, what kind of monitors I was using – they wanted to be as specific as possible with their recommendations. I really liked that. I’ve purchased 8 computers in my life, but this experience felt more like ‘what do you need, let us fix that for you!’ And the difference was night and day!”

Performance Therapy: Puget Systems!

And the workstation that the team at Puget Systems put together was indeed a beast! Intel’s Core i9 processor with QuickSync is the backbone of the system and helps provide smooth encoding and decoding of popular video formats.

• Motherboard: ASUS ProArt Z790-Creator WiFi
• CPU: Intel® Core i9 14900K 24 Core
• RAM: 64GB Kingston DDR5-5600 (2 x 32GB)
• GPU: PNY GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER 12GB
• Drives: Kingston KC3000 1TB & 4TB NVMe SSDs
• Chassis: Fractal Design Define 7
• Power Supply: Super Flower LEADEX VII Gold ATX 3.0 1000W

Rikard shared a few of the performance improvements he experienced right out of the box. “The rendering speed was incredible! I figured that I was saving at least 2 ½ weeks per year just on rendering! Render tests that would take 25 minutes on my old system took 5 minutes on my new Puget Systems machine. Green screen and editing in 4k is smooth as butter – sometimes I even forget I’m working in 4k! Even the little things that you don’t realize are cumulative, they add so much time! On my old machine, it would take about 4 seconds for the media to start playing. Every time I paused and played, it added 4 seconds to my life. This took so much energy from me, it was draining! It actually made me more stressed and anxious. And it was all because of the hardware.”