The History of Now

Speaker 0 00:00:01 Hi, I'm Erin Swarovski and I'm Austin Shaw. This is between the key frames this week. We're going to talk about the history of now, and we're going to introduce ourselves to y'all Speaker 1 00:00:15 What we're doing and why we're doing it for our first episode. Speaker 2 00:00:26 I was thinking about this whole idea that history of now, and I was thinking about us. I know you just said <inaudible> 2009. So like, you know, you're in your 11th year or 10th year, you know, 11, 10, 11 years. And we met probably in like, oh seven oh eight or something. And we were kind of like, you know, we've talked like we were in a very similar ish places, both kind of working as kind of creatives, creative leads in our capacities and you started Seraph ski. And then I transitioned to becoming a full-time professor. And then it's like 10 plus years later, you know, at that time when we met like super fad was on top, like king of the hill, like one of the top shops, I remember it was like the X-Box commercial came out. That insane one that was Speaker 3 00:01:09 Like, um, and then there was Speaker 2 00:01:12 The whole sprint campaign. You remember the S like you couldn't turn on a TV and not see a sprint commercial that was done in that create that really fun style with lots of green screen. Yeah, just the creative, just a really awesome system for branding. I mean, I remember when I first started teaching, that was a case study. I would show, cause I thought it was, you know, super effective. But at that time, the 32nd commercial and broadcasts were still king. Right. Like that was, that was the job, you know, outside of like corporate videos. Right. What do you think have been like the fundamental shifts from say 10 years? I Speaker 1 00:01:50 Think like our world, like motion design, commercial production, not necessarily so much entertainment, but I think it's driven by like the tides of humanity and what's going on in culture and in the world, I think just over 10 years ago or 10 years ago, like anything like digital was like a miracle. We were through the.com boom. And, and like we were doing back in the day, a Budweiser Budweiser commercials, IDK that weren't like all these like high speed fans on camera, but like super high contrast design world with like graphics integrated. Nobody had ever seen anything like that before. It was like, you know, print, print, design, and overly stylized or heavily stylized. Right. And so that look was like very nineties, early knots, right? Like it was very all the time. And then I think things just got simpler, right. Things just got simpler. Speaker 1 00:02:51 Comedy became more of a thing like dry comedy. So like, instead of even having like logos animated at the end, it would just be up, you know, like apple went from like dancing, iPod, beautiful silhouettes to like minimal lifestyle photography with the logo. Right. So stylistically, everything had shifted in my view to like very, very minimal dry comedy and to big global like pick a style campaigns where it's like, you know, vast landscapes and this and that. And you could shoot overseas really cheap. So people were sending people to shoot that way to get humanity. And they really wanted humanity, humanity, all of that diversity humanity, the whole ethnically ambiguous. And so that became the look. So design kind of heavily designed, driven things like really became few and far between you didn't see cars driving down the road with swirling graphics around it anymore. Like the days of that were like over Honda, doing that all Toyota, like those campaigns didn't exist anymore. So the few that there were, everybody was fighting tooth and nail to get, you know, but they're really, it wasn't like in, in both, but also was interesting during that time was the boom and growth of Facebook, Google. And so they needed a style and a look that could support their quick generation of content needs from explainer videos to widgets. Like the pay-per-click remember that guy from wasn't, that guy Speaker 2 00:04:39 Called like Clippy or something, but Speaker 1 00:04:42 They needed that times a million and then emojis became a thing and bringing them to life. And how do we elevate elevate? And I think that's the need for, for developing content in that way is what exploded people like buck. And that like that. And it just, I mean, it's so sexy and it was new. Like nobody had seen, you know, what essentially people would call, clip art, you know, look so fucking fantastic. You know, I remember seeing the first few and I'm like, this is like clip art. What is everybody so excited about it? It's like cell animation and clip art, but artfully done and edited beautifully with the right music. And again, artistry it, you know, and you're not paying talent like face wise, you're not paying for any of that. Most of it had type. So you weren't even paying the VO artists. So you could really kick that shit out really quickly. You Speaker 2 00:05:42 Could think maybe a precursor to the whole design with sound off because now we have this whole there's like best practices, but there were no best practice we had to figure out what was the best practice. Right. Well, also I remember when I, when we talked, I, it was when I was working on the second edition of design for motion early, early in that draft process. I, we got on the phone and I, you, you kind of filled me in a bit. This is when I was like, I guess I have to pay attention to social and like really kind of research. What does it mean? And what's happened in, and you said something to the effect of, you know, it used to be with social. It was this sort of, ad-on kind of throw away on the, on the deliverables list. And now this is probably we're looking at maybe 2015, 16, we're having this conversation. And, and it was like, that's not the case anymore now it's they want the high production quality. They want it, they want it to feel just as good as they'd want a 32nd spot. So for you, I mean, we're that discovering some of those best practices? Is that something that just happened organically? Was it ever explicitly given to you in a brief, in like brief form or, and it's organic Speaker 1 00:06:56 And accidental? I mean, we started doing some of that, like cell animation, which we try so desperately not to do as a nation because of just how long it takes them, how laborious it is. And I don't know about anybody else's clients, but our clients have feedback and feedback is very hard to address in that, in that world. So we didn't have a structure or a pipeline for how to handle that. Well, so we mostly do it CG and then have that flat render thought, which I think, I think most people do that that way, which Speaker 2 00:07:34 Is crazy to think like, oh yeah, CG is going to be easier. Right? Like it used to be like, Ooh, CG, that's gonna, that's gonna cost. Right. Right. You know, that's interesting too, because I think in that sort of mid two thousands, I noticed in the educational realm, all of my emotions is on students and all, but there was a trend. It was that, that liquid, right. They wanted to learn liquid and animation. They want it. And all of a sudden like Photoshop, like the timeline and Photoshop became, you know, and, and for me, I didn't have a traditional animation education, but I'm always curious. I'm like, let me, let me figure this out. And it was actually really great. I had some animation students, some animation grad students who I would, who were, who were really into learning motion design. So they would, I'd get them to do demos for my students. Speaker 2 00:08:26 And then I'd be like, okay, cool. I'm learning now too. And then I incorporated that into my intro to motion classes and it just became a part of it. And now like, you know, and I, and I always caveat it with things like, you know, alright, dedicated, 2d, traditional animation, they're going to be using, you know, Toon, boom, and, um, TV paint and animate, which used to be flashed, but I'd still teach it like Photoshop because it's like, look, this is really approachable. This is how we get it after effects. And this is where we can kind of do some different things with it. But even things like, like procreate, I don't know if like artists in your studio are messing on the iPad with like procreate, but like they got like an animation assist timeline that is like, and rough animator. And some of these apps that, that become really just, um, accessible for that type of animation. Speaker 1 00:09:19 I mean, if I were your student, I would be super into that. That work is really sexy looking. It's, it's kind of somewhere in between traditional animation, like going and going to almost like film school, like an animation character animation school, like the Pixar school direction and design, because you're learning like these fundamentals in a, in an interesting way, I've also Speaker 2 00:09:44 Found was really neat because, you know, I would get a lot of different majors taken an insured emotion class, and whenever I had animation majors and I'd be like, okay, we're going to do this in Photoshop. And I'd be like, don't worry. You can do it in whatever program you want. The thing that was cool was to see their eyes light up Speaker 1 00:09:59 When I would take whatever Speaker 2 00:10:01 Little simple animation I'd create with an alpha channel into after effects. And then I'd start duplicating and offsetting and rotating and changing offsetting and time. Yeah. Because they wouldn't think like that. They're totally like, okay, you do all your key pose to your key posts and all of a sudden like that, that motion design, punk rock approach of everything where it's just like, let me take this thing and then turn it over and let's see if I break it and let me, and just that principle of like duplicate and offset in any way and things get really interesting really quick. Yeah. So that kind of, I mean, it's funny that, that, that mashup of styles and mashup of techniques and PR, and really like we're talking a mashup of history, full circle history of now, Speaker 1 00:10:52 Why don't you give us a rundown of like where this all started to oh yeah. Speaker 2 00:10:58 Yeah. I wrote down a list, you know, well, just thinking about, and, and we're going to, I'm thinking about it more in the modern incarnation of emotion design. So like really looking at like, you know, studios like RGA, right. So I got RGA found in 1977 doing film titles, which are really, I think, kicking off the, the modern <inaudible> style of motion design, curious pictures, which started as broadcast arts in 1981 changed the curious in 93, DK comes on digital kitchen in 1995. Then we've got like your brand new school in 2000. I think SOPs are around the same time, super fad, 2001 buck in 2004. And of course, you know, there's a lot of other studios, I guess, that sort of pre 2000 model, which is more motion graphics as this sort of extension of post-production editorial and post houses. Right. And then, you know, there's this, this departure where the design driven studio model kind of breaks away from, from post-production and becomes kind of its own thing and lots of different variations and forms too. Right? There's not really like one model. I think design driven is a good way. And I know that like concept driven and I was looking at Buck's site, they even, I think they were calling themselves talent driven, right? Like there's a lot of different ways to describe it. Design Speaker 1 00:12:28 Driven has been an amazing articulate way to speak to what we do, but I've found it very limiting because we called ourselves with design driven production company for awhile, because there was a point at where it was motion design. And then all of a sudden we're doing live action and editorial. And that really kind of confused people like what, what that motion design could be more than, and after the facts, but then you get into design driven production. And it's like, I think for us, that is like the perfect way to talk about what would you do. But once you like get out of our, our little bubble here, they're only what does that fucking mean? Like, what is design driven production? Are you a production company or are you a design company? And you're Speaker 2 00:13:14 Like, and you're like, yes, yes, I am. Speaker 1 00:13:18 As soon as you attach a word like production or design, like it's essentially becomes limiting. Okay. I think Speaker 2 00:13:28 It is somewhat limiting and it I'm always interested to see the way that the different studios describe themselves from an educator's point of view. I like it when talking to students to, to, to kinda draw that, that continuum between like how we work as designers we're in a lot of ways, you know, we might work more like a traditional illustrator or a graphic designer, um, coming up with an idea, coming up with a concept, whether it is individual or you're doing that in a small team, but then the production side is where we're more like a film production company and we're collaboration and it, and it becomes a really good way to, to say, Hey, like, you need to learn how to play nice and listen, and work with others and be a part of a team because this is, this is where we maybe are different from, you know, just the graphic designer or just an illustrator who doesn't necessarily have to, they just have to work with their client, deliver it, get it done. Speaker 2 00:14:29 And that, that definitely, I think goes back to that traditional pre 2000 model of, you know, motion graphics as an extension of production and post-production specifically, and we're probably that design infusion led the way to, to break away from that model and create these sort of independent studios. My entry in, in a significant way was with curious pictures. And at that time in the early two thousands, the model was, you know, they had a team of CG and compositing, 2d compositing kind of on staff and designers were freelancers and I fit more in that designer mode. So I was there more in this sort of, you know, intern who became a freelance capacity, right? And then you had these other, you know, the new breed from my point of view where you're, you're brand new school and your PSYOPs that your leads, your staff, your core team were designers. And then they were bringing in CG animator and 2d freelancers. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I don't know what it was like a DK for it. It was a similar, Speaker 1 00:15:41 The editor was like the creative director there and they really ran the job. If you look at their work, you'll see that the editorial is really what those that plays combined with them was amazing designer. Interesting. They could tell a story. They could, you could see if there's a narrative, like no matter what you need a narrative or there's no story, you know? And so like an editor, when you take another step back right there, a director like the best editors are, you know, there's a chair director, a creative director, and a director are two different things. They just are. And as a creative director and a director, I can say that like unequivocally, it's two totally different sensibilities. Like I'm a good director and I'm a great creative director. You know what I mean? Like I, they're, they're two different things. And my way into directing was through creative direction, you know? Speaker 1 00:16:47 And, and what I'm learning with direction is that where creative directing is a lot about like finding, not just compromise, but like compromise is a big component about grading record. You have art, you have your clients, you have your artists working on it. You have to like, kind of find a path or to get to the best result while like, kind of, it's a chance, right? With directed with directing, it's a different thing you have to, you have to be the boss, you have to be the chief decider. You have to say to everybody, like wherever you're at, whatever's going on, this is a decision that has to be made here. And that is like a different personality trait and core skill set that I think makes a great, great director. Speaker 2 00:17:32 Right? Yeah. Yeah. And you brought up, I mean, this is actually something I've been working on in, in this idea of, I mean, and this is not a pure correlation, but that idea of like, when I think about working in something I'm going to after effects, right? Like there's that sort of director's right. Where you're looking at the entire piece and does it flow? Does it work? But then you got it like seamlessly sort of get down to the editor view to make sure that there's a whole view. And then down to a shot in Adam interview all the way down to a single frame where you're like is everything is the composition, is everything perfect. And you know, I think a lot of times a motion designer you're sort of cycling through this. Right. And it's funny, that's actually, yeah, it's something I'm working. I've been writing about this, this sort of how you navigate through, I guess you'd say the different roles, you know, and I think that is, you know, and you just added a whole nother dynamic to it. That I'll think about a bit, but I don't know how much of the last decade we've, we've really covered, but we've, we've kind of gone over the last two decades of bed. Speaker 1 00:18:40 What have the last 10 years been like the last 10 years have been really hard to be a design company, you know, especially like rooted in, on gruffy and animation. Oh, wow. You know, I can't speak for every one of them, but if I it's, like I picked up my head a year ago, pre COVID and I looked around and not many of my competitors were still around from Speaker 2 00:19:03 My point of view as, as a soul operating artist. Right. That there's actually been a lot of opportunity for someone like me where it's and I've done, and I've kind of morphed, I mean, ad hoc or in tandem with my work as an educator, but direct to client building direct to client relationships and enabled to, you know, anywhere from your two to five to 10 to 15 K budgets that for a solo operator are great. Right. Where I can stay busy all the time and do a lot of these smaller bite-size pieces of these advertising budgets and needs, especially across, across plat, whether it's, you know, really. And, and it's like, I can't remember the last time I did a broadcast spot. It's it's all out of home O H or social and, and, or social ads. It's filling those. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:19:58 And for a city like mine, it would be like, please, no, no, it's too much just to put a producer on it and a designer on it, like for a week, there's your culture, you know, and we all know it's never just that. Right. No matter once they got you, they got you. So if you're going to ask her an overage on like a $15,000 job was going to be like a public brand, like, unless they just blow up the scope, you know what I mean, proportionally so right. You're right. It has kind of created so much more opportunity for the individual that really has their shit together. And then the individual that can scale up with their buddy to kind of be a little bit more of a powerhouse, something like that, where it's two of you and one might be better with clients and one just wants to grind on the box. You know what I mean? But like for a studio, those jobs, you know, are, are, um, they're kind of impossible unless you're doing insane volume. Speaker 2 00:21:03 Interesting. Cause I mean, I think for me, my first forays into doing like, so like, like direct to client stuff, it was all broadcast. Right. And I, and I, I did enjoy that kind of like, okay, cool. I can, I can grab this project. I could either, you know, I could concept design, execute solo or with one or two others. But after doing a lot of that, it, I started to miss some of those, like, you know, there's no opportunities to dream really big here, like, cause there's no budgets to do something crazy and there's no team to do something bigger than what I could achieve. You know? So it's, you know, some of that is the grass is always greener, right. Where it's like, I missed the big, I missed the, like the big team or I miss the, the big vision. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:21:51 Well, I mean, part of what I love, at least what I, about what I've created. And I think about when I think about studios analogies like elastic and imaginary forces company, I like pairing myself with them from a quality perspective. But also like we are not pigeonholed into making commercials, right? Like we, we of course make plenty of commercials, but we also make main titles sequences. We also make special sequences in movies that there's like a montage sequence or a heads up display or something like that. We also make brand videos. We also make social, everything, vertical, horizontal square. We make it all right. Like we also do installation work. So if somebody is giving a big speech and they need a big keynote before them, like we make that right now, we're working on something for selfie arena, which is part of their, the package. Speaker 1 00:22:47 When you go visit the arena, when there's nothing going on, you can like run out onto the field and throw footballs around. And you'll also school shit. Like we're doing the tunnel run video for that. You know what I mean? That's fun. That's like six screens like 4k. Each bananas is like the amount of work that's out there for a studio like ours, like a very diverse design. Terrific. You know, we just make shit. We make all the shit. It's all moving. It's with all sorts of different mediums, but we're just makers and we can put it anywhere. So like stylistically, I think me and the people I mentioned, and of course, many other studios, we, we liked to not pigeonhole ourselves because we are, we are conceptual thinkers and design led and do things that are appropriate for, for that ask. And I love that about us, but I think in the two thousands, that was very hard for studios like us, because that's when everybody wanted, I want a specialist. I want the guy that does realistic looking fruit on a seamless background with the real flow happening. And it's like, well, and also like, we don't have, I mean, we can make that, but we don't have that. Like, everything was like highly specialized. Speaker 1 00:24:13 If you look at each of the, each company individually and every company out there, everybody's kind of knocking on some other doors too. Like we're going a little bit into long format here and there, which is premium produce a documentary series. Right. Like that's super cool. I have a couple of directors on my roster, so it was perfect for them. And it was perfect for me as an opportunity opportunity to be like a legit producer. Speaker 2 00:24:38 Well, I think, yeah. I mean, I think it, you know, the lesson, right? The lesson of this, you know, I think last couple of decades, right. And adapt right. Adapt or die right Speaker 3 00:24:50 After that. You know? And I, and I think, you know, from Speaker 2 00:24:53 Again, bringing back to the educator's point of view, it's, it's, that's what I'm trying to teach the students is it's, you know, you're a creative problem solver. These are all the tools. Like there's a lot of different tools, but one of those tools is learn how to adapt, learn how to keep evolving and, and to be sustainable. Speaker 1 00:25:12 That is the most important thing you could teach a student is that this software you're using will not be the same in five years, but that's okay because not only did you learn this software, you learn the fundamentals. And, and that is what will keep you moving Speaker 2 00:25:30 The interface. Like if you learn how to learn interfaces, you can more or less learn any software and not be, you know, you know, and I think that goes back to that idea of the specialist, the generalist, right? It's like, you know, a specialist that can adapt well, they, they go away as the environment changes as the habitat changes. Like whether it's just a species or, or designer, Speaker 1 00:25:53 You got to do the work, you can't, you can't skip the doing the work part that's and it's never going to be easy. The technology is never going to be at a place where you like, think it and it's there. Like you've got to put in the time Speaker 2 00:26:10 And final thoughts on, uh, yeah. On this episode. Speaker 1 00:26:13 Right. Well, that's no more thoughts on the history of now. I'm hoping to talk less about myself in the future, which is good, but it's through the lens right. Through our lens of time. And, you know, to like record these kind of little kind of conversations between us, that we would have had any way that our ELA just a little bit more guided quickly. But if anybody's listening, they know we like beer. Hang on, hang on tight here. You know? So I think it's going to be fun though. I think it's going to be fun putting these together. Okay. I'm going to do the Austin piece. Does it work on, works on you? Speaker 3 00:26:55 Why not? Why not? It works on you own it own Speaker 1 00:26:58 It. He's. I mean, we could do a little piece there.