Getting to Know Justin Cone

Speaker 0 00:00:01 Hi, I'm Aaron Zov. Speaker 1 00:00:03 And I'm Austin Shaw. Speaker 0 00:00:04 This is between the key frames. Speaker 1 00:00:13 What's up everybody? Welcome to Between the Key Frames. We are super excited. We have a very special guest, Justin Cone. Yeah. Hey, Justin. Hey. He is an interesting character in the story of the motion design industry. He's played the amazing roles of being a curator of exceptional content, studio Insider, a consultant, and an outspoken voice in the community on not just creative, but all sorts of topics relevant to the industry. What we love about Justin is that he is interested in nuanced, detailed conversation. That's true. One that evolves as things evolve. And that because his role within the industry has been so varied that he has the unique ability to look at things from multiple angles. So thanks so much for, for joining us and, and yeah, we're super excited to talk to you and yeah. Speaker 3 00:01:07 Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:01:09 Yeah. So I think when I first heard your name or read your name was when we would like obsessively look at tween, right? Like's Speaker 3 00:01:20 Going back, let's go, Speaker 0 00:01:21 But like the beginning, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the before, before, before Times. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and I, I wanna like say I was in grad school, so we're talking like 99, 2000. Would that be accurate or was it just like dk When I was at dk, which would be like 2000, 2001, 2002, Speaker 3 00:01:38 More like that area. Although I was probably doing some stuff, but not in between. Yeah, it kind of tweens was like early two thousands. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:01:47 <laugh>, that's where I remember first seeing your name, which, you know, is really when I, when my education really started in the industry and grew. So I kind of like grew up with you kind of curating everything <laugh>, you know, about motion design. Speaker 3 00:02:01 Oh my God, that's cool. It's, that's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:02:06 Jo, uh, Austin, when did you first hear of, uh, of Justin? Speaker 1 00:02:09 You know? Yeah, probably the same, uh, the tween days. I remember I was probably at like lk, like permanence in there. Speaker 3 00:02:17 And so you've got DK and lk, anybody listening, digital kitchen and loyal cast bar. There you Speaker 4 00:02:22 Go. <laugh>. Speaker 1 00:02:25 But look, and, and Speaker 3 00:02:26 I, both institutions, important institutions. Yeah. Right. Speaker 1 00:02:29 And, uh, I, and, and I was thinking about this because I was like, you know, the inner, it, it just wasn't, everything wasn't as centralized or as accessible, right? Like it to have this kind of critique and voice and just sort of like highlights and showcases of projects in our little kind of like, niche industry that was just kind of becoming something. It was cool. It was like a voice in this kind of void at that point. And then, and then, um, when I first applied toca, uh, that year, I think we, I, I mean, I had, I didn't know you, I just knew of you, Uhhuh, we both applied. You got the job. I got an email that was like, Hey, your, your applications impressive, but like, you know, we're not gonna offer you disposition. And it's like, okay. And then like a couple years later when you had made the decision to move on, I got an email and they were like, Hey, are you still interested? And, and that got that topic going. And then Greg Herman, our mutual friend, you know, he introduced me to you and we started talking and I went down and did the whole interview and, and you kind of gave me the low down and, but like, the whole thing was that, yeah, like your decision to, to move on kind of opened the door for me to get the start of my, my teaching career. That Speaker 3 00:03:50 Is crazy. You know, I don't know if I ever knew, obviously I knew when you came down and Greg and Drew, but I don't know if I knew that you and I were applying for basically the same position. Um, I have to say they made a mistake by, by choosing me over you, but hindsight's 2020. I, I think I understand maybe at that moment why they did that. Like why they chose me over you. I mean, that was the kind of peak of like Motionographer in terms of like reach and, and all of that, you know, it was before Instagram and before, yeah, Facebook changed its kind of, um, policy around pages. They kind of turned those into like a pay for play thing. And so, you know, we had some reach and I think I remember talking to the dean beater Yar at the time, who is, is no longer there. But, um, I was pretty upfront with him. I was like, you know, this is gonna be weird. Like, I've never taught before and I'm moving, you know, to back to Savannah, my, my wife isn't gonna be teaching, so I don't know, you know, if this is gonna work out. And he said something like, eh, just do it for a year and whatever. If it doesn't work out, move on. I was like, huh, okay. Which Speaker 1 00:04:58 Now, shit in Speaker 3 00:04:59 The wings, <laugh>. Exactly. Yeah. Maybe, I mean, he knew he had good candidates, that's for sure. I also, I also wonder if like, yeah, like maybe they was trying to get like a little bit of a bump or something, like, you know, visibility or something. And I was kind of, I was super naive about a lot of those things. And I probably still am in many ways about a lot of this stuff where I didn't realize like people, people's motivations weren't always what they maybe said they were. I'm not trying to make anybody sound bad, but I definitely made a mistake hiring me. I loved teaching. It's probably the hardest I ever worked was preparing for that. Like, basically year, I only taught for a year at Scott, so I don't wanna over-represent my time there, although I have done a lot of things with them before and after that. Speaker 3 00:05:38 But, um, I loved it. It was, it was really hard because, well, I guess, um, I liked the fact that it required me to learn and, you know, you think you know something until you have to teach it to somebody else and you're like, oh my God, this is a lot deeper, you know, than I thought it was, was gonna be. Um, so I had a, a blast doing that. But the thing that I think, if I'm honest with myself, I really wasn't ready for it. It was too soon. You know, like Austin, you had this design experiences, deep design experience design practice, and you, you know, you've been in the trenches and you led teams and stuff, and you know, I really didn't have much of that under my belt. I had the kind of weird kaleidoscopic view of the industry that was somewhat valuable. But, you know, but for younger people or even grad students, I think it's a lot more valuable to have, you know, your background, your experience. And so I'm glad that you came in and everybody I know that took classes with you was like, he's the best damn professor ever. And I was like, yeah, I know <laugh>, you're Speaker 1 00:06:45 It good. No, man, I, I appreciate all that. And, and I would just say I disagree. It wasn't, it was a mistake, man. It all worked out just right. Speaker 3 00:06:53 All right. Speaker 3 00:06:59 Favorite, favorite part was honestly working with the undergrads. I mean, nothing. I was a grad student myself when I was at scat, so nothing against them, but the undergrads, you, they're so, um, hungry and inventive and open and collaborative. Yeah. And I learned as a, as a teacher, I probably learned more from them than I did as a student, like on the other side of it, you know, cuz as long as you're open to it, you know, they'll teach you kind of anything you want and they have no fear. And so that was just, that was great. Least favorite part was, you know, some of the administrative stuff was kind of a bummer, but it didn't really bother me that much. There was one professor who I really didn't like, he knows who he is. You probably know who he is, <laugh>. And it made life kind of like, uh, like difficult, uh, unnecessarily. So, Speaker 3 00:07:51 Uh, yeah. But the challenge I have is, again, I'm not sure like of the value I would bring to the students, cuz what they want is they want people like you two to show them, you know, that that creative process from like, with the authority that you both have from doing it for so long and in so many different contexts, I can show them some other stuff and talk about other stuff, but I'm not sure that I'd be bringing like the right kind of, you know, value to them. Yeah. I'd like to go back to it at some point. I know Ringlings looking for a professor, so if anybody listening to this, uh, wants to apply, I I think they're really, uh, looking hard right now. Speaker 0 00:08:32 Yeah. Speaker 1 00:08:33 Yeah. I'd say, man, you, you bring such a unique perspective, like, you know, don't sell yourself short. Speaker 0 00:08:39 Well I think like what's missing from like motion design education now is not like key frames. I think it's a little bit of what we're trying to do with our podcast here is talk about the stuff surrounding us. That there's a business that you're a part of, of is not going out into the world and being an artist. So that is something you could do. But it's certainly different than landing at a chair in a company. Speaker 3 00:09:03 One thing I get, I, I remember when I was teaching students get really concerned about is, am I a designer? Am I an animator? Am I a X, am I a y, am I a z They're Speaker 0 00:09:13 Very big on labels. Speaker 3 00:09:14 Yeah, exactly. The Speaker 0 00:09:15 Titles are very important. Oh yeah. It's like why is you're unlike some of the best work on the planet. Why is the Speaker 3 00:09:21 Titles? And you gotta, you gotta plan your whole life out or something. Right? Yeah. And I think this idea of personas is, it could be liberating for them. Cause they can be like, you can be like, you know what? You don't have to, how about right now? What do you feel like? And then they can, and then they can try them on, you know, and that, and that's, and that's much more, and that's real world stuff too, I think, you know, being able to switch between all those roles. That's interesting. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:09:42 Yeah. Um, and now we have some history behind us. There's a whole historical context of why the industry is the way it is, how we got here. And understanding that context is very important I think. And not just cuz we live through it and can speak to it, but I think it informs so much of why things are the way they are. Speaker 3 00:10:04 Yeah. My, my friend and, and former kind of editor in chief of Motionographer, Joe Donaldson, we work together an out book actually, which is pretty cool. We talk about the, one of the downsides of social media as a discovery platform for talent and, and whether you're looking at studios or individuals, is it, there's no long term memory. It's like, you know, you're kind of scrolling through stuff, you find cool stuff, you're inspired by it in the moment, but when you want to go back and learn Yeah, it's gone. And good luck finding it. Right? What Joe found when Joe was teaching at Ringling is, you know, he would ask students, um, name like five studios that you admire and it would be hard for them to name two. And that is weird because when you graduate, you know, you're probably not gonna, you need to, you know, probably work someplace for, or even freelance for, for places. And if you don't know anything about the industry, what the landscape looks like, uh, then how are you gonna get the best opportunities for yourself? You know? So there's there's definitely a weird kind of gap that's opened up, I think, uh, on the other side of this whole social media phenomenon. Um, which is a little unfortunate. Speaker 0 00:11:16 Well, there's also like this idea of like, content flowing to you and going to a place that has a point of view and curates the content. Yeah. So there's like an editor, like that's why magazines are interesting and that's what we like to read the New York Times, or do we like to do. So, you know, social isn't really that anymore. Yeah. And what never was, but it, you know, it's certainly like discovery, but Speaker 3 00:11:40 It's a fire hose and the signal to noise ratio is usually pretty bad. Right. I was gonna Speaker 1 00:11:44 Say that makes me think of something we're, we're kind, we're working on, um, content for an episode, archival versus disposable. And this just just made me think that that whole idea, and you said like fire hose disposable totally. Speaker 3 00:11:57 Mm-hmm. <affirmative> curation like a Bingo card we're just like checking things off in the bingo card. <laugh>. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I I love that disposable term. I remember seeing ilo, the Italian studio from Tono or tur, they were speaking at Blend, I think a few years ago, and they said they make disposable content and I thought, God damn. That's true. It's kind of depressing to think of it that way, but it's true. They leaned into it though, right? They created basically a tool for creating algorithmic gen, uh, generated, uh, animations, right. For, for Bloomberg and, and others. And they were like, okay, well if this is gonna be disposable, then let's have, you know, a machine mediate that Yeah. And yeah. And do the work. Cause you know, uh, that, that makes more sense. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:12:41 Yeah. It's interesting. I wonder how artists are gonna feel listening to this <laugh> because <laugh>, I, I mean, I have a lot of questions that like, lean into that because I think, you know, like it's, the Artis has been like elevated in our industry to a certain extent and, and rightly so. Somebody's gotta make this stuff and there is nothing without the maker. Right. But like, there's so many other things that go into it and that's why like, I've always tried to have a balanced studio with work that is slightly disposable commercial, especially social. It's in, it's out, you know? Um, people's memory of it is like gone. It just lives on the website and it looks old in minutes, you know? Whereas the film stuff and the TV stuff, if it's on a hit show, right, right. Like, if it's not on a hit show, it's immediately gone. Right. But if it's on a hit show, then it's archival. Yeah. So that for me has been like so much of a balance of what, what I've been trying to provide artists, <laugh> is that opportunity to like strike it every once in a while. Speaker 0 00:13:51 So this was like a really interesting thing and I'm so curious about what it must have been like for you, because I experienced like a tiny little sliver of this uhhuh, I didn't even realize it, but I made cream of the crop list when I, in like 2005 or six Uhhuh. And in six seven I decided to leave DK and I started emailing people and I just started getting offers like crazy. It was like everybody wanted me. And I was like, how do you even know about me? Like what? And I just, you know, I kept that archive online of all the boards I was doing Uhhuh. And I was like, you know, not only did they like want me, but they, the, the first question out of their mouth after they were talking to me about me was How did you get on that list <laugh>? Because you started doing a studio list too. Yeah. And I was like, I don't know Justin, I don't know how he came across my work. I can, I can email him cause I can do that. Anybody could do that. But like, I'm pretty sure if you do that, that's not the way to become on, get on that list. So I'm very curious at that time, was that a blessing and a curse for you? Speaker 3 00:15:06 Totally. I had, I didn't really think about it much. Again, this is mostly for my own benefit. I was just trying to keep track, you know, of, of the studios that I admired and the people that I admired and all that. And this was also at a time when like, because it was the early two thousands, like yeah, the industry was pretty small, so you kind of could do it. Like you could really name, you know, most of the studios that were working, at least in the major markets and, and a lot of the individuals that you, you know, were freelancing or whatever, um, and, and making work, um, under their own name and stuff. So, but then I remember, I think we, I moved to New York after I finished up my MFA at SCA and I got an email from a studio owner who will remain anonymous, who was like, Hey, do you want to, do you wanna have lunch? Speaker 3 00:15:51 You know? I was like, sure. You know, it, it had happened many times before where like studio and I was like, Hey, let's have lunch. You know? And inevitably like, they're just trying to, you know, they want you to post stuff or they, you know, want get on your radar or whatever. So it's okay. I was used to it. And so we had lunch and I went back and checked out through Studio Space, which was gorgeous. And he said, Hey, come over here. I wanna show you something. So I went to his office and I went around the desk and he had up his, the website analytics, like the traffic analytics for the, for their website, for their, for their studios website. 80% of the referral traffic was from the cream of the crop link that they were on. So 80% of the traffic that they were getting was because we were, they were on the cream. Speaker 3 00:16:34 And I was like, oh, I don't know how I feel about that <laugh>. That's kinda weird. And, uh, a few weeks later, I I, they got bumped off the cream. I had to make room for somebody else cuz it was always like a limited, you know, thing 10. And he got so mad, you know, he got so angry, um, cuz it was like drying up his number one like sales pipeline. I guess at some point I realized like, okay, there's too many people now, too many studios, too many individuals. It's just like, can't really keep up with this. There's no way to quantify it. If people were to challenge me and be like, well, how come this person's on there? A lot of times I'd be like, you know what? I don't know. I didn't even know about them until you sent them to me. So, you know, like, okay, the industry's matured to a point where it's not realistic to keep track of this. Although I still have dreams of reviving it using the quantitative model. Yeah. Well, Speaker 0 00:17:19 I was, that's my next question is, who's the cream now? <laugh>? Speaker 3 00:17:23 Oh man, it's so hard because the industry has matured and it's, it's diversified, right? I mean, obviously ovs, uh, obviously, obviously Buck's gotta be creamed too. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:17:34 All the creams, Speaker 3 00:17:35 I think what I, yeah, all creams, multiple creams. We got buckets of cream everywhere, Speaker 0 00:17:40 So, okay. So G Monk we talk about Speaker 3 00:17:42 Yeah, right? Speaker 0 00:17:42 Mention G Speaker 3 00:17:43 Of course. Um, but you know, even he, he's a great example. If you just look at his career and you see all the ways that he's reinvented himself, the whole industry has done that too. He's kind of a microcosm of the industry in many ways. And, um, that's exciting and fun. But what I think you have to admit is that like, that means nobody's really ever on top. It's like, you know, and even if you were on top, it'd be for like 15 minutes and then, you know, you get dethroned <laugh>. Speaker 0 00:18:11 Yeah. Well, like you're only as good as like your next cool thing. Yeah. Like, that's kind of the thing that well, certainly I'm always thinking about, you know what I mean? Yeah. Speaker 0 00:18:21 <laugh>, I have to be. But yeah, it's like, it's also like, I don't know, it's just, it's interesting because there was a, a bunch of years when I started the, my company that I was so focused on the company itself, Uhhuh that, you know, like a few years later I'm starting like starting to realize like all these people I'm pitching against, I'm like, I don't even know who they are. Like I, they're companies I've never heard of. So every year I do a competitive analysis and I do a doc. I have this insane, I'm sure you'd love to get your hands on it and I'd love for you to take a look at it, <laugh>, but an insane document that just kind of outlines all the studios out there, who the principals are, how big they are, where they're located, what their social looks like, how they talk about themselves. Yeah, Speaker 3 00:19:07 Yeah. Speaker 0 00:19:07 You know, and, and how they kind of create that distinction. Yeah. And like how often we're bidding against them and you know, all of that. And so it's really interesting the last few years of, you know, there are just a few legacy, what I'll call brands at this point, but then outside of that, it seems like every year there's these new things popping. And I think it's probably a result of the social media aspect, how findable people are Yeah. Very quickly for producers and things like that, Speaker 3 00:19:37 You know? Yeah. There's so many channels and then there's like for, for so much of the work, the disposable work that we were talking about earlier. Yeah. You really only need one or two people sometimes to create that. Work it out, you've got on it now. Yeah. Every awesome calls on <laugh>. Here we go. All right. Every, every, you know, and so every studio is really just, you know, one or two people with, occasionally some friends they pull on board. Right. What I have seen though is that it's been really tough for a lot of midsize shops. And I midsize to me is like, um, eight to 30, eight to 40 people, um, because they, that that work that can feed that beast, you know, is, is harder to find. There's more competition for it. And, and then big tech, um, you know, it, it's funny, it's like big tech has, has sucked up so much good talent. Speaker 3 00:20:29 Like when people ask like, who, who are Buck competitors? Now the answer is our clients. Uh, and I mean that in the best way. Um, we love, you know, our clients and they're great, but a lot of 'em have built some pretty like, formidable teams, internal teams, internal studios, and when they make offers to people to, to run those teams, they're very attractive offers. You know, they're high. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that come with going in-house on the client side that I think people don't realize until they make the leap. And then they kind of go, oh, shoot. Like maybe I didn't, maybe I didn't understand what I was getting into. The number one thing being that like, you, you go from, when you're working in client services, right, you get so, you get so much variety and as a, as a creative person, you're getting challenged all the time. Speaker 3 00:21:17 When you go in house, it's usually it's one brand, you know, and it's pretty kind of monolithic in a way. And that can be really hard. I remember I was at Apple for a summer, uh, working in Cupertino as a graduate intern. And, um, it, it was an amazing experience. They offered me a full-time job at the end of the internship, which I was flattered by, but I turned it down because, and this was when the iPhone came out. This was like the time to join Apple. Yeah. And I turned it down because I realized like, I don't think I can do this. Like, even just doing it for three months of like just one brand and you know, and it's a very tightly controlled brand. It was very, very tough for me. Now, some people love it and they do great. And when I hear that, I'm like, oh, well awesome. And that's where you belong. That's, that's great. Yeah. You know, but it is hard to see so much of the talent being consolidated and then sucked up into, you know, these, this client side. Um, so it's hard Speaker 0 00:22:10 To leave too, because your, your portfolio or your real basically stopped where you left. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:22:16 Plus the golden, golden handcuffs. Speaker 3 00:22:18 Yeah, that's right. Speaker 0 00:22:20 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But like most of the work you can't show, like even if we were to maybe do work with said place, then it would not be something we ever show. Yeah. So Speaker 1 00:22:31 What was the, we heard a phrase, we've talked about this like tech as a, as a retirement community. Speaker 0 00:22:36 That's how we talk about it. Yeah. But that's where most contemporaries are. That's where most of our contemporaries are because that's where you have to go to make like that the big, big money without being a studio owner or a principal somewhere. Speaker 3 00:22:51 Yeah. You don't the risk of the studio. Right. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:22:54 And I like, as a studio owner, I get that that sounds like quite desirable, but there's Yeah. Like I get to talk about my work. Speaker 3 00:23:01 <laugh>. Yeah. It's, it's hard. I mean, buck, you know, we work with a lot of those, those companies and there's so much work that is absolutely amazing that we'll never, never, nobody will ever know that we did it. Yeah. You know, and that's heartbreaking. Speaker 1 00:23:14 Just curious, how do you feel about the impact of Oceanographers has had on industry as a whole? Speaker 3 00:23:20 I think looking back, uh, we just, we participated in this like probably 10 year long struggle to define and legitimize the field, right? Because Right. We're talking about a time when nobody even really agreed on like, what is motion graphics? What is motion design? Motion design being the kind of newer version, remember Design Speaker 3 00:23:42 <laugh>. Yeah. Every time I gave a talk anywhere, I would spend the first like 20% of the talk just trying to define the thing. Because if I didn't, then it was various confusion, you know? And then, you know, then it seemed like, okay, you know, okay, we, we kind of agree. Although a lot of times we would post things on Motionographer and people were like, this isn't motion graphics, or this is just animation. And I'm like, well, I mean, you're splitting hairs by, you know, my, my animation's, the, the kind of big umbrella under which all of it lived really, you know, um mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, but, but it seemed to settle down over time a little bit. And then, um, there was a kind of faction that I think rejected and still to this day rejects using the terms like motion design and motion graphics, which is fine, who cares? But, um, uh, for me it's always been about saying like, if it's, you know, character based narrative work, then I just think of that as animation. And then if it's, you know, basically graphic design and motion, then that's motion design. Speaker 0 00:24:37 I think like we've all struggled in talking about ourselves. So studios that was part of like that competitive analysis thing that I did mm-hmm. Was like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I wanna know how people are talking about themselves. Yeah. What is the language they are using. Yeah. And like even we came up with this thing, we are makers, and I say it in that voice cause it's like, I dunno, we just make shit. We like action 3d, 2d. Sometimes we're doing characters, sometimes we're not like, I don't know, we're just making stuff. Sometimes we do print stuff sometimes, you know. Yeah. And it's going on all the platforms and all the places. Speaker 3 00:25:10 If you start to say very explicitly, like we are a motion design studio, you don't know what that term means to other people, to anybody, it's gonna be very limiting. Maybe it doesn't allow you to be exposed to other experiences. On the flip side, if a client can't figure out what it is that you do, then they're not gonna reach out to you. So it's always a balancing act and we struggle with it. We basically are in a state of like continual, uh, personality crisis because we don't know how to, you know, talk about ourselves. Speaker 0 00:25:37 It's interesting to think that Buck, buck has that too, because for me it's like when you say Buck, I like have an immediate visual of what you make and do. And that's prob maybe your struggle right there. Is that Right? They were more than cool characters. Speaker 3 00:25:55 I found that like most people clients or just external people can only hold like one or two ideas about your company in their head at a time. Yeah. And if as soon as you start trying to like, but we do this and this and this and this, they're like, okay, pick two. Cuz I can't keep all that <laugh> in my head. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:26:11 It's so interesting. I feel like our clients over the years, depending on when they started working with us, that's what, and how they work with us in the future. So like, people from the early days, they think of us as a motion graphics, motion design studio. They very fairly rarely think of us for live action uhhuh. And hey man, that has the best margins on it. Speaker 3 00:26:31 Yeah. Right. Speaker 0 00:26:31 Like all day long, you're 5,000 thousand dollars to do like Speaker 3 00:26:36 Aqui, let's do it. Speaker 0 00:26:37 Sold, let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but then, you know, they were, you know, like the shameless years when people saw that title sequence and started thinking about us more for live action and narrative and all that stuff. So that became like a thing. And that's when we brought on more directors Uhhuh. Okay. So we like kind of leaned into that. And now with like all the visual effects, like the staircases and things like that, now we move into this. Like if somebody's becoming introduced to us now, they're like, oh, you're the, the big boutique. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:27:07 It's super interesting. Speaker 0 00:27:09 It's very interesting, Speaker 0 00:27:13 You know, going from like an old school rep model, which I don't think people probably even understand, but you know, when a producer at an ad agency was looking for somebody to make a thing Yeah. They would go and get three quarter tapes of all the companies they represented and send over reels to agency producers, these reps. Yeah. And they would be like, I got, I got something for you. Yeah. And then likely you would bid on the job if, if you were appropriate. Well now those producers could find you via the internet. That's right. And via Motionographer. And they didn't necessarily need to go through that like, older system of having somebody like curate for you <laugh>. Yeah. So, but like those, those relationships were big deal relationships and it took a while to kind of, and there's some still exist, you know, but like, there were kickbacks involved. I heard about like working bags and all sorts of stuff going on for, you know, funneling work to people. Um, and, and it's very costly for a studio to be involved in that. Like, it could be up to 10% of the cost of a job just being, having it away. Speaker 3 00:28:20 I I remember 15% in some cases, some reps that I was friends with. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:28:26 But I think Motionographer had a big impact on the industry in that way cuz it really made everybody much it demystified. Speaker 3 00:28:35 That's interesting. That's good. Speaker 0 00:28:37 The whole thing. I think Speaker 3 00:28:38 It's great. I really hate that old model that you were describing. Um, the, the gatekeeper model, the, the rep model, the, the kind of old, I mean it still persists in live action. I mean, live action hasn't, in my opinion, changed nearly enough. And I think part of that is because, you know, live action commercial produc, commercial directors and, and and commercial production companies, they, there's like this at least perceived on ramp to like Hollywood. So it feels like, you know, when you're getting a piece of this director to do your Pringles ad well, and they, they're gonna do, you know, next summer they're gonna be directing a Marvel movie. People, the, the agency people. And this is not the client side of that's we're the more of an agency phenomenon they wanted. It's called Star Fucking, they want, they wanted to be on set with that super big name director who had won 18 Kind Lions and was like, you know, the hot shit last year. Speaker 3 00:29:35 And they wanted to be drinking champagne with them in this edit suites and all, it was this whole thing. Right. And all that stuff gets marked up, by the way. Well the clients and you know, shifting to a company now, like a Buck. We, we work a lot with agencies and they're, they're great. I don't wanna disparage them. It's changed a lot too. But we work a lot direct to client, you know, and the clients don't really care that much about that. It's in our experience, they're like, can you make good stuff and do it on time? You know, I have a little bit of like a punk rock ethos when it comes to this stuff that I, I want things to be flat. I want access to be easy. I don't believe in gatekeepers and all this stuff. Even though, uh, running Motionographer, I was a gatekeeper. Right, right. I was a, I was a person who was saying like, this, this, but not that. Um, and so I was kind of talking on both sides of my mouth, I guess just now. But that's the reality of it. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:30:24 One thing I think it might be helpful for, for viewers, listeners, maybe even just to define that roster based model, cuz we kind of jumped into it. I know for me, like when I first started, I start, I was interning and then freelancing at Curious Pictures and they had that model, right. They had Speaker 3 00:30:41 Directs Speaker 1 00:30:41 And Yeah. And then, you know, the new, the newer studios, it was more collective mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then over the years, as I've seen some where it's like we've come back to that, that roster base, which I'm kind of seeing as, as an extension from really film production companies that have that. You know, so maybe just maybe defining like, what is that model Yeah. Versus the Speaker 3 00:31:03 Collective. So on the roster model, um, it, you know, when you, when you are looking at a studio, what you're gonna see is on their website, usually a director's page that lists all the directors that Yeah. Work at that studio. They may not actually work there full time though. It may just be that, um, they have an agreement with that studio that says, um, look, you're gonna try to find me work. I'm, is this an exclusive agreement, let's say for North America? And, um, if you get the work, then I'll direct it and you guys are gonna produce it. Your staff animators, your staff designers, your staff com composers via fuck stars are gonna produce it. And so you get the directors essentially pitch on work, um, which is a very time consuming and can be expensive thing. Um, and hopefully if they win, then the, the studio or the production company as a whole benefits from that. Speaker 3 00:31:54 Everybody benefits from that. Um, so yes, if you go to cyop.com right now or you know, I mean many, many studios have this model. Um, Hornet is, is like very successful director. Um, nexus Studios very successful, uh, roster driven, you know, kind of production company model. Um, and it, yeah, you're right. I think it, it comes from the film production world. It's for sure. And Curious. Curious Pictures was interesting. Such an institution, so many amazing people came through there and they kind of did both, right? They were doing live action and animation and kind of blurring the lines between them. They, they were very pioneering. I don't know if they ever got like full credit for how important they were to the industry. Speaker 0 00:32:31 They had a great logo too. Speaker 3 00:32:32 Yeah. Oh yeah. Because I remember had a Speaker 0 00:32:35 Like right on, oh my God, Speaker 1 00:32:37 Lafayette Speaker 3 00:32:38 Cool, cool space. Lafa Speaker 1 00:32:39 Lafayette at a place. Yeah. I'll tell you what, when I, like I was, when I went over there to interview to get an internship there, and this was, I don't know, early two thousands. Right. So, but I tell my students this because I'm, you know, basically the head of CG at that time was Boo Won. I don't know if you know Bill. Yeah. Boo. What's Boo? Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. And now she's at, uh, I think Unity now. Oh. But you know, basically I had really, like, I had really bad motion. Right? Like I, I had like one After Effects class and so anything I did in motion was garbage. And then I had like, so, so graphic design, but I had like really good, cuz I, that was my whole undergrad was drawing. And she was basically like, based on your strength of your sketchbook, like we'll take you cuz we like having people who aren't purely just software. Speaker 1 00:33:28 Right. And it was like, it's four days a week unpaid. And, and it's, but that's just how it was. Could you imagine saying that to a kid now? That was just the way it was like, nobody got, and I was like, yes, I have to be here. I have to be at this place. It's the apprenticeship model that goes way back. I always, me and Aaron have a joke cuz I, it's a word I really like Theier that like workshop, you know, the old school workshop from centuries ago. But it's that guild system of training and Speaker 3 00:33:58 We've actually changed it buck, uh, within the last year we changed, we don't call 'em interns anymore. I mean, we have internship programs, but they're, they're called apprentices now. And we've tried to restructure around that. My, my new favorite like way of thinking about what we're trying to do is like that we're basically trying to build a big art school and we fund the tuition through client projects, but it's like really just a big art school. And, and this idea came out really out of our Amsterdam office. Um, the guy who runs that office vi Vincent Laers, who was at Ambassadors before he was at Buck, he's just a really, I love the way he thinks about culture and, and education being like, just ongoing and, and, and intrinsically rewarding experience. It's not about making necessarily cool client work. It's about learning. And then, oh, I accidentally created something cool while I was, you know, learning and collaborating with my, with my friends, you know, my, my my fellow students, you know? Speaker 1 00:34:52 So. Wait, that's interesting. So you're, you're trying to, when you say art school, are you trying to model the, the work culture around art school or actually make an art school? Speaker 3 00:35:02 <laugh>? I would love to get to the latter. Um, yeah, it's more about like a work culture and, and that kind of openness and vulnerability and, and like keeping your ego in check thing mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, the art school just does by, by its nature by the way it's set up. When Speaker 0 00:35:16 You, when you said you were 600 strong, I was thinking where, where, where are you getting these people? Speaker 3 00:35:22 Yeah, well that's the, Speaker 0 00:35:23 You grow them Speaker 1 00:35:24 At that Speaker 3 00:35:24 Point. Yeah, you do. You have to. Yeah, Speaker 3 00:35:30 I kind of did at one point, my buddy, um, David Crumley, who is uh, technical director at Hush now, he called me and was like, Hey, you remember that company we, we both worked for, for many years called Inspire Learning. It was like my second job outta school. It was like a e-learning company did really interesting stuff in the early two thousands. Um, he said, well, you know, I've been kind of running our in-house animation and video production team and I had this idea of spinning it off into its own company, um, with a little bit of support from Inspire from the parent company. And I was thinking like, you and I could, could run it. And so after thinking about it a lot, I said, okay, cool. So I moved to Austin and we started this studio called Hounds Tooth. And cuz China jumped in with both feet, we, it was interesting because we got kind of a kickstart by grabbing people from Inspire and then, you know, we already had a team and everything. Speaker 3 00:36:26 But I did that for about a year and realized like, man, I don't know if I'm really cut out for this. You know, the, I had a really tough time, uh, pitching and winning work, which I love to do. I love pitching, but then having to then turn around and then lead production on a work on work was really hard because I knew all the constraints, right? I knew the budget and the timeline, and I knew what the client was gonna say. And so it really hamstrung me, and this is just a personal hangup I guess, but it's, it's persistent. It really made it hard for me to, to feel like I was doing a good job in all of that. And so mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I can't really say that I started a studio on my own or anything, but I got a bit of a taste of it. And to be honest, I don't think I'll, I don't think I'll do it. I think I'm too old for that now. If I did anything, I'd probably start a product company or, or join like some web three or crypto company or something like that. But I, I can't imagine leaving Buck, really. It's the first job I've ever have where I'm like, I'm just gonna be here until, until they fire me. Until, until I'm like too old to, to work anymore. <laugh>. Speaker 3 00:37:25 Yeah. That's a good question. Um, yeah. Cause this is the first time I've ever been in like, really traditionally like what's called a communications role, right? Um, but they knew that like I, you know, my background's in, in creative leadership or whatever, entrepreneurial stuff. And so we kind of created the role together. So I don't really do much traditional comps, so it's not a lot like PR and that kind of thing a little bit, but not much. And there's, we have a small team that, you know, runs all the social and, and, uh, for Buck, which is kind of a big job because the Instagram account has almost 300,000 followers. So it's like when we put, I know when we put workout, it's like, damn, we gotta make sure this looks good. So, you know, that's been really fun doing all that and getting stuff up on the website. Speaker 3 00:38:06 But most of what I do, I think is try to create sight lines from between teams so that people know like what this other teams, so our, our experience team, which works with our creative technology team, a lot of times, you know, they do really amazing stuff that is super cutting edge and, and crazy that other people, the company don't even know about. Right? The 2D team or the 3D team may not know about it. And so trying to create sight lines between those teams, teams, which is not just me, that's obviously like a shared effort, but then finding different ways to kind of keep people inspired by the work that their coworkers are doing. So it ends up being a lot of internal comms really, and kind of culturally driven stuff now that we've acquired, merged with a company called VT Pro. And we'll be having, we'll be announcing some more news along those lines. Speaker 3 00:38:54 Uh, this year and next year. My job will involve, I think, creating sight lines between the companies within this family of companies, right? So I'm kind of, it's like a meta thing. Meta communication's, not meta client. Yeah. And, um, I'm really excited about that. Super fun because basically all I've ever wanted to do is be a professional cheerleader, is like, I just wanna, I love the work. I still, after all this time, I still love motion design. It still gets me excited to see amazing animation and the idea that I can just like start to basically champion the works within our family of companies that we're building is super exciting and super fun. So that's kind of where things are, are headed for me personally. But, um, our team is, communications team is growing and we have amazing people, so it'll be changing a lot over the next couple years. Speaker 1 00:39:39 That's awesome. You know, along, along these lines and it kind of revisits a little bit the, that whole art school culture, right? And the creative opportunities, um, or passion projects that kind of help build that or, or, um, yeah. Kind of feed, feed that culture. Yeah. Um, and it sounds like your role now is, is a little bit of help in shape that Speaker 3 00:40:01 Yeah. So one of the things that ends up happening, uh, just organically is, um, if people have ideas for projects, um, a lot of times they'll, they'll come to me do a gut check or, because I, I report to the coo and then the two of the owners, Ryan and Orion, they'll say like, okay, well if I wanna pitch it to them, like what's the kind of process for getting it there? I'll help maybe build a team around it help. And then a lot of times I'll kind of back off once it's, you know, going once it feels like it's going. And so I'm not taking any credit for any of that. All I did was just pull people together. But sometimes that's all you need, you know? Cause everybody's so busy. Stop, Speaker 1 00:40:36 Don't get on without producers. Speaker 3 00:40:38 Yeah. And that's kind of, that's actually, I think if you were to look at what I did on a daily basis, it's like a mix between like a producer and an ep, but for like, all the stuff that falls between the cracks. The coolest thing that happened recently along those lines, um, was, I think it was last year, the lgbtq q um, employee research research. Cause we have these employee resource groups around certain, you know, kind of cohorts or whatever. And Thet, q i plus, uh, employee research group, they were like, you know what, for pride month, we wanna do something different. We wanna create a zen, like a printed zen that celebrates kind of underrepresented voices from history that, you know, that were Lt q i plus folks. So some of like, so everybody basically like pitched a historical figure and it was like, some of them went back to like ancient Mesopotamia <laugh> and then, you know, but then they had like more recent people and Freddie Mercury was in there and, you know, people that, that maybe, you know, um, ha had struggles in their lives around these identity issues. Speaker 3 00:41:37 And so this project snowballed, it, it became like, at first it was just within the employee resource group. And then they were like, well, there's a lot of interest in this. So we started pulling in illustrators and designers and everybody from, from all over the company. And then people had to write about all these historical figures. So then we had producers and people writing and, and then it, it ended up involving, I don't know, 50, 75 people. It was expensive. You know, we had the producers, we did sell them, um, and then donate all the proceeds to a collection of different, um, organizations. But to me and to the partners, I know they, once they saw the energy around it, they were like, oh, okay. Shit, we gotta, what, what do they need? You know, let's make this happen. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it took them a while though, because I wasn't really part of some of these early conversations, but I think there was resistance, there was probably doubt. Like azine, what are you talking about? Like, we don't, we're a, we're like, you know, we moving images and stuff. But, but then, you know, once they kind of sold the idea through and it finally, you know, kind of got its fuel, I think now looking back, it's like, well, that was one of the better things we've done recently. Speaker 1 00:42:40 Well, look, I think one of the things that occurred to me is that, you know, in, in school, right? The culture in school, we're all trying to prep, we're trying to prep the students to be ready, right? Like get 'em as professional ready in as employ employable as possible, right? Yeah. And then from the flip side, like the work culture, right? In the profession, it's like trying to bring some of that art school culture in. It's funny, isn't Speaker 3 00:43:03 It? Speaker 1 00:43:04 Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's a good point. I mean, and it just occurred to me and, and we've seen some of these synergies, like when Aaron, right, we bring Aaron to do a workshop, right? Or Aaron and I co-taught a class this last year. Awesome. And when we've done those kinds of inspire type workshops, atca, right? And, and where you have this like kind of two, three day event where it's one part, it's, it's structured like a brief, like a brief driven project, but there's, there's a creative energy, but there's not a client there that's like, and there's, it's some of those maybe, I don't know what you call it, the reality of some of those projects, but you just get a spirit of creativity and collaboration and, and it gives the students a little taste of like, oh, so this is what it's actually kind of like. Yes. Yeah. It's kind of neat. I don't know, probably a topic too, Speaker 3 00:43:56 And it's something specific to working in a studio environment that I think you can both relate to. It's like when you're just on your own, like maybe you're making disposable content, you know, that's cool too. You can make a really great living that way, but you do miss out on that communal spirit that I don't Yeah. I really felt it not having it during covid and being in lockdown and not being able to see people and all that. And just recently, I was in New York earlier this week and just being in the office and like, you know, you're walking past everybody's monitors and you're like, holy shit, what is that? What are they working on? You know? And, and then you have coffees and teas and, and, and little lunches and things. And they don't seem important maybe at the time, but they really are. And it changes the way you think about your, I think it gives you longevity that is not possible otherwise, or that's really hard to maintain otherwise sustain. Speaker 1 00:44:45 It's part of the sustainability of a long career. Like, you gotta get refueled. Speaker 3 00:44:49 Yeah. And you, you, you do that with other people a lot of times. Or you take a break, break and come back, you know, some people do that too. Speaker 0 00:44:56 Yeah. That's my worry about the full time work from home thing, especially for people earlier in the industry, you know, at the beginning of their career. They're not making these relationships and, and creating like non-work related interactions and experiences. Yeah. These are your future network that Speaker 3 00:45:14 You're, it's so important. Yeah. So important. When everything is scheduled as it is when you're working remote, it just robs you of all those serendipitous encounters that, you know, even if it's just like you're talking about the movie you saw last weekend that enriches your life. That's, that's about is being human. You know? It's like, we're not robots, you know? It's not all about work and everything's scheduled all the time. And that's my biggest problem with the kind of like full remote thing as a full remote person, you know? It makes me anxious. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 0 00:45:45 Yeah. We didn't mention that you have, your undergrad was in creative writing. Yeah. Um, so what drew you towards motion design to begin Speaker 3 00:45:55 With? Well, I, I shouldn't have, I probably shouldn't have majored in that. I, I think I didn't understand that You can, I didn't understand that you can really like, have a career in design. You know, when I was in high school, I was, um, the editor of the literary magazine, and I remember taking the computer home a couple times, um, to lay out the book, to lay out the literary magazine. And I thought at the time I was like, this is cool. I'd love to just do this all the time. But that's silly. You can't do that all the time. This is a, you know, high school literary magazine. Uh, little did I know you can do that all the time, but, uh, I didn't, I guess I didn't have exposure to it. And, and so I, I did what I knew I was good at, which was writing. Speaker 3 00:46:29 I always had kind of, you know, success in that in school. Um, what happened is, I, during the kind of peak of the.com bubble at the end of the nineties, yeah. My friend was like, Hey, come to Austin for the summer. Do an internship with me at this company. They're gonna be huge. You know, everybody thought they were gonna be huge and they were doing voice over ip, uh, which is like the least sexy, uh, thing, but at the time it was like cutting edge stuff. And we were in their marketing department and my, my friend was doing web development and he was like, I need help with design and we need to do some animations for like, events. And I was like, I don't know how to do any of that stuff, but let's figure it out. And so I cracked open, like flash 3.0 and like learned. Speaker 3 00:47:12 That was my first timeline. And then I started to understand again through like, you know, places like mogra.net and things a little bit later that like, this feel was an intersection of everything I loved. It was, yeah, it's, it's sound design and music composition, which I still think is the basis of every good project. It's storytelling, it's filmmaking and animation and design and, and, and just, and cultural reference. All these things. It's like, I don't know of anything like that incorporates so many different disciplines like motion graphics and motion design does. And so that's what drew me to, I think that's what draws most people to it, right? Is like this multi disciplinary thing. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:47:48 <laugh>, well, there's a little follow up. I mean, we gotten pretty far from your undergrad and creative writing, but the follow up to that was, uh, do you think writing is important for motion designers? Speaker 3 00:47:58 Yeah, I, you know, I think it can be. I think if you're client facing, I think it's vital to have like baseline skills. Um, if you're not client facing, but maybe you're in a lead role, it's helpful mostly because it helps you be specific about what you want and what, and what you're trying to do. But I'm not one of those people that like, just because, you know, I come from a writing background thinks that, you know, everybody should be a writer. I think some people are way more effective visually or way more effective just, you know, speaking than they are writing. I think that's okay. But I think if as soon as you step into those client facing roles, if you're not good at writing, you better find somebody who is. And I've seen that like a lot of times, like, it, it, well, several places I've worked the CD would be, you know, on a pitch and they would know that, like, okay, I've got an idea here, but then the EP would help and the EP would be like, you know, the stronger writer of the two. So as long as there was somebody who could pick up that slack, it's just really important because now, you know, so often you just lob these pitches over the fence. You may not even get to present it in person. And so the writing is really important there. So if you're thinking of trying to like step into that business role, it's something to figure out or find somebody else who's good at it. Speaker 0 00:49:06 I think it's really important because most of the people evaluating the work are not visual people's. They're business. That's right. People, they're producers, they're fellow writers. So they might look at the image and not understand that it's even gonna be animated. Speaker 3 00:49:27 Yeah. It's a, it's a good question. And I, I've been beating this drum for so long and it's interesting. I, I sometimes get like pushback. Oh, I, I've just said that, like producers eps, but producers enable you or should enable you to do the best creative work you can do, right? They're, you know, when they're good and you, and you trust them, they let you focus on what you need to focus on to do the best work. And the pushback I get sometimes is, oh, all they do is just nag and check in on things they shouldn't be checking in on. And all this, I'm like, okay, well, yeah, I don't know which producers you're working with, but you know, good producers know how to they, they how Speaker 0 00:50:05 To do that. Yeah. Speaker 3 00:50:06 Yeah. They know how to build trust with their teams, and they know that they're, you know, they have to do the tricky thing of defending the client and defending the creative team. And that's really hard. And it's really difficult to find them and then also make sure that they're like, you know, organized and can, you know, run the budgets and all that stuff. And then those are all become magnified with eps who I think I'm always, you know, it's, it's tough to, to, to do, uh, to run a studio without an EP or somebody functioning in that role. Yeah. Um, because that, again, generating new business and doing that the right way, so you're not overloading the studio or making bad deals or taking on lame work is really, really difficult. Um, and, and when you find somebody who can do it, it's like, okay, that should be, you know, that's, that person's worth their weight in gold, you know? Speaker 3 00:50:55 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that's why I say like, they're a nice founding partner if you can make it work. Because if you find an ep, you can do all that you're, you know, you're setting stuff up for, for success. I do. I, you know, one thing I've seen work, and I'm sure maybe you do this too, is like, you know, for producers in particular promoting within works really well. So at, at Buck Andy IOP too, a fair number of producers actually came through other channels. Like sometimes we have like kind of client service people, ATY, iop, who would be at the front ohs and then, or coordinators who were kind of doing, you know, a lot more kind of on the ground, you know, making sure, you know, things were set up here and there for shoots or whatever it might be. And then, you know, our senior producers and eps would be looking at these people and be like, they've got the, you know, if they have the right temperament and they've got the right and they've got the snap, you know, then like, we would make that off offer. It's like, well, have you thought about, you know, moving into a producer role? And it worked a lot, you know, it worked really well. So you can treat those kind of operations people, at least the kind of like ground level operations people as a, as a on ramp. And, um, sometimes, and, and it works, you Speaker 0 00:52:00 Know, well, that role has had to be this apprentice model because there's no, Speaker 3 00:52:06 There's no schooling for it. No Speaker 0 00:52:08 School for that. That's like, what's missing still. Speaker 3 00:52:10 There's no schooling for Speaker 0 00:52:10 It. Online education or, yeah. You know, cause you have those kids where you're like, okay, this is clearly a passion of yours. You're the one that like organizes everybody for the shoes to throw for you. Or a producer. Yeah. <laugh>. Cause they're creatively inclined and they need to understand all the things and how things are made. But like, maybe you're not the maker. Speaker 3 00:52:32 I remember feeling bad cause Atka, you know, you would see this all the time. Like, you would see these kids who just like naturally were like leading these groups and putting things together. And I would say to them sometimes that like, you know, you might be like a really good producer, and I could see that it would hurt them because, because it wasn't something they could study. It's almost like they felt like they were a failure. They're like, well, I'm paying all this money to go to this expensive school so that I can be an animator. And you're telling me I'm, I'm a producer and I wish we would, you know, normalize this idea that like, producers are vital to the success of any of all these jobs. You know, Speaker 0 00:53:08 Like, who accepts the best picture? Oscar not the director, not the actors. They all get on stage, but the producer. That's Speaker 3 00:53:17 A really Speaker 0 00:53:18 Interesting point, motherfucker. Speaker 3 00:53:19 That's right. Yep. That's a really interesting point. They are in, in Hollywood. They are the power. They are it, they're the, that's it. The pinnacle of the, they Speaker 0 00:53:30 Hire the director, they are the decider. Speaker 3 00:53:33 That's right. That's Speaker 0 00:53:35 Right. And at my studio, I mean, my creative directors are like essential. Every, like, I don't wanna diminish it, but my producers like, hold the reins on a Speaker 3 00:53:44 Job. Yeah. It's easy to see. You know, the creative directors are kind of the rock stars. They're out front, the spotlights on them. And, and it's hard to win work without creative directors. But the opportunities come in, in the first place through the, through the producers and the eps and, and, uh, and the good ones know how to like, find the right work. That's the other trick, you know, and nurture the right clients, the right relationships, you know, for your organization. So this is assuming like you're maybe at a certain size where, you know, you've maybe got enough forthcoming, but like, and these are kind of more like part-time things, but things that I think fall between the cracks. One of 'em is an archivist. So, um, we don't have that right now. And, and we're trying desperately because we make so much work and it kind of disappears into some server somewhere. And it's really hard to go back and find and reference like a mass Speaker 0 00:54:41 Service library. Speaker 3 00:54:42 Yeah. All those things. And, and have it tagged and, and searchable. And not only that, but the credits too. And there's all this, you know, to kind of tie all that together. One of the things that I saw the value of, you know, working at some bigger shops is like really having somebody whose main focus is client service. Because from the moment, and this is now that we're getting back to people coming in person, this was irrelevant, I guess, for a while, or less relevant. But from the moment that a client comes in to your studio, you know, I think it should be like going to an amazing, you know, hotel where Salon Yeah, yeah, salon. Yeah. It does even better. Where they're always anticipating your next thing and you, it doesn't feel like they're in your face, but like, everything's there for you and you feel comfortable and at ease and you want to be there. That is not something that, that's hard to do. That's not only is it a skill that has to be developed, it's like Speaker 0 00:55:31 A classy liaison. Speaker 3 00:55:33 Yeah. It requires, you know, planning and, and a lot of resource, a lot of time, uh, you know, has to be put in to get that. Right. Speaker 0 00:55:40 Yeah. Well, that's great. Okay, so I wanna ask a selfish question, uh, because you've been so close to other studio owners, <laugh>. Yeah. What are you things, what are the things that you think they missed because they were so close to it? Yeah. Like any insights to share? Like, Speaker 3 00:55:56 Well, the big one, I guess is not, I Speaker 0 00:56:01 Sit with my arms crossed, right? <laugh>, oh my God, my whole posture change, right? I'm not gonna loosen up for this Speaker 3 00:56:07 <laugh>. Maybe not being honest with themselves about the degree to which their own personality dictates the culture of their company. I think that a lot of people think that, um, culture is like bottom up and, and there are many aspects of it that are, but whether you do it intentionally or not, as a studio owner, your personality, um, trickles down a lot. Speaker 0 00:56:33 Oh yeah. It's top Speaker 3 00:56:33 Down. Yeah. Yeah. And it really is, it really is top down. I would argue that it's more top down than it is bottom up. And I've just seen people who kind of like, are in denial about that. They're like, well, no, we're good. Everything's good. Like, you know, like we, we do, we have ping pong table and, and you can skateboard in the hallways. You know, like, that doesn't, I mean, that doesn't matter. It's, you know, when you lose your temper or you act dismissive or you whatever it is that you're doing that speaks, you know, volumes about the culture, uh, and the workplace and has way more impact than I think some of those people are willing to admit. So then, you know, they have to be really open to criticism, which not everybody is and all that. So that is something I've seen, you know, again, and, and again with, with studio owners reminding themselves and their employees that it's not, that it's not always about the best creative idea. Speaker 3 00:57:20 Like sometimes the best creative idea isn't what wins you the job. It's, it's trust. It's the ability to deliver. It's listening to the client and like, okay, well they actually, I can see why they didn't, they don't want the cool thing we pitched. They want the second thing that isn't that cool and not getting upset about it. And like, you know, trying to like find the fun and that find the joy in that, I think is, is really important. And then the other thing is just like, you know, the the sweat shop trap where like owners, because you've got so much on the line, you're gonna work way harder and way longer before you hit burnout than your employees, you know, like way, way more, you know, you're gonna have way more tolerance for that. And so I think some samos aren't as vigilant as they should be about burnout. Speaker 3 00:58:05 And maybe they don't take it as seriously as they, they should. The other thing that's related to that is, like, as an owner, you don't often question your purpose because you, your purpose is clear. You need to run the business. You know, you've got people relying on you and you need to like, keep the lights on. And that gives you a great sense of purpose. It will get you out of the bed every morning, but that doesn't work for your employees. You know, they need a sense of purpose. And so there's no universal answer here, but you gotta find a way to connect what your employees are doing with something beyond them that they are, you know, inspired by. And that's gonna be different for every, every company. But like that, that is something I think that it's really easy to think is like, not important, but it's, it's super important. That's how you people around. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 0 00:58:50 That like really truly having a mission, meaning like, to the really truly having a mission. You know what I mean? Speaker 1 00:58:59 And something Aaron and I have talked about is that even with graphic design, cause now I'm teaching in a generalist design program, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, and sort of thinking about that, you can't really have graphic design now without motion. Speaker 3 00:59:11 Right? It's true. Yeah. No such it, it's so interesting being taught now. I think even at sca, the graphic design programs, they had like their own little motion something. I'm not sure if they do that that anymore, but I knew they were playing with that for a bit. That's really interesting. Yeah. What I've, you know, we were joking earlier about the fact that producing or project management, whatever you wanna call it, isn't taught in schools. I'm still baffled by that. Speaker 0 00:59:34 I can't believe it. Speaker 3 00:59:35 It's, no, and I think they film that's Speaker 0 00:59:40 A D producer, but that has Yeah, it's true. It shares maybe some like passion points. Yeah. But like, it doesn't share practical bidding, scheduling. It's different understanding, emotion, designer, client, all of that stuff. Speaker 3 00:59:53 Yeah. And if that class ever was offered, you know, at a school, I would say it should be like required for everybody. Even if you, you know, know you wanna be an animator, you gotta take that so you have an appreciation for it, you know? And then one thing that, you know, especially for people who don't go to art school, who kind of self taught, I think taking some time to learn art history is incredibly important. It gives you the language of critique and it teaches you how to see. So, and likewise, Speaker 0 01:00:21 Clients don't speak necessarily in social media the Speaker 3 01:00:26 Way, right? Speaker 0 01:00:26 Yeah. So they're gonna say, oh, it's like, you know, a Warhol or, or a Duchamp or something more obscure. More obscure, and they might reference like, like Coco Chanel, we might reference all these things. You have to be able, like on the fly to just really to Speaker 3 01:00:43 Be a liberal Speaker 0 01:00:44 Art Speaker 3 01:00:45 Knowledge base. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think everybody should study music composition. I think everybody, even if you suck at it, as I said before, I think it's foundational to any good motion project is the audio. Not just music, but sound design as well. And if you, once you see that you won't take it for granted anymore, you'll understand the importance of rhythm and timing and evoking emotions, you know, through these. Like, it's the most, the oldest art form we have, you know? Yeah. Um, and I, it really only, it's only gonna make you a better emotion designer to study music that way, I think. Yeah. You know? Speaker 3 01:01:22 Yeah. Yeah. I, I mean this is a super interesting topic, and I think it's very tempting to kind of do like a all or nothing or a binary approach. I think the TLDR on this is that I think the best situations when you do both, not necessarily the same time, although that's great too. But, so the traditional model, you know, which is what I grew up with and we probably all grew up with here, is, I think the biggest benefit you get from that is the, in real life, the IL interaction with students, not so much the teacher. We tend to overemphasize the, the teacher and Speaker 0 01:01:57 Well, whoa, wait. What? Speaker 3 01:01:58 I know, right? The teacher, in my opinion is like, you know, there to kind of orchestrate meaningful interactions with the students and, you know, looking over the shoulders of your classmates and walking around, working on projects together, um, critiquing each other's work. In real life, I, I'd not seen it come close online. Like, you know, Joey, uh, Cornman who runs School of Motion and I are friends and he's done a really great job building, I think a really interesting kind of hybrid model. And, and so, but, but still, there's shortcomings there. You know, you can't, it's just not the same, it's the same thing we were talking about earlier. When you, you're in the office with somebody and you have these kind of, all these serendipitous, you know, things that can happen because you're there in real life. So that's a huge, huge, huge advantage to traditional education. Speaker 3 01:02:43 And I think because of those interactions, the other thing that happens organically is you build a network of people who are your cohort. You're gonna end up working with these people Totally. For the next 20 to 30 years. Yeah. And, and you're gonna get jobs from them. You're gonna give them jobs, you're gonna help each other out. And that's huge. That, again, is really hard to reproduce in a purely online environment. The obvious con of traditional stuff is it's too damn expensive. I don't know crazy why art schools have become more expensive in many cases than, you know, Ivy League schools. And it's, it's, uh, it's a big problem for access and equity. And, and you know, I know that many of the schools scout included, have have created some really aggressive programs to help, you know, even things out. And so I, I don't wanna suggest that they're not doing enough. They are operating a business as best as they can. And it just happens that, that students have to foot this massive, massive bill. It's $200,000. You know, if you're an undergrad, you know, all the things thrown in, it's easy to rack up $200,000 of expenses. That's just ridiculous, you know, too Speaker 1 01:03:51 Much. It's one of the reasons I, I'm teaching at a public university Speaker 3 01:03:54 Now. That's, so that's what I wanted to get to, is like there this massive opportunity at public universities, vocational schools to kind of fill a gap here and to, to really be the premier place for finding new voices and diverse talent and exposing people to careers that they didn't think were possible. You know, the kids at art schools, you know, that they're, most of them super privileged. They, they have an idea of art design and they can, that they can, you know, um, do all this stuff. They know it's a career option. So public school. Public school, yeah. Public school. I think there's just a massive opportunity. There's a great, uh, actually Freakonomics, the podcast for economics has a three part series about higher education. And so I, if you're interested in topic, you know, anybody's listening, I highly recommend checking it out because they talk about how things are changing and how, you know, um, there's a real need and an opportunity for, for new, new forms of education. And I think it's gonna apply to, to design schools as well. We've been like, we've been trying to reach out to historically black universities, which don't usually, like, oftentimes don't have like a dedicated design, definitely not dedicated like motion design or animation program. So it's, it's hard to find that kind of talent at those schools. But, um, it's been great for producers and other kind of like, support roles. Hey, Speaker 6 01:05:15 Hey, I got a public, Speaker 1 01:05:16 I got a public university here at Washington State. You there we go out, let's do a workshop. Speaker 3 01:05:22 <laugh>. That sounds awesome. So Joey, you know, with online programs, I think there's been some consolidation happening there. So there's, there's kind of a whole spectrum of things for the online education. There's kind of like piecemeal stuff, you know, skills share and maybe things on linda.com or whatever. No, I guess it's LinkedIn. But those are just like supplemental kind of things. You know, what Joey's trying to do with School of Motion, and I think he's had a lot of success and is, is has a lot, there's a lot more growth that can happen there is pretty interesting. Like he has genuinely taken people from around the world, many of them outside of the United States and given them a way to enter a field that is pretty intimidating, you know, if you don't have any exposure to it. And he's created an environment for them to interact and work with each other. Speaker 3 01:06:08 And everybody that I've talked to who's gone through those courses has really enjoyed it and felt that it was worth the money and time that they put into it. Many people don't put as much time into as they want. That's the main problem with online education is the completion rates are terrible because life gets in the way and it's too easy to kind of bow out because you don't feel beholden to it. You know? But that flexibility, it, so it cuts both ways. You know, it's great cause you can work after hours, but then it's bad because you can always just say, I'll do it tomorrow. You're, if you, if you're really interested in becoming the best you can be, look at all of them. Don't, don't buy the hype that has to be one or the other. I agree with that. And know how you learn, know how you know all those things. And also know that you have time. You don't have to do it all at once. You know, like especially with the online stuff, it's gonna be there for you. Maybe go out, go ahead and do the traditional thing, go out and then start to feel like, okay, I've got a hole in my education here or there, can I fill it? You know, online maybe, maybe partially, you know, Speaker 1 01:07:07 And for someone who's, yeah, maybe like they're, they want and they wanna make a change. They can't, maybe they got a family or they got responsibilities that they just go into four years. It's just not gonna happen. Not an option. It's a, it's an option that did not exist before. Yeah. Which is great. Speaker 3 01:07:24 Yeah. Speaker 3 01:07:27 I'm working on this long term like art project around mid journey where I'm basically like trying to flip the script. So mid journey learned, you know, how to create images by, by ingesting millions and millions of images and texts that goes along with them. And so I thought, well, what is it that I wanna learn? I've never been, I've never had a fine arts, uh, education. So I don't know how to paint. I don't know how to draw. I thought, okay, mid journeys gonna be my teacher. I'm gonna give mid journeys some prompts, mid journey's gonna generate images. I'll, I'm gonna select one and I'm gonna try to recreate that image in physical form. And so start this dialogue back and forth between me and, and this, you know, teacher, I was obsessed. Yeah. I, I spent all my time trying to build the site was, cause you know, I learned a little bit about blogging software, which there was no WordPress at that time and there was some other stuff. But, uh, and then, you know, just spending all my time combing through, you know, different places, especially mogra.net and trying to find that it was a passion project. Never, uh, never intended to be anything other than that. Just, you know, just passions. Yeah. Speaker 0 01:08:33 So I have a question for you cuz this grinds my gears <laugh>, when I get a reel and it's on a website and it's like Wix and it's like, oh, fuck up. And you just like, with all the tools available and how accessible things is like for us to make a website back in the day, like we had to know Htm <laugh>. Speaker 3 01:08:53 That's Speaker 0 01:08:54 True. Like, we had to go, even if we couldn't, didn't know the code, we had to go find it somewhere, copy it, paste it, test it, work with it, make it fucking work. And like with all the tools available, this is the garbage or Speaker 3 01:09:07 Something. I know, I know. It, it's, it's really, I know it shouldn't Speaker 0 01:09:11 Grinds my gears. Speaker 3 01:09:12 It I know. And it's like, there's no excuse, right? There's so many great tools out there. I think what happens is people feel like they, they have to go, they have to get fancy and, and go too crazy with it. I'm like, no, just show the work man. Just show the work. Speaker 0 01:09:25 It's like the real clean Speaker 3 01:09:27 Up there. Simple professional. Yeah, exactly. Let the works be for itself. Yeah. <laugh>. Speaker 0 01:09:31 Exactly. Okay. So people always ask me questions about like, my life <laugh>. Yeah. Like how I balance it and all that shit. Yeah. And I just am just like, there's no fucking balance. What are you talking Speaker 3 01:09:45 About <laugh>? Speaker 0 01:09:47 You prioritize in the moment and you, you work it out. Speaker 3 01:09:51 Yeah. And once you get more responsibility, either in the form of relationships, your marriages and kids or, or from, you know, running a business, you will find that you then are forced to create work life balance. Right. But by that time, yeah. You've kind of put in hopefully that kind of first, you know, and like I said, with with tween, I was absolutely obsessed. Now I'll say that, you know, I made the mistake of getting married when I was right outta school. I was too young and I was obsessed. I was just, you know, with work the way we're talking about. And I really, I think it ended up contributing at a great deal to the end of that marriage. Like that marriage failed. And, and I think a big part of it was me being like emotionally absent because I took, I take, I took on this responsibility of marriage and yet I was still doing the, you know Yeah. Speaker 3 01:10:36 Hustle work all the time thing. And that was not right. That was, you know, a very immature kind of thing for me to do. So, but because of that, it like, it, it taught me like, okay, you know, I get really careful about the obligations you take on, the responsibilities you take on and, and be, you know, mindful about how you manage your time. So now that I am manage my time, you know, I have all these like tricks of, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I have strict hours and I block out on my calendar. Like, I don't allow people to book meetings, uh, before 10 or after five or six. Now if, if, if I was a junior person at the company and I did, if you saw all the stuff, you would be like, see you later kid. You know, <laugh>, right? But I'm, you know, I'm, I'm in a position of like authority and so I'm able to do this cause I know that this is how I'm gonna make the most impact. You've earned your boundaries, right? Yeah. Saying no is like skill that, not that you're not gonna be good at when you start it. There's actually a website starter story.com/how to say no. If you need help on how to say no, it's great. But that gets easier the more you do it and you learn how to do it without upsetting people. Speaker 0 01:11:38 Grace and courtesy. And kindness and Speaker 3 01:11:40 Yeah. And, and, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Speaker 0 01:11:43 I would love to be able to add an hour to Monday through Thursday and then call call Friday off, dude. Speaker 3 01:11:50 Yeah. Why not? People are talking about that, right? There's a lot. Why Speaker 0 01:11:53 Not? Because our clients work Fridays. Yeah. Speaker 3 01:11:56 Well that's right, right. Japan is doing a big thing. Right? 40 day work week, experiment day, work week working out. And it's, it's going on a few places. UK I increased efficiency. Yep. Mm-hmm. Speaker 0 01:12:05 <affirmative>, I, are you kidding me? Like, I don't know what owner wouldn't be interested in that. Like Yeah. Cause like if, if everybody's, cause people are always like, oh, you own your own company. How great you're your own boss. And to them I wanna say, fuck you for Speaker 3 01:12:20 <laugh> always Speaker 0 01:12:22 Working. First of all, your, your clients own your ass, right? Yeah. But then you're, you're also in service of your employees too to a certain extent. So like, you're never off, there's always something, even if it's low stakes, like it still requires your attention. If you have a great EP like I do, they kind of Yeah. Help manage some of that. So you can be away. But like the idea, the only time I'm off is when everybody's off. Yeah. So like, if I could have a three day weekend, I would be super on board with that. I just don't know how that's gonna resonate Speaker 3 01:12:54 With it's, it's especially our client service stuff, it's because there's that reality product. Product driven folks like my wife for a while, they were doing Summer Fridays and, and you know, they would basically call it quits at noon on Fridays and they were able to do that cuz they're a product company. They don't, you know, they don't have clients deadlines on their door. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 0 01:13:11 So agencies have Summer Fridays, but they still have fucking time to email us. Speaker 3 01:13:16 Yeah. How does does that work? Speaker 0 01:13:17 Because we're the under the Speaker 3 01:13:19 Line, right? They just roll it down the hill. We make the Speaker 0 01:13:21 Thing, we make the thing. So we're the ones that get like Right. You know, we get the time that's left between when it's sold and when it airs. Mm. And we don't necessarily define what that schedule is. So Speaker 3 01:13:34 That's true. The crunch is on us. Speaker 0 01:13:37 The crunch is on us. And I think that's like the thing about, Speaker 3 01:13:41 That's the tough thing about this industry. It's one of my least favorite things about it. I think that's one of the questions. Yeah. You had. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are the cons? Yeah. One of the cons is that yeah, we kind of are at the end in many cases at the end of the chain and that Yeah. Equates to like high stress, high pressure situations. Yeah. That really could be avoided if, you know, people up the chain were more responsible or more mindful of, of what they were doing. Well how about Speaker 0 01:14:05 The flip side? What, what, Speaker 3 01:14:06 What are some of the pros? Speaker 0 01:14:07 Yeah. What are some of Speaker 3 01:14:09 The industry, the people? I mean, I honestly think it this industry in general has the coolest people. I think because it's so interdisciplinary. You're working with people who just are inspired by life and inspired by music and art and design and they love to share it. And there's a kind of rising tide lifts all boats mentality that's been around since two early two thousands, at least the United States. And I still think it persists to this day and I love it. Speaker 0 01:14:35 Talent or hard work, what is more important? Speaker 3 01:14:38 So it's like talent first. Talent is the baseline requirement and without hard work you're just gonna limit yourself. So, you know, they play together I think. Speaker 0 01:14:46 Okay. Cool. Cool. Speaker 1 01:14:47 Favorite taco? Speaker 3 01:14:49 Uh, at bus store. Mexican style, cilantro, onion, pineapple. Speaker 0 01:14:52 Oh wow. I'm fish. I like a fish. Speaker 3 01:14:55 Fish was great if I'm in California or something where they got the really good ones. Yeah, Speaker 0 01:14:58 Yeah, yeah. Well we're going best case scenario. Okay. Um, okay. <laugh> worst client note ever. Speaker 3 01:15:06 I literally had a client recently, uh, not at Buck, who was like, can you just do it again, but better? And I was like, what kind of note is that? It was perfectly on brand for this guy who was just the worst client I've ever had in my life. Speaker 1 01:15:22 How about, uh, what was the biggest mistake you made as a Speaker 3 01:15:25 Youngster in the industry? Speaker 0 01:15:27 Yeah. Speaker 3 01:15:27 Over promising and under delivering <laugh>. Like over and over and over. Just getting ahead of myself and be like, I can do that. I can do, I can do it tomorrow. And be like, ah geez. And it took me so long to stop doing that, um, and switch it to the appropriate thing, which is under promise and over deliver. But yeah, I did that. I was just, you know, you get excited, you get enthusiastic and just, it's so easy to over promise. Yeah. Speaker 0 01:15:48 Uh, what were you like as a kid? Speaker 3 01:15:50 Uh, incredibly silly in social settings. Like class clown kind of kid, but then alone, like really serious, like deadly serious about everything I did. So whether it was computers or games or, or uh, making music, whatever, it was always like super serious about it. So I had this like weird Jacqueline Hyde kind of thing. Okay. Speaker 0 01:16:07 So, um, we're gonna do biggest gripe about kids you say, but also their biggest strength is Speaker 3 01:16:13 Their superpower. Biggest gripe is that they think their employer is there to serve them, I guess. And the truth is like much more nuanced and interdependent, right? So that's a gripe. It's like there's like all these like expect it's this weird like competing thing where they're like their, this newest generation seems to think that, you know, work is not everything right. And yet they want everything from work. And so it's like they want work to be their parent and their best friend and this other thing, but, but they also kind of are like, yeah, but also like, you know, keep it all at arms length. It's kind of hard to have it both ways. And so I find that is a little frustrating sometimes. But what I love about the news generation is that they have no creative boundaries. Like anything. It's just like anything's game mix this match, you know, that grab it here, doesn't matter where it's coming from, whatever medium, new old. And I, I love that. Like there's, and there's also like kind of less judgment I guess because of that, that there's like a little more vulnerability and, and all that. And that's huge and I think it really unlocks like a whole new level of, of creativity for most teams. So. That's cool. Yeah. Speaker 1 01:17:17 Anyway, so we were gonna close with this question because I remember you would, you would always ask this question I think at the end, like when you, when you interviewed me with the design promotion textbook, you know, you would end with what is the future of motion design. So yeah. So you wanted to throw it back at you? Speaker 3 01:17:33 Yeah, I'm super interested in this. I mean, I think it's real time for one thing. I think that, um, we'll still always have like rendering and pre pre-rendered, you know, work that we're doing. But I think the, the real future, the exciting growth is gonna be in real time. And that's tied to, you know, it's gonna be fully immersive, however you wanna define that, either through vr, ar, XR or at, you know, the scale that we already see with larger canvases, you know, massive l e d displays and things like that. So the work will flow like around you and through you more than ever. And I think I, I think it's gonna continue like motion designs continue to kind of like fracture is a little bit of a weird word cause it sounds pejorative, but we're gonna keep seeing it like in different areas, turning into different things. Speaker 0 01:18:17 I think you're totally right about fracturing and becoming tendrils cuz we can really already see that in how motion design studios have started posturing in different directions. Yeah. And kind of creating lanes for themselves. Sure. If I'm for, for fascinating. Yeah. Cause I love being a generalist studio, but like I totally understand like, oh it would be just nice to focus on this thing. It would make infrastructure simpler. It would make staffing simpler. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know. Well Speaker 3 01:18:42 That's awesome. Well this has been fun you guys. Yeah. Thanks went so long. I'm a little long winded I guess. Sorry. No, no. Speaker 1 01:18:48 We appreciate it. Yeah. Cool. This is great. Speaker 0 01:18:50 Has been, this is, you know, I was saying to Austin before, like, I can't wait to talk to you cuz I feel like I'm gonna learn stuff. Speaker 3 01:18:57 No, that's what I thought. Speaker 0 01:18:58 Interrupt Speaker 3 01:18:59 To Speaker 0 01:18:59 You guys understand. Oh my. It's just like really, I kinda nervous about it too. Cause I'm like, okay, I'm gonna come out this with like, I have to think about this more and that's a good thing. You know Speaker 3 01:19:10 What I mean? Well you've both challenged me on this. This has been great cuz I've, I've, I've definitely learned from this too. This is awesome. Aww, Speaker 1 01:19:16 Thank Speaker 3 01:19:17 You so much. Speaker 0 01:19:18 Thank you. Okay, let's do our off. Thank you Justin. Speaker 3 01:19:22 Bye. Thank you.