Updates - Character Designs and Film Credits

I've been drip feeding my portfolio website with new entries and content lately. There's some new sketches for some pet projects in the gallery. 

Some more movie credits in my filmography.

Even a little animated project I did while I was freelancing a few months back.

While I'm at it 'Devils, Angels & Dating' will be awarded an honorable mention at the Santa Monica Independent Film Festival this weekend. I'll be going along on Sunday the 22nd of September to absorb the atmosphere, see who there is to see and swap notes with the other filmmakers there. Fingers crossed I'll meet a few Devils team members while I'm there.

Dating for Animation and VFX Artists

It's hard to openly talk about the topic of dating, but as the guy that developed his short film around the topic, 'Devils, Angels and Dating', I felt it was my duty to expand on it for all the past, present and future lovelorn creatives it was aimed at.

The Animation and Visual Effects Industry has been plagued with issues for some time, and many of those issues are only now being exposed and discussed. There are a lot of problems that have compounded over time and there are no solutions that address them all quickly. There are plenty of other better writers out there that you can read up on to find out more on the industry. But I wanted to talk about something that makes a huge difference to an individuals life, that we all can do something about.

When I started my first job as an animator I had a 9 to 5 job. To many that sounds wrong. That's because most jobs I've worked in recent years the core hours are either 9 to 6, 10 to 7 or even 10 to 8. This may be a big city thing, a US thing or I suspect... a recent thing. More and more companies expect you to work longer days by default. Note that I'm not talking about the overtime you put in over the top of the primary hours. I'm talking about the core hours, around which you can not go home and spend time developing your personal life. This is critical. Right now I am not in crunch but I'm spending 10 hours at work a day, plus (until very recently) around 2 hours commuting. Throw in 8 hours sleeping and a few hours for food, and general maintenance and I'm left with very little free time... and that's time when I'm tired. So that leaves roughly 8% of my day left. Remember that I'm at work for 42% of the day.

When I was a kid my father raced home through what ever traffic he had to face in order to be with the family for an evening meal around 6pm. Then we'd usually retire to the living room and watch TV together. Undoubtedly that's changed, and kids of certain ages will go up to their rooms to surf the net, go out with friends, whatever... the point is there was an effort made to get together as a family and share time together. In the Animation and VFX industry, as long as you're working you can only expect to eat at home very late, or you only have time with the family on the weekends.

Up to this point I've talked about the family but for far too many a family is a pipe-dream as they haven't figured out how to get into any sort of relationship, let alone start a family! And this is where individuals can do something about it and give themselves at least a fighting chance of that normal life they grew up to expect.

Now that I'm in my mid 30s I've had some good luck and some bad as far as relationships go and that's a lot more than I can say for my mid 20s. Many people that know me now may find that a surprise as I'm quite open about talking about relationships and dating now. It's become a passion of mine to share and help others with understanding this topic. More than that it's become a mission to help people loosen up, try new things and break out of a routine of doing nothing.

Why do so many Animation and VFX Artists do nothing in the dating world? There's three factors. First this industry attracts a lot of people that aren't very confident in the first place. That's why they're animators and not actors, creating their performances with tools that abstract their feelings, instead of exposing them. Secondly the industry attracts specific types of people, largely males and often females that can handle a largely male workplace so the types of people you will meet day to day are not diverse enough for natural encounters and mixed friendship groups. Thirdly animation industry professionals are very focused on optimism for a better future in their careers, but in reality their circumstances are very rarely all that good right now. So artists work hard to get to that perfect future, sacrificing the now. The idea of attracting someone is easier when you have the perfect job, the perfect home and enough money to entertain, feed and support the ideal lifestyle of a couple. Meanwhile the idea of attracting someone is hard when your working and living conditions are poor, you've got no stability and you don't know where the money to pay your next bill is coming from.

All those people waiting to start dating need to understand one very key thing about dating. It's a numbers game. No, I'm not saying it's a game... but I am saying you have to take it seriously for a long time, in a very open minded way and more importantly keep at it. If you are waiting to date, then you're reducing your odds of finding the right person. If you're not spending money on dating, and you're too proud to try a dating service (thinking you'll find someone naturally), then you're reducing your odds of finding the right person again. Lets face it, even if you do find someone it's rare that the first person you form a relationship with will be the one that lasts, so you're going to have to work at it longer than you might plan for. If you think you'll find someone naturally remember that 42% of the time you're at work where the options are limited and you've only got 8% of your weekday left to make an effort. You'd better make the most of it.

Half the battle I see in this industry beyond the problems I've listed above is that most people think they're an island and don't want to talk about it or reach out for help. I don't mean you should expect others to do it for you... believe me that doesn't happen. But just sharing with friends and opening up about it, will help you realize you're surrounded by people in the same situation that can support each other in making efforts to break your current patterns. And change is good. Putting yourself slightly beyond your comfort zone regularly will multiply your options exponentially. So go out, throw parties, make friends outside of work, go to meetups, join dating sites, try speed dating, drag like minded friends to singles events. But make an effort in that 8% of the day you have left so that someday you can return to someone that cares about you everyday and build that life you dreamed of together. Then when she complains you work too long hours, let her chew out the boss at the company event someday!

My apologies if this sounds a bit male-centric... I am a guy. But if there are ladies reading this with opinions on dating while working in this business please feel free to comment. I'd love to get your perspective.

Off-Site vs On-Site

Working remotely requires a strong capacity to trust other people. By default, meeting good reasonable people in person builds trust. Getting to know someone immediately in front of you will generally result in much stronger bond of trust than working remotely. I've noticed that the further away from 'in-person' you are from a relationship the more people instinctively demonize each other, or 'them'. Regular video chat can be helpful, talking on the phone is almost as good, instant message is the next step, email is convenient but its the absolute limit of a modern day working relationship. Anything less and the other person becomes the enemy.

What's alarming is how two sets of reasonable people with the best of intentions assume flaws, fault, laziness, selfishness, and all kinds of other issues upon each other as the communication methods reduce down to email. Cultural differences throw up defenses even faster.

I've caught myself making the same assumptions at times, but I push through it and try to see the other side's perspective. The less you know about the other person though, the harder it gets to relate to them, so it's only natural for us to demonize the unknown.

Different personality types handle it quite differently. The more trusting and laid back someone is the more likely they can work well with others remotely, but equally the more likely they are to be taken advantage of. The more of a control freak they are the less effective their ability to work remotely. I've seen both character types in my working life, and they bring very different strengths to the table.

I am definitely more inclined to be a control freak, so when I chose to make 'Devils, Angels and Dating' through a virtual studio (I.e. remote artists collaborating on the internet) it went completely against my nature. I am very capable of chilling out and delegating, and I do it all the time, but it gets harder the more I care about the outcome. I had to give up control in bite size chunks for years in order to work with over a hundred artists that contributed their valuable time and talents to the film. It wasn't easy for me. Some people that were close to me through the experience will be able to tell you that I expressed frustration on many occasions as I had to wait for work to come back, slow responses to my messages, and often when I'd see someone do something in a way I wouldn't have done it myself. But adjusting to it, has given me an extra-ordinary level of empathy for others for future projects.

Since finishing the film I have encountered many artists that crossed my path during the making if the film. Some asked to work on it and ultimately couldn't due to other commitments. Similarly some started and had to leave before they could finish. Both types of artists tend to apologize, and I always have a very understanding approach and all is forgiven without fault, as I know how much life can get in the way. I'm simply very grateful for the help and support I did get.

I tend to make lots of tiny efforts to get to know my co-workers experience when I work with them in person. These days it's very easy with portfolio websites, showreels and LinkedIn. But it's a common event in our business to talk about previous work experiences as well and in this way you gradually figure out who you're working with. Who has the answers. Who knows what they're talking about, etc... When you can't have those little conversations all you have is what's online so it's critical that what is online is complete and available. I've worked at a few studios now where I've been handed the reigns to supervise sub-contracted studios, often without me being told much at all about the studio or it's crew. I can literally be handed a point of contact that has no studio name, no resume, and no portfolio. The assumption is that someone else has done the vetting... but that simply leads to an enormous potential for mis-trust. I've tried to push through it and give them the benefit of the doubt, and I know for a fact that in some cases they have been mis-handled so they couldn't be blamed entirely for failing to deliver. But the next time it comes up I'm asking for everything I can get about a studio or artist I'm asked to supervise. Eliminate those questions, and understand who you're dealing with!

Conversely I've also been on the other side working remotely. Often there's a layer of people between me and the person that's actually meant to be directing me. Each person says a little bit less than they need to until the direction I get is so vague as to open up the work to massive changes in interpretation. Sometimes I've been lucky and they weren't fussy but usually they will know better what they don't want and I'll be set back on a path to creating something else, but again the brief is often not specific enough for me to get it right first time. It's all about communication and I try very hard to make sure I'm clear, but I've not always been as fortunate in the written briefings and responses I've had back. Often broken English, poorly chosen spell-check results and bad grammar. At best all I can do is return the message asking for clarity, but even that can be taken as an insult as they remember what was in their head when they wrote it, they don't often re-read their messages to see what I saw (this is where task specific conversation threads or forums are better than emails).

Curiously I've worked in studios that completely lock down outside communication to the degree that there is no internet or email, so this would definitely be considered 'on-site'. But that doesn't necessarily mean that communication internally is better. If someone isn't a good communicator in person then sometimes the written word can be more effective. Lets face it this industry attracts plenty of people that aren't the best communicators in person, so perhaps more access to systems that work well remotely in the written word will help those personality types.

People tend to fall into one camp or the other, most in the 'on-site' camp. But in the real world we're getting closer and closer to a society that's capable of, and might even prefer, the ability to work from anywhere to keep life quality up and living costs down. So I'm in favor of a smart blend of both. I can envisage a great production pipeline that has a few pools of on-site people working quickly together for key departments, and a well connected web of off-site workers dealing with skills that require less communication. The two come together to lower costs where it's needed, increase life quality and improve communication. Further to this vision I've written about Virtual Studios.

Note that pictures were from the short film collaboration, The Ocean Maker, that experienced both extremes of on-site vs off-site work.

Virtual Studios and Remote Collaboration

For Siggraph 2013 my friends and I put on a presentation along with a question and answer session to talk about remote collaboration. The following is a summary of the introduction I gave and two videos containing the audio, slide shows and clips we showed at the event.

The speakers included:
David Andrade and Mark Olson from http://www.theoryanimation.com
Matt Berenty and David Bokser from http://www.loveinthetimeofadvertising.com
Kenny Roy from http://collabs.arconyx.com
Michael Cawood and Shane Davis from http://devilsangelsanddating.com

The United Nations predicts that by 2050, 70% of the world's population will live in the cities. Can you imagine that? In terms of mankind, as one big machine, cities are essentially more efficient. But on the individual level, they're expensive and you can expect a lower quality of life for your earnings. I'd like to challenge that prediction, and suggest that the U.N. hasn't accounted for the increasing development of remote collaboration, and in the case of our industry, Virtual Studios.

I'm going to use animated features as an example for our discussion, but many of the principles apply to visual effects, TV series, commercials, games and many other industries. Let's jump back in time first to remind ourselves of some of the biggest changes that have occurred in the animation and visual effects industry since it began.

Style - Traditional 2D dominance has stepped aside for 3D CGI and Stopmotion

Talent - Once rare animation talent has become abundant

Quality of life - Medium to High quality of life has dropped to Low and Medium quality

Quantity - The number of animated feature films per year has risen significantly

Studios - The number of animation and VFX studios has gone up

Cost - Features cost a lot in the past, and even adjusting for inflation they still cost a lot today. But do they have to?

In the past we've had one studio working in one location with a large number of people involved. Production gets a great deal of efficiency out of this. However to find that amount of talent in one place you tend to have to setup your studio in a major city.

As time goes by studios have looked to cut costs by bringing in cheaper sub-contracted studios. These are medium sized creative studios that plug into the larger studio adding small inefficiencies that tend not to be accounted for alongside the savings. They are just tolerated and the blame for the inefficiencies is cast on 'the other guy'... you know, the one that's not in the office with you that's easy to blame.

As we extend this trend productions take on more cheap studios, but each time we add a new outside studio the complexities increase and the inefficiencies exponentially increase. Now there are more middle men moving information and assets around, delaying the creative process and in those delays are wasted man hours as the information doesn't move up and down the pipeline in time to stop people going down the wrong paths. Every-time someone invests themselves in something that is then cast aside because it wasn't wanted, people get bitter and less invested in their work.

Further to these issues is a sense that 'the other guy', the one that's not sitting right next to you, is not pulling their weight, or doesn't know what they're doing. Cultural differences can multiply this effect but putting that aside it's simply natural to trust the person in the room with you more than the person you can't see. Body language, eye contact, tone of voice.... there are so many factors that help us trust each other and when they're masked, delayed or taken away completely it's natural to view every failure as systematic of laziness or incompetency.

Switching to another issue, different areas cost different amounts to live. The cities have the highest cost of living and the lowest quality of life for your earnings. The towns have a medium cost of living and the potential for most people to consider buying a home, with a reasonable quality of life. Then there are the low cost of living areas where interesting projects in our industry may not be as abundant but buying a home is affordable and you can have a high quality of life for your earnings.

Most people in our industry aim to get into the cities where the work is, to increase their job prospects and gain higher earning potential. But as they do so they're raising their cost of living, the number of hours they're working and commuting, reducing the chance they can purchase their own home or spend time with their family.

When we overlay the studio structure with the cost of living what we see is that most of the people in production are in the high cost of living areas, farming out some of the work to people in medium cost of living areas.

Occasionally projects add the odd independent contractor, or freelancer, to it's project, working from home. It's easier than ever before these days to do this but it still adds to the inefficiencies of the production as information passes around slower and resentment about 'the other guy' builds up.

This is where I want to introduce the concept of a 'Virtual Studio'. An online set of tools for creating and communicating between team members. A way to track assets, shots, versions and staff. A system designed to keep everyone informed of the project's progress, let them see where their work fits into the project quickly whilst keeping them informed of changes that would affect them. It's as much about keeping up moral, showing steady progress and making them feel a part of the process as the day to day file sharing.

This sort of system is often developed in-house to cater to the minority of workers offsite. But once it's complete and covers enough of the pipeline it doesn't matter where the system is developed, and the tools and storage itself can be off-site, just like a great deal of the rest of the pipeline.

Once everyone gets used to depending on the online system it makes it easier to consider working from home, and then from a cheaper, nicer home in some other town... and so on, until most of the production is working more manageable hours in nicer working conditions, living in better homes with families and social lives, with pensions, healthcare and savings.... ah there's the dream. Well maybe it won't solve all of those issues but it certainly would be a big step in the right direction.

You're still always going to want to have your key decision-makers working as closely as possible, i.e. directors, producers and some leads and supervisors. This means they'll be the few team members that will want to stay close to each other in the cities. But if the high cost areas don't have to house the entire team, then the cost of living goes down there too and even they can live better lives.

In truth anyone that's been in production enough knows it's not as simple as that. All too often the top decision-makers want to see the people making their products on hand, in the same office. But this can sometimes have more to do with their own insecurities than the actual results. It feels better to see the people you pay getting on with their work. So the next big step in making remote collaboration a success is going to be some sort of tool that can give everyone in the pipeline the re-assurance they need that everyone is getting on with their work and they're going in the right direction.

The biggest innovation that my short film 'Devils, Angels and Dating' brought to virtual studios was the Facebook-like news feed on the front page. With this no matter what time someone checked in they could see new progress being made in all departments. It was very re-assuring (a lot like Facebook is for your social life). But it's only part of the solution. That works to ensure that the ones that are working, are doing something. But it doesn't reveal anything about the ones that aren't, and that's what would worry the decision-makers the most. Enough to avoid remote collaboration.

I've heard of productions keeping a Skype window up and active during work sessions, which creates the feeling that you're both active. But that requires a lot of bandwidth and only works for small teams. If you've seen the TV show 24, you may remember the small vertical video chat devices they all seemed to have beside their computer monitors. If we could get used to these being turned on more often, without feeling the pressure to fill the void with conversation then we could get to a place where everyone can see each other working. To reduce the bandwidth maybe we could have some software that only updates the image when it changes significantly, i.e. it doesn't send changes to the image if someone is barely moving in the frame, which is often the same when they're working. But wave a hand or say something and it activates more bandwidth so that the image updates smoothly again. Ultimately though this is an implementation of current tech, and I suspect it'll be a new tech that changes our habits more and really brings the change we need.

Virtual Studios have a long way to come to really make an impact, but most of that distance has more to do with perception than what's possible with the technology we have. It'll only take one big success story to start a wave of copy-cats. Proof of this has already occurred in the collaborative short film making market. When I started making my short film, hardly anyone was doing it anymore. There had been so many failures people were pulling away form big volunteer projects in favor of smaller portfolio pieces. I pushed through the naysayers, created a unique new platform and lead the way to where we are now. And where are we now? With more short film collaborations in production than there's ever been, using a variety of tool sets either similar to mine, or in a few cases even directly copied from mine. I'm quite proud of that, and it's likely the biggest accomplishment my little project can boast to. To this day I'm a big supporter of other collaborative projects, helping the team leaders with tips and tricks to make it work for everyone involved.

To finish off here's the Question and Answer session from the Siggraph presentation, which went on quite a while and brought up some very interesting issues for discussion.