Interview with Ariel Costa

[00:00:00] Speaker A: It. Hi, I'm Aaron Zarovsky. [00:00:03] Speaker B: And I'm Austin Shaw. [00:00:04] Speaker A: This is between the Keyframes episode 25. [00:00:12] Speaker B: Interview with Ariel Costa welcome to between the Keyframes. We are here with Ariel Costa. Super excited. [00:00:21] Speaker C: What's up? [00:00:22] Speaker B: I'm excited to be here, like talking. [00:00:25] Speaker C: To you guys in the same internet room. It's so exciting. And not because I know you guys, but I've been a big fan of the show for a long time, since the first one. So it's been amazing. Bringing some insights for the industry. I love it. [00:00:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. I didn't really think we had a lot of viewers and then we looked at the stats and it turns out. [00:00:51] Speaker C: No pressure, no pressure. [00:00:52] Speaker B: Wait, people are listening. People are no pressure. [00:00:56] Speaker A: Yeah, people are awesome. Listening to our well, it's interesting because we focus not on the work per se, we focus on that's why it's called Between The Keyframes. We focus on kind of the art of the making and it's like a legitimate career now and there are lots of different paths you can so we do kind of talk about that. [00:01:21] Speaker C: That's great. [00:01:22] Speaker A: Most people don't know Austin and you. How did you guys meet? [00:01:26] Speaker B: We got introduced because we all know. So when I was working on the motion Design toolkit textbook with my co author John Collete, I was like, oh, there it is. Nice. I reached out to a mutual connection. Ariel and I have Liz Blazer who wrote an awesome textbook, the animated storytelling. [00:01:53] Speaker C: Textbook An Amazing Lady by the Amazing. [00:01:56] Speaker B: Which Ariel did all the artwork for, right? Like she did the COVID and illustrate, right? So so I was like, hey Liz, would you give me an intro to Ariel? And she did and then we did an interview like this and super cool. And then I got Ariel, he did a keynote speaking and a workshop for my students back last year and he did like a two hour live day. He's like, I'm going to show you guys how I come up with and design a character. So he asked them for some prompts and he took their noun adjective type prompts and then just on the spot live found stuff, like found images and assembled the character and did just like a master class demo of how to build a character right in After Effects and basically using After Effects as a design tool. [00:02:47] Speaker C: It was awesome. [00:02:48] Speaker B: It was so cool. I was just super fun. Yeah, it was really cool. And then we just text each other. [00:02:54] Speaker C: Yeah, exchanging tips and because Austin, he's a very analog know, he likes to exploring textures and things like that. So I love keep like we kept in touch and we've been message each other just like, oh, you should check this out or this is amazing. He became like a good start. [00:03:19] Speaker A: So obviously Austin and I, everybody knows our story. We go all the way back to the before before times we had to deliver things on tapes and take them. [00:03:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm just thinking about that FedEx. It's like, okay, I got to make the FedEx drop. [00:03:37] Speaker A: We got to make the FedEx drop. But we've known each other for a little while, but we've just started working together, and it's been very exciting. We've been making lots of really beautiful things at the studio, so I've really appreciated your presence here. It's been fun is the word. Fun. And it's lovely to have somebody around that just loves the work as much as kind of I love it, and our leads love it, and our designers love it. And it's nice to kind of be reminded that there are people out there like us. [00:04:10] Speaker C: It should be a playground. It should be a playground. Yeah. Otherwise there's no point. It's pointless with that idea. [00:04:22] Speaker B: I'm teaching a class like, we just kicked off our spring quarter, my Intro to Motion class. And I have a classroom that it's like a computer lab. And right adjacent to it is a little kind of conference, like, lecture critique room. And so I'm using it right now where I'm doing my lectures and my demos in the small room. And then I send the student, and then I'm like, okay, now we're going to move out to the studio with the computers. But what I'll do is I say, okay, we're going to go play now, right? I'm like, this is the creative sandbox, right? I'm like, now go out there. I showed you how to do the thing. Let's go out there. Let's play. Let's go make a mess, ask some questions, have fun. [00:05:02] Speaker C: That's the thing. [00:05:05] Speaker A: What's inspiring you lately? [00:05:08] Speaker C: I usually take inspirations out of the real world. I would say, like, things that I'd seen and things especially now I have two kids, and my oldest, he just turned eight, and he's very into art. But it's so fun. It's funny to notice that the perspective of art for kids is completely different for us. So I think it's because they're less afraid to make mistakes or to make it something pretty. It's mostly Catarsis. They just do it. And this is something that to me, it's been really fun to trying different things with my kids and bring some different tools, like different color pencils or crayons or things like that. And the shapes that they create, things like that. Even like the kids material, I feel like there's something appealing to that, that it's very interesting because we always like to create toys together, so we get some cardboards and we create things like that. So that, in a way, sparks a lot of creativity, I would say, but that it's in a human side and something that I always love to bring that to my work and the other side of inspirations that I now bring into the digital world. I love surfing on Pinterest. I don't specifically try to search for anything in specific. What I love most about Pinterest is that once you pull up the home page, it just gives you a bunch of different ideas. Not just like motion graphics ideas, because these are the least you can apply whatever you want into the motion graphics world. So I just try to avoid looking for inspirations in the animation industry. Although I love to see what people are doing out there, but I don't try to seek inspiration on those medias. I love seeing fashion or it's a mix a little bit about everything, architecture, things like that, because you can find a lot of great inspirations, like let's for say, for shapes or patterns or whatever, just browsing a bunch of architecture content, and that's very fun. I feel like people should look for inspirations outside of the box, not just going on those usual websites and see what people are doing out there. But I feel like that's the best way to come up with something interesting or something more about you. And usually when I'm researching stuff, I tend to lead to things that it's more appealing to me, something that I would say I have some sort of connection. It could be style wise or it could be mood wise or whatever. Something that it's part of my personality. So that's a good way to bring something to the table. [00:08:55] Speaker B: That was interesting too. And we talked about even with your kids and even the surfing, it did bring it back to what we were talking about, the playground. Right? It is that attitude of play and keeping it fun and keeping it curious. And whether it's in the educational arena or in the professional context, I feel like that's always, never a static balance, but always it's like, okay, this is serious. We still got to get this work done, but let's have a good time doing it. Let's make it something worthwhile. [00:09:31] Speaker C: Yeah, that's it. That's it. Because in the end of the day, of course, although we're having a lot of fun, we're doing this for a paycheck in the end. So we need to pay our bills. And that's really interesting because in a way, I feel like design and art work, they don't mix. It's a clash. If you try to combine those, you might have a problem. You need to understand where to split both. Because once you're doing an artwork for a client, we're talking about design because it's something that has a purpose to send a message and a message that was established by the client. But art is more like it's more about feelings. It's something that you want to put out in the world. There's no client notes or anything like that, so it's kind of hard to find a balance. [00:10:23] Speaker A: It's interesting that you say that. We always talk about art is something that you want to make because you want to make it, whether it's commissioned or not. But a design is brief, driven, right? So that's the difference between art and design. Because design can be artful and art can serve a purpose. But ultimately I think that is where the definition lies. [00:10:50] Speaker C: That's why I feel like there's a lot of people pursuing the personal projects because it is an art form. If you do like a short film or something like that, it is an art form. But once you're doing something for a tech company, you're not able to put nude people, for example, in there or trying to use this crazy kind of color or you have to follow some. [00:11:22] Speaker B: Stay on brand, you have to stay. [00:11:23] Speaker C: On brand, make your logo bigger, things like that. And it's part of the game. [00:11:32] Speaker A: Is it important to make time for personal projects? [00:11:35] Speaker C: Definitely. I feel like to me that's really important. And also because I feel like the art form, the personal projects, to me it's the best way for you to learn something new. It's something that you can again. That's when I play with my kids, I feel like when I'm doing personal projects, when I play with my mind and doing something creative without any fear of making mistakes. When you step that or when you cross that bridge when you have no longer fear to make mistake. It's where you start to creating something different, something new, something that you are really having fun. And out of that, along the way, you can extract little things, little techniques that you use here or there to speed up your process into commercial projects. Or you tried this different color palette here and now I feel like, okay, maybe I can propose that to a client. Just grabbing little elements and try to it's just like a puzzle for commercial work and try to see if you can fit in so you can maybe bring a commercial work to a next level in terms of creativity. But of course following some established rules. [00:13:04] Speaker B: But you can nourish your design through doing personal, artistic and of course, to. [00:13:12] Speaker C: Me, I love doing art, I love doing painting, stuff like that. So I feel like it's some sort of I wouldn't say exercise, but there's the say, I don't know who say that, but you need to do one for the pocket and one for the soul. So you just need to feed yourself also. Not just like money wise, of course money is important because you have to pay the bills. But I feel like to keep yourself creative engaged, you need to do something for yourself as well. To keep the flame alive, I would say. I feel like it's very important. [00:13:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you think that there's ever a way to have that feeling but within your commercial work? [00:14:04] Speaker C: Definitely. I think so too. Because of course, I'm not saying that it's boring doing stuff for clients. No, not at all. And it's interesting in a different way because now, since you have some rules, you have challenges and how to overcome these challenges. It's the interesting way because as an artist, we're just there to express ourselves the way that we want. But as a designer, we're problem solvers. And that's interesting too. How can I bring my client's brand or whatever he wants to promote to a different level or something? That's interesting too. And you can create some cool stuff being inside of something that like the rules. Let's say it could be fun too. Like the challenging. It's very interesting. [00:15:08] Speaker A: When I was starting my career, it was a company that I really respected. I was at DK already for a couple of years, but for some reason I was in New York and I met with them and this big time creative director was know, it's like, oh my God, this work you do is so know, very de eyed. How did you get the client to do such beautiful you know, he's you know, it's not that beautiful. It's commercials. Like, we're making commercials here. And I'm like, well, but it's still artistic and it's still leveling up the industry that it was in. He goes, no, we here. They give us boards, we execute the boards. And if you want to be an artist, then make sure you have weekends off so that you can go be an artist. But they're two totally different things. And I was like, I completely disagree and I will not work at a place that doesn't feel like they are contributing. We've talked about it can be two different things. But you want to feel valued in that way in your client work and the work that you're putting out there to make living. That would be really unsatisfying, I think, to be in a place where you're basically cooking the same hamburger overhaul. [00:16:21] Speaker C: But that necessarily is not like a bad thing. And I think this is something that comes with age. I feel like I'm more mature now or I'm almost 40 and it took me a long time to learn how to separate this world. Like the art form and the client work form. And once you understand how this both worlds work, it's a relief in a way. And you ended up enjoying both worlds. You don't have like to yes, they are fun in different ways. And of course, art form, like personal, private, you have more freedom. But on the other hand, client work can be fun too, because now there is a challenge for you. It's not just solving a problem. It's fun too. It can be fun. [00:17:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that was what I was going to weigh in on too, is that in After Effects I still enjoy getting into After Effects because you're designing a system for whatever that project is and figuring out that setup and figuring out what layers precomps mats. And it's enjoyable. The creative problem solve, it is a creative process in itself. [00:17:52] Speaker C: It is. And I love that you come up with a style frame, and this is a very crazy style frame. And how I'm going to put this into motion for the client client just to have 12 seconds for this piece, and I have just 5 seconds for this specific shot, how I'm going to pull it out. So, like, personal projects, you can okay, it's mine project. So I'm going to extend these shots like 10 seconds or whatever. But for a client, I have to make it work. So it forces me to come up with a solution for that. And that's a good thing, too, because it forced you to think how I'm going to do that, to come up with the solutions for that. And that's very amazing, too. [00:18:38] Speaker B: I find as an educator, too, it's really students. Sometimes I go back and forth. I give them very clear constraints, and then I'll give them more open briefs, but sometimes they can get really paralyzed if it's too open. They're like so having those constraints to work in can be really helpful. Flip side, if your whole life is constraints, you start feeling boxed in. That's when you need it. Okay, I need to just go make something for me. [00:19:07] Speaker C: I agree. [00:19:08] Speaker A: Let's talk about now, the current state of the industry. I mean, there's new talent out there. We're all about the same age here. [00:19:19] Speaker B: I'm the senior citizen. [00:19:23] Speaker A: You're the old man. I'm the middle child. [00:19:27] Speaker C: I'm the baby. [00:19:28] Speaker A: All right, well, there's all this new talent kind of coming in, and we see people going to school to become what we kind of became, maybe by accident, like an industry. We found people are laser focused on getting into now throughout college. So we're seeing that. We're seeing, obviously, the rise of AI, and we've seen the rise of NFTs and Crypto into whatever it is now. And I feel like through COVID, everything kind of changed. Everything kind of like the whole industry feels different in a way. And now there's kind of big changes. And layoffs as tech kind of wait, no. Constricts a little bit and kind of work. [00:20:16] Speaker B: Is it contract? I know my brain. [00:20:19] Speaker A: I'm like expand contract words. [00:20:26] Speaker C: And that's because your native language is English. Imagine for me that I'm speaking Porto. Okay. Yeah, but I got it. Yeah, I feel the same. I feel like we live in a different 100%, like a different world after the Pandemic, I feel a lot of things going on in the industry, not just the rise of the new generation, but again, as you mentioned, it feels like we've been flawed with a bunch of new technology, in a way. And for some reason, at the same time, I feel like our industry, it's more apart. I feel like before the COVID I felt like it was more like a community. It was more like a family. So we all understand. We all understood each other. There was a bunch of festivals going on, and now I feel like everyone. It's alone in a way and facing all those different kind of technologies like the NFT and now the AI. And for a moment, it felt like the industry kind of lost its soul and lost the know, because now everything's being doing for a purpose of not just money and to search for the easy path. Like, for example, people stopped doing a lot of work to try their career out of the NFT kind of thing. So a lot of artists, they just now NFT artists with the AI. It's a weird topic because we're still trying to figure out the place of the AI not only in the industry, but in the world. Yeah, I'm not against it, but I have some problems with it. But I would love to hear you. [00:22:39] Speaker B: Guys, we just make muppets. We just make ourselves and other people in the muppets. [00:22:46] Speaker A: Well, I mean, we're starting to see clients send us stuff that they obviously have generated in AI and saying, okay, what would it take to make this for real? It's like, okay, yeah, it's nice that it's a tool to help maybe previsualize. There's still a lot of legalities about it not defined. So for us in our studio, in our environment, we can't really use open AI in production. It gets really very problematic. Our clients own the work that we produce for them. We're stewards of it, we create it, they pay us for it, but they ultimately own it. And so whatever stock imagery or if we buy a model off of Turbo Squid or whatever, all those rights have to come with it. If we use a font, we have to say, we were allowed to use this, and you are now allowed to use it as well. All of those things have to so as much of it's like a cool tool, but business is not really set up for that legally. [00:23:51] Speaker C: That's what gets me. There exactly what you're saying. Again, I'm not against it because I think it's a wonderful tool for you to create inspirational things and even like textures and things like that. That's okay, but mostly for inspiration. Once you start to commercialize that that might be a problem. It's a weird world. I'm just saying, I don't know. [00:24:28] Speaker B: Similar I've used it for asset kind of generation textures. To me, it's sort of the idea that I'm going to just put in a prompt and it kicks it out, and I go, Look, I've done. I made this thing. I'll make some interesting texture or something. Then I'll take that, I'll print it, I'll tear it apart, I'll cut it up, and then I'll scan it, then I'll reassemble it so it becomes just an asset in my it's kind of post processing. [00:24:59] Speaker C: There. [00:25:00] Speaker B: To me, that's kind of interesting. And then I almost feel like, oh, I gave it a prompt. It makes this interesting abstract texture that prompts me to take it and do something with it. So there's almost a little interchange. But it is something. [00:25:13] Speaker A: You're using it for art. [00:25:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:15] Speaker B: And then in class in school, I bring it to the students because I'm like, look, my sense is that, okay, this is here. I don't have a clear sense of what it's going to be. I know, like Aaron said, there's these copyright that needs to be worked out because artists intellectual right. Copyright needs to be respected and protected. But my sense is like, well, I want to at least be fluent with these tools. And that's kind of what I advise my students. I'm like, be fluent, understand. And even just with Chat GPT, we'll use it and I'll open it up in class and we'll say, all right, Chat GPT give us five different options for a discussion topic about typography. And it'll spit these out and then we'll see. We had a really interesting discussion. It prompted about typography for people with disabilities and dyslexia. We had a really interesting discussion about that prompt. So I think there's a place I mean, I don't know exactly where it's going, but it's always interesting to talk. [00:26:20] Speaker A: About, well, you got to play with it. We got to use it because we got to understand it. We got to know what it's powerful with and what it's not powerful with. So when our clients or when we're creating, we kind of see where the limitations are. So it's been really fun playing with it. But it does feel like it doesn't feel like no. [00:26:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree 100%. Even for me, I'll be like a hypocrite if I say because I work with Photos and photos created by a third party, but I know where I source my material from. I know if they're public domain or if they are fair to use, or if I need something specific, I shoot myself with a camera or whatever, or I buy the footage that I want, but I know the source. The problem with the AI is that we're still trying to figure it out if this is like stealing or no or not. We're still trying to do different because that's why I think it's very again, I'm not against it using this new technology. I use myself to come up with some references or to come up with some ideas, and that's a very valuable tool. I think it's amazing. And to me, those technologies, it's about knowing how to use it in the right way. I don't think we should rely on a prompt to do our work. I think we should use it to help us to produce the work. So it needs to be a tool. You don't have to be like the artist itself. [00:28:18] Speaker B: Right, yeah. I was going to say with a lot of the discussions that I've had with my students, and I feel the same way. And what you just said is that part of the joy of being a designer is designing, right, is making. And if you take yourself out of the equation of actually making that's kind of taking the joy out right now, then I think about a flip side. I had a discussion with this with one of my kids too. What about somebody who's maybe completely disabled, physically disabled? And now all of a sudden, AI this is this tool, this affordance, where they can actually make stuff. And I think that's pretty neat, that's pretty cool. And I think you really nailed it. [00:29:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:02] Speaker C: It's how to use it. It's how to use it. It's just like booze. You need to know how to drink, otherwise you're going to be wasted all the time and that could be bad for you. So it's just used in the best judgment. So try to make the best out of it. [00:29:29] Speaker A: It still has like a look, right? [00:29:31] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, 100%. You can tell. [00:29:34] Speaker A: I agree. [00:29:34] Speaker B: Cool. [00:29:36] Speaker A: What would you tell somebody kind of entering the industry? [00:29:39] Speaker C: Yeah, and I understand there's a bunch of, I would say free spirits that people that want to become a freelancer and just go out there. But I feel like it's really important for you to go through some studios. I feel like it's really important because, again, as we were talking in the beginning, the industry is not only about pushing buttons. It's not only about making a really nice after effects curve animation or using primary colors or using secondary colors or whatever. It's way more than that. It's about people because at the end, you're producing work for people. We were trying to get the engagement of people. So you need to know people. You need to have conversations. Of course, it's a great opportunity for you to learn not only different skills, but different mindsets, different thinking, again, and not only for the process of the work, but for the process of understanding the world itself around you. And that's something that I feel like it's really important for the ones that are beginning to understand. It's not only about soft skills, it's not only about the tools, not only about the technology. It's the world itself. So I think that's very interesting. [00:31:11] Speaker A: I loved when I was at DK, starting out my career, going into an edit suite with some old timers and hearing them talk about what it was like in their day and the stories. And I love that. And I think some of the younger artists in our studio, they come in, they hear us, like people our age and older kind of talking about I mean, it does have that a little bit of like what? I was your age, I had coffee. [00:31:42] Speaker B: I did it, I went and got coffee. It's all good. [00:31:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And the idea that we would have been unpaid intern, I know, of course. [00:31:56] Speaker C: We've all been there. Yes. [00:32:00] Speaker A: But these people, the newer generations, haven't. And I think it's an interesting thing of like when we kind of give advice on careers. I like to kind of take a step back because I don't necessarily think that what we went through was the right thing, but I think that I think, like, god, how were we unpaid interns? How is that allowed? Not even like minimum wage, really. We just work for free for a year. [00:32:30] Speaker C: I need that. [00:32:30] Speaker A: Yeah, but this idea that, okay. When we look back, there are some things that was really important and it's community, I think. So it's about just being in the room with people that if they're not a motion designer, maybe they're a colorist editor, producer, technologist, something like that. Yes, totally. Hearing what's going on behind the scenes on your job in another, like, oh, something's going on with the money and the clients being crazy and oh my God, they're not going to give us overages. Hearing that it extends beyond their expertise, that even if they do their job immaculately, still things can be not great or just if they don't do their job immaculately, how many other people it affects? [00:33:21] Speaker B: I talk a lot about with the students, this idea, the studio environment, what it does is it models. It's really a model and it's this external structure that for me at least, it really taught me how production works. And like, you all are talking about how people interact and the needs and just what's the sequence of events and what needs to happen and how do you respond when things are unexpected. And I needed to be in that environment for a number of years to be able to internalize that. And now I'm like, yeah, okay, I can kind of do this anywhere, right? [00:33:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:58] Speaker B: But when you're coming right out of school, you're young or you're just coming into this industry, there's a lot of unknowns. [00:34:05] Speaker C: 100%. I feel like the young people, they are very of course, I don't want to say all of them, but they have this rush of making things happen that it's very interesting to see. I had that rush too. I've learned that that was a silly part of me when I matured, like when I got older. And now I see in a different perspective besides that, there's the ego that they're learning again, trying to separate their skills from art form and from client work. And they get very upset when the client just sends some notes and they think the client is the enemy and they think they need to excel in every single tool. They need to learn Octane, they need to learn Maya Cinema 4D Redshift After Effects and that's not necessarily the case. It's okay for you to understand how these different worlds work, as you were saying, Austin, just to be aware of what's going on around you. But I feel like they should slow down a little bit more on the tool know, and the ego part and just trying to absorb what it's. Around them that it's the vibe, the design vibe, like something that it's pretty cool. [00:35:55] Speaker A: So what's interesting about what you're saying, and it's hard to articulate what you're saying in a way that somebody just coming in will understand, because all of us were very eager too, but we knew things took time and that there was like, okay, you start out as a junior designer. You spend a couple of years as a junior designer. Maybe you're a designer after that. At what point do you become a senior designer? And I think there's this thing of like, well, I'm leaving school, and my book is great, I'm a great animator. But the thing is, you're coming into the world with no client experience. You might be like the top of your class. You still never managed a client or navigated having a producer, or had to deliver something on a schedule, had to work within a team, a team. Or we don't know. If you're somebody that's habitually late and can't be up before 10:00 A.m., there's lots of other things that go into being a professional besides making things, moving them around. So that's also what makes you a junior. But embrace being a junior. We don't expect everything from you right away. Come in. You're going to learn. You're going to learn from everybody around you. Take those couple of years where you're paid less so that you can absorb as much as you can. And then I would say at that point, people are there's this rush to be a designer and then to be a senior designer. Like, these titles really always want to level up leveling. [00:37:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:34] Speaker A: And some studios and companies give those titles away because maybe that person is very talented. But I have a very specific thing of its mileage, like, you've got to run 20 marathons before you're leveling up because it's the experience. It's not how talented you are or that you did this one job good. You got to do 50 jobs good, and you got to fuck up three and learn what that feels like. [00:38:02] Speaker C: Yeah, 100%. [00:38:04] Speaker A: It's very important. You have to be put through the pieces, and that's what develops your seniority. [00:38:10] Speaker C: I agree. [00:38:12] Speaker A: And to me, that's how I've been trying to process and communicate that, because I didn't really understand that until I had been through that's. It I was like, oh, now I'm a creative director. I understand. Because anything you can say to me is not going to bust my heart in half. It's not going to take me to my knees. It's not going to put me in tears. I know how to defend the work. I know how to talk about what to do next. Anything can happen on a job, and I'll be okay. And I'll be able to say, okay, well, let's talk about time and money. We can do that. Let's talk about practical stuff and what the next steps look like. But that can only happen with being placed in, like, thousand furnaces. [00:39:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:00] Speaker B: There's no substitute for experience. [00:39:04] Speaker C: One thing is it's creating beautiful frames or creating a beautiful animation. The other thing is to put yourself in a room with 20 people that are there to pay for that project, and you have to explain to them, why did you take those choices for their project? And why you're explaining and why do you need this specific budget? It's a different game. It's a different game. It's 100% different game. And those things come with time. [00:39:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And then there's this mentality that I could be a senior designer or animator or just very senior at what I do. There's this idea that I need to be a creative director, but that's like a total making the thing and leading the thing, not touching the thing, but getting other people to do the thing. [00:40:03] Speaker C: Is a whole different game. [00:40:04] Speaker A: And I would say if you're that good at what you do, just continue to ask for more money. You don't have to be a creative director running jobs. There's something about that title that I think everybody has desire for or they think they have desire for. But really, being a creative director, you're giving a lot. I don't think people understand like you a lot of times, remove your hands from the projects. You have to become more about elevating other people and empowering other people. So you might get a lot of the credit for the work, but you then have to struggle with, like, I'm getting all this credit, but I didn't touch any of the work you steered. [00:40:46] Speaker B: I just directed the ship. [00:40:49] Speaker A: I was the captain of the ship. Yeah, but I didn't like Row. It's a different kind of thing, and you have to take a lot of pride and ownership over the fact that you've got to help people then develop their own careers and seeing them do better work than you do. Oh, my God. That's hard. [00:41:09] Speaker C: Sometimes 100%. That's why to me, it's hard to one thing also, of course, happened to me in the past. Like comparing yourself to others, that's something that it's very common. I've been there again, it took me like, ages to realize that it doesn't matter what other people are doing. It's amazing. You have just to look at and see, man, that's a beautiful piece of work. But not necessarily. I want to do the similar thing because that was already done. It's there. It's beautiful the way it is. So how can I have fun in doing something different? To maybe not only inspire other, but to keep myself inspired in a way? And comparing yourself, especially comparing your work or skills or whatever, to others, it's a poison and it's a very dangerous path to go. And that might lead to something that we don't talk about very often in our industry. But there's a bunch of people with depression, with anxiety, especially the young people because they want to achieve a certain level and maybe it's not time for them to be in that level because again, it's a process. They're getting there and people forget to enjoy the journey. They just want to hit the top of the mountain. That happened a lot in our industry. [00:43:02] Speaker A: Sustainability in the industry. Let's talk about it. [00:43:06] Speaker B: I see it. I've experienced my own struggles with whether it's anxiety or depression. I've seen it with students and my peers. It's a really important how do you have not only sustained but a fulfilling and sustainable career as a creative. And I think there is a lot around the myth of the creative or the tortured artist. And I don't think you don't have to be but I think creative people, we do tend to be more sensitive maybe, right? That's part of the double edged sword of being creative. It's like, well, you feel a lot and we get passionate. You want to put a lot of passion and everything into a project. But it's commerce and it's a commercial and I think we touched on it earlier. Like being able to distinguish well, what's design and what's art and what's mine and what's for the service, the creative service. But I do see it with students. They get really stressed out. I think it's a really good topic. I'm glad you brought that up. [00:44:15] Speaker A: It used to be right, like you went and you got a job somewhere and then you were part of the team and you could see how you were contributing and how people depended on you and all of that. So we have this thing where a lot of work is remote now. So I find I laugh less when I'm home. I'm hustling from meeting to meeting. But when I'm in the studio, you could hear me throughout the whole studio and you could hear everybody. And we are laughing. We are having a good time. We are enjoying each other's presence. We are less productive at the studio. And I love that makes the producers crazy, but I love where like puppies laughing and enjoying being in each other's company and looking at what's going on in each other's monitors and saying how the fuck did you do that? So I think this lack of in person stuff has really contributed to feeling like you're like a cog in a wheel and you don't really see we lose a little joy of just being. Now, I know that I'm not like native online and a lot of people today are more native and they get a lot of that and they have this background banter and they are more fulfilled. But for me I'm not. So I imagine I barely laugh anymore. I want to be in a space where I'm laughing and hearing people's stories about their weekends and all of that. But then I think there's this other thing of like I must make a thing, I must put it on Instagram. And then I watch the likes and I watch the follows and I think people compare themselves to I mean, I don't have that many followers. Austin we have a similar amount of followers, but it's never been about that. I don't engage in social in an artistic kind of way. It's more of like more of my personality, in a way. So I don't really expect people to follow me. For the studio, we're trying a little harder, but the studio is not me. And if it gets a follow, it gets a follow, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. But I think people are very affected by this. They want to be seen, they want. [00:46:24] Speaker C: To be accepted in a way. And it happened to me. I'm not saying that I had my moments that I was comparing myself to others. I had my moments where I tried to get more followers. I feel like we as an artist, we feel that we always need to prove ourselves to others because we're putting out some sort of art content or in terms of like, it could be work related or whatever, and we want to be liked. It because it feels like if this person is liking my art, they're liking me. In a way. I've been accepted and I've been out there. But I feel like once you stop trying to please others and try to please yourself, doing things that you enjoy, it's where you're going to have this huge relief and you start to seeing the social network as a healthy platform as long as you don't try to engage in the wrong way. To me, I feel like the social media in my particular case, it's very important. And I've been engaging to get followers because it's a way for my work to be seen. In this way I can get more work. And I got some works out of the Instagram, and it's a way for me to try to sell my work out there. So that's why it's important for me. But I don't try to see the social media in a way that I'm comparing myself to others. Of course, sometimes I see some people putting out work, putting work out there, and I think to myself, this motherfucker did something amazing that I wish I have done. But it's not in a bad way. I'm happy to see that because that inspired me in a different way. I don't want to be this person. I don't want to have this work. But it's fun when you see references in different ways. It tends to be healthy. It tends to feed you in good ways and not in a bad ways. And I feel like that is a way that I saw to me in the past when I was trying to compare myself. And again, I was not enjoying the journey. I wanted to hit the top. And now I realize that I don't want to hit the top ever. Because once I get there, I stop learning and I stop having fun and I want to keep going. But I didn't have that in mind when I was younger and I was seeing other people's work around, like watching motionographers dash or whatever. And I got depressed because I was trying to make it work. And my work was not even close to those people. And I was so poisoned by these thoughts that sometimes I didn't realize that the particular project that I want to have in my portfolio, that project was made by, I don't know, 15 people. Right. And I thought that I could tackle myself. It was a naive thought, of course, I was young, but that can lead us to very dark paths. And it took me some time to learn how to equalize and how to create this balance. And now I'm very appreciative when I see like a work that inspires me and I see it with good eyes. I always love to seeing good people doing good work out there and I see in a different way and again, maybe that takes time for us to learn and for us to understand part. [00:50:38] Speaker B: Of the learning process. [00:50:39] Speaker C: Yeah, learning how to yeah, I was. [00:50:43] Speaker B: Going to say I was thinking and reflecting while you're talking in this idea because I've experienced it where I've tied my self worth, my sense of self to the work I'm doing. Right. Like you were saying earlier, it's trying to get what I need as an artist out of design or client. Work can be a recipe for suffering. Right. It can be painful and it's the same thing. It's like me basing how I feel about myself on the creative work that I'm putting out in the world and if people recognize it or not right. That's not super safe. Right. For good mental, emotional health. I see it with my students and like I said, I've seen it with myself and it sounds like you've had that experience too. [00:51:35] Speaker C: I think it's normal, right? I think it's part of the journey, as you said, because of course we're doing work for client, but we are artists. We like to produce art and we are more sensitive. We like to know what people will think about this art because we're doing those stuff to put out there. We're not just keeping stuff in our cave or whatever, but we are very sensitive and we get hit by whether people would think about our work or whatever. But again, I feel like once you're trying to do things to please yourself first, when someone put out like a negative comment about your work, it's not going to affect you as much because you did what you wanted to do and you had fun doing that, so that's a good thing. But I know it's hard to absorb that and to put that into real life, but it's a way to do it. [00:52:42] Speaker A: It's hard to move from the jealous place to the, wow, that is so good for that person. I'm happy for them. [00:52:50] Speaker B: I think something that helps me, too, on this whole topic, too, is having just like, a crew, right? Like your kind of trusted source, your people, right? I know that sometimes I'll be working on stuff and I'll bounce it off Aaron, and maybe for better or worse, when I get a little positive response, it's an encouragement. It's like, okay, cool, I'm moving in the right direction. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep going. And so it's like having those sort of trusted fellows and your crew, your network, that is going to either one, lift you up, but also kind of, yeah, that's not working. Okay, maybe try this, right? Building up that team. [00:53:32] Speaker C: That's it. [00:53:34] Speaker A: I think in general, you have to be open to it's hard. It's an interesting thing. I find the Pivot again from school, and I say always, it's an interesting thing. Before I'm about to drop a truth bomb, there's this idea, because I had forgotten what I was going to say, but what I was going to say is, in school, everything you do just has to look good and you have to be excited by it, and then it's done. But you go into the world and you send your first pass, and then you get feedback, which a lot of people take as rejection. And so, okay, I've been rejected. I've been rejected. Here's this next round. Okay, here's this feedback. Rejection, rejection, rejection. If you look at feedback in the process as an us versus them, or they're just criticizing me, they're criticizing me, this is going to be a very toxic field, because that's all we do is we present work and we hear what the client has to say. We process that and we distill it into revisions, into something, hopefully continuing to make the work better. [00:54:42] Speaker C: And not only that, until eventually not only that erin, sorry to cut you off, but imagine we deal with pitches all the time. And feedback, feedback is a way to improve your work into the expectations of the client. But the pitches, when the clients just take a decision to go to a different direction and you have no chance to even adjust your artwork, that could be heartbreaking, too. [00:55:13] Speaker A: I think that's in part, one of the things about my personality that makes me a good studio owner is I'm very good at rejections. Because for every amazing piece you see on our website or thing that we've made or created, for every one win, there's three losses. Any studio that says that their record is better than that, I call them out. For every win, there's three losses or three things, and then even more of that where you maybe started, and it evaporated, like the job just went away or the client didn't like it. And then for all of those ones that you get, there are major pivots in them. You could be doing the most beautiful work of your career and somebody sees it and says, actually, I'm thinking more like this. And you're like, what? [00:56:12] Speaker B: We're going another way, right? [00:56:15] Speaker A: Yeah. You really have to be okay with. [00:56:18] Speaker C: You don't have to take it personally. It's more like a lottery. I've learned like a long time ago that peaches, they are lottery. It's not about the best design. It's more about the best idea that it's more aligned with. The client wants that's it for that project. Yes. So sometimes the client wants a very minimalist design, like only typography here and there. And you create this beautiful artwork full of gradients and stuff like that, that you were for sure, it could win an Emmy or whatever, but sometimes the client just needs the type and you need to learn how to take things in a professional level and not personally. [00:57:09] Speaker B: I was going to make one comment about that whole idea of this feedback loop, right. That it is a process. I think I've internalized it so much that when I'm like, okay, I'm ready to show progress. Even in the language of that first email, it's like, here is the first pass. It's implied that, okay, I'm expecting to do a second and a third. And maybe that's just it. This isn't like it's done right. It's like, we're going to work on this and we're going to get feedback or we're going to refine it. [00:57:40] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, that's just 100% true. It's interesting because I don't really ever hear people at our level talking about this. It's usually like people on stage just showing the best parts of the process. It's like me posting pictures of my family vacation. I'm not showing the times when my kid grew up all over the seat and got a big fucking fight and I smashed the mirror off my car backing into a tree. I'm not showing that. I'm showing, like, all. [00:58:14] Speaker C: The Hollywood part of the job. [00:58:18] Speaker A: Like, that we just worked on a job where we got to be on set with superstars. Nobody's going to hear the real story. [00:58:28] Speaker C: Not at all. [00:58:29] Speaker A: They're just going to see how cool it was. [00:58:32] Speaker C: Yes. [00:58:32] Speaker A: But it still work. It's still a job. [00:58:38] Speaker C: It's part of the thing. [00:58:40] Speaker A: Totally. But it's just an interesting thing. So it's really lovely to be able to have these kind of conversations, talk about just the things that people don't. [00:58:51] Speaker C: They don't talk about that. Yeah. Again, this is something that is not part of only learning how to do beautiful frames or beautiful animation. Learning how to fail is something really important because you're going to fail a lot in this industry. And not necessarily that you did something wrong. It's just you're going to fail because the client just wants something different. Or there could be a lot of reasons that the client didn't pick your proposal. But you have to learn. [00:59:28] Speaker A: I always say there's always a reason there's a copilot when you're flying, because a pilot can't fail one day. [00:59:39] Speaker C: Yes, 100%. [00:59:43] Speaker A: It's just true. It's so funny. We had a younger creative director and she lost her first job. It went to another company and it was like a pitch, and we lost. They just like something another company did better. And I go, oh, your first loss. Yeah, you did it. You made an amazing pitch. And they picked something different. But the way I came at it was like, okay, that is a milestone. That was inevitable. Let it be on this kind of weird job that would have paid us really well, but wouldn't have been extremely fun to. And people don't say, especially if they went without our styles, and people are. [01:00:25] Speaker C: Afraid to say that, but in my case, I'm not thinking, I'm for sure. I know that I lost way more than I got Peaches, because it's normal. It's part of the game. It's a lot of people out there. Yeah, it's a game. [01:00:43] Speaker A: I think people don't realize you're losing a lot to money. It's a bunch of things relationship. [01:00:53] Speaker C: But the first thing that comes to your mind is that I suck. And you don't have to think like that. It's part of the game. It's part of the industry. [01:01:05] Speaker A: I find it really amazing. I like when we lose a big title sequence or something, and then I see the title sequence and I was like, oh, that's good. They did a good job with that. You have that good for them. They knocked that one out of park. It sucks when you're like, that was not nearly but then you also know, sometimes the process might have been a bear. Sometimes, no matter. Sometimes it's a showrunner. We were talking after and I was saying to him, like, oh, I think the show is going to be ahead. I think it's going to be a good one. And I genuinely meant it. And it ultimately was. But he goes, yeah, hopefully. But I knew it was a hard production. I knew that it had mega, mega talented actors that are notoriously hard to deal with. And everything about it just seemed hard. So I'm like, hopefully he's like, hopefully the lemon was worth the squeeze. [01:02:08] Speaker C: Sometimes it pays off. Yeah, sometimes pays off. Yeah, for sure. [01:02:11] Speaker A: And sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. But sometimes it's just so hard. And in the end, you're just like, I don't care what I created, how beautiful it was. It was not what I went through. And that's when you evaluate, am I going to work with this client again? Am I going to take a job that has that kind of a paradigm? It's like toxic project. [01:02:32] Speaker C: Yes. [01:02:34] Speaker A: So you really have to learn. But you learn your boundaries by crossing them. It's like a like, I believe it. [01:02:42] Speaker B: Was William Blake who said, you can't say what is enough until you know what's more than enough. [01:02:49] Speaker A: Yes. And so we're learning know we're always all learning that as we and that's. [01:02:56] Speaker C: Why I think it's a no sense to try to rush the process because we're going to keep learning for the rest of our lives. This is an industry that needs your attention to keep yourself alive inside. And you have to keep putting content in your brain all the time. And those experiences dealing with clients, dealing with loss and things like that, that's really important to make you grow not only as an artist, but as a professional in this field. [01:03:39] Speaker A: Okay, I have a question. What is blink my brain? [01:03:41] Speaker C: I got that question a lot. [01:03:46] Speaker A: I know it's a crazy name. [01:03:47] Speaker C: It's a silly name, but yeah, no, but I'll be happy to. I wish I could come up with something very interesting, but it's like when you are young and you're very hungry, you want to keep always looking for what people were putting out there. And you are seeing it's a passion for the industry, and it is an appreciation, and you see so many great stuff out there that your brain just freeze and oh my God. At some moments, you just get focused in something that you do, just get paralyzed and just do this. Like looking through this specific spot that doesn't mean much. [01:04:41] Speaker B: It's like a mind blow. [01:04:43] Speaker C: Mind blow? Yeah, but it's when you are in that state and you just ask someone, okay, I just need to blink my brain. Blink my brain so I can get back to my own world. And it's a blink my brain so I can wake up in a way. [01:05:04] Speaker B: Right on. [01:05:05] Speaker A: I think naming a company is the hardest. [01:05:08] Speaker C: Oh my God. I don't know. I can't give you like trillions of names that I wish I could call it. I always keep thinking different names for companies and it's hard to pick one. [01:05:24] Speaker A: I think. Imaginary forces. [01:05:26] Speaker C: Oh my God. Imaginary Force. I love it. Imaginary Forces. Yeah. [01:05:31] Speaker A: Imaginary Forces. [01:05:32] Speaker C: I like that name. [01:05:33] Speaker A: Like bringing to life. [01:05:35] Speaker C: I like that name. [01:05:38] Speaker B: I was going to ask about your style a little bit, if that's cool. [01:05:41] Speaker C: Sure. [01:05:42] Speaker B: Yeah. I know you're like versatile designer, but a lot of the characters and the really cool distorted proportions and kind of collage character and it's really organic and it's got that handmade feel. What do you like about that? And I don't know. How did you arrive at that kind of an aesthetic? [01:06:07] Speaker C: Yeah, I like the sense or the idea to distort reality in a way. Like to create a parallel world where you can play with real elements in our graphic world. So collage for itself. It's something really cool, but I just want to bring some of the collage elements and thinking in different ways to make it more interesting. How would they behave or how can I display this in a way that a graphic designer or a fun illustrator would do things like that. So it's really fun to me to play, again, with perspectives, to get a character with this long back, something that is very, of course, surrealistic in a way. And it's fun to look because it's something that you're not expecting out of a collage. When you think of collage, you just think, like it's very easy when you hear, like, okay, what is collage for you? Collage. It's very easy for you to imagine, like, a head with a cut here and a bunch of flowers coming out of that, something like that, that's collage. Or it's putting a bunch of textures together. And it tends to be very dark because the photos are very contrasty. So it tends to be very greedy, in a way. So I just wanted to create something that is more clean and that could leave in the world of a graphic design, to me, the combination it's all about the contrast. To me, the combination of working with very analog and old photos and combining them with our digital world with a bunch of different colors and things like that. It's very interesting. It's really like the mixed media. How would analog fought photo would be if I place it with a 3D element in there in the same environment, and that's very cool. [01:08:32] Speaker B: It's like a mashing it up, really. [01:08:34] Speaker C: Mashing it up and create a purpose for that. To create, like, a harmony and to make everything consistent and very purposeful and very again, it's to blend all those different elements together in terms to create something consistent and in terms to create, like, harmony, like a new yeah, and that's really fun. That's really fun. Yeah. [01:09:06] Speaker B: It brings it back. It's another type of creative problem solve, right? [01:09:10] Speaker C: Yeah. And to be honest, maybe it could be some sort of laziness of my part, because instead of having to draw all those characters, I'm just using realistic characters in there, and you're just cutting out them and making my own, in a way. [01:09:34] Speaker A: What artists have inspired your style? [01:09:37] Speaker C: I would say, like, I'm pretty sure today, nowadays, there's a bunch of amazing people out there. I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of amazing artists out there where I started off looking, the stuff that Terry Gillian done out there, but that's it. I tend to use most of my people references. They're more in the graphic design world. Not much as a collage. I just use a collage as an element to my oh, that's interesting, my stuff. But again, like, Terry Gillian, to me, I think it was like the top of my head. It was the guy that I wouldn't say he started, but he made it very popular and interesting. I would very it's very cool up to this day. If you see some of his stuff, like, the irony that he puts in there, again. It needs to be a concept, not just a visual. It needs to be a why? Why you're doing this, why you're doing it doesn't have to be forced. And I love that he used those elements in a contest. It's a very ironic and I like to bring that to my work as well. To bring the irony, to bring something that has a purpose, it has some sort of attitude. And I think that's very interesting. [01:11:05] Speaker B: Right on. And I think I think this maybe is our last topic. So Aaron and I have been kicking around this idea that from an educational and industry perspective, that motion design is graphic design. That we've arrived at this point where if we're thinking about graphic design education, that motion is a pillar. It's a fundamental part of graphic design now. And we see it. [01:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it would be like studying graphic design and then removing typography or color theory. [01:11:39] Speaker C: Right. That it's. [01:11:41] Speaker A: One of the motion design one is a pillar. [01:11:43] Speaker C: Right. [01:11:44] Speaker B: And we look at some of these top. You go to Pentagram or Wolf Olins or any of these real, really big traditional design and branding agencies and the way they showcase themselves, they all have show reels and everything's moving right. And I show this to my students just under this idea that, hey, look, some of you maybe are going to be motion designers, some of you maybe are going to be art directors or more just graphic design. But you all are going to need to know at least motion. So, just curious, your thoughts on this idea as motion design? As graphic design. [01:12:18] Speaker C: I agree 100% with that. I agree 100%. I feel like the motion is just a way to show the design to an audience or there's different ways. There are different I wouldn't say platforms. I don't know if that's the word that I want to use. But for example, we can do graphic design for a newspaper or I can do a graphic design for a billboard, or I can do a graphic design for a YouTube channel. And that is where I needed to move. So I feel like that's very important if you want to become like and I understand that there are a lot of people out there that they don't like to do designs. They like to animate things. And that's okay. That's perfectly okay because people have different interests. But emotion, designer or emotion, it's just like a little drop in the ocean of the design and artwork form. So I feel like that's really interesting because in my point of view, you can have a bunch of cool elements animating a cool way, but there's no message in there, there's no meaning. It's just like a bunch of elements moving around and it could be like a craziness for some person that does not belong to the industry. But if you want to send a message with your animation, I feel like the design. It's very important because the design is going to lead the process, and the animation is going to be a tool for you to help to tell that story. So I feel like the design is really, 100% really important, and the motion is just part of that, just like the kind of typography that you're going to use, like things like that. I 100% agree with that. [01:14:25] Speaker A: I think what you said is true is more elegant than how maybe I think about it, because I think as designers, we're graphic designers, we have a point to say, like, a message. And it used to be that those ways of getting those messages out there were print. We're billboards, we're this, we're that. But now billboards are moving, and now the way we consume media is on our device, which is all moving, and it's all, like, logo first, brand first. That's design. And if you are studying design and don't have the understanding that all this work that you're going to do and put out there, a percentage of it is going to either be animated by you or by somebody else to tell a story over time, to give a message over time, then that's kind of education. If you don't have that next leg, it's like a three legged chair became a four legged chair. It's much more stable. [01:15:24] Speaker C: I think so too. I think so too. I agree. If your passion is doing products or if your passion is doing steals or whatever, it's okay. But I feel like, again, it's important for you to understand the process, to understand. I think it's important for you to work in a studio, because you don't need to be, like, the 3D person, but it's important for you to understand the pipeline. So when you need to supply or receive elements for a different section in your studio, you guys can have a conversation. Like, you guys can understand each other. And I feel like that's very important. It is. [01:16:09] Speaker A: All right, well, is there anything you want to talk to us about? [01:16:16] Speaker C: I have so many questions for you guys, but maybe we should leave that for a second part, because I would love to get the backgrounds from you guys in so many different topics. That'll be amazing. Maybe for the anniversary, I would love to interview you guys so you can do something like that. [01:16:38] Speaker A: Oh, I would love that. [01:16:39] Speaker C: It all right. [01:16:42] Speaker B: Awesome. [01:16:42] Speaker A: Okay, well, thank you. [01:16:43] Speaker C: Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. [01:16:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's do our little piece thing so that we have a bookend. [01:16:55] Speaker B: Awesome. All.