We now have over 1,000 Facebook likes. Thank you for being a part of our journey! This is our final achievement in 2014. Happy New Year Everyone!
Month: December 2014
2014 Year-End Review: The First 6 Months of Running an Animation Studio
I would like to get in a habit of doing an internal review of how my company did at the end of each year. It will be my opportunity to see what I have been able to accomplish in the last year, or not accomplish. Things can get pretty busy while running the day to day of a business, and it is easy to loose track of where you are, and where you are going. By looking at where you have gone in a year’s time you can get a better idea of how things are progressing, and see if you are heading in the right direction.
If I go back a year from now things were very different for me. My wife and I recently moved into our first house, and were in the process of trying to get settled in. At the same time my wife was 8 months pregnant with our son and on bed rest due to some complications. There was a fear that our son might come early, and we were hoping we would at least stay where he was at until 2014. I was still working at DreamWorks Animation as a production supervisor on the movie Home!. At the same time I had been planning my exit to start my own company, but it was 1/2 a year away before I would actually set off on that voyage.
On April 9th was when I posted my first blog entry “Start Here“, and thus began my blogging journey. Although I started writing it, and rewriting it before then it was on that date it became public. Sure, I had no readers and you could barely find it with a Google search if you knew what to search for, but I still consider it a big step forward. It was the first time my plan to start my own company was out there for others to know about. Writing a blog was also a new challenge for me. I was well aware that I was not the best writer, but I was determined to share my story. I hopped that by keeping at it that I would improve my writing. I can’t say that my writing is any better then when I started(I will let you be the judge of that), but my speed of writing has increased. When I started it would take me days just to write one post. I would often start it one day, work on it a second day, start over on the third day, and eventually get it to a point I was not embarrassed to posting it. Then after it was posted I would often find errors, and go back and fix them, or rewrite it again. I don’t know if I have more confidence now, or if I just don’t worry as much about what people will think if it is not perfect. After all I think that is what people like about blogs, is that they are raw, and unedited. I have gained more readers then that first day I posted. I now get on average around 100 views per post, and have 26 subscribers to my blog. My last post had 160 views, so hopefully I can get more of those 160 readers to subscribe to my blog. The day that I got the most traffic was the day I announced on Facebook my departure from DreamWorks and my plan to start my own animation company. In a single day I got around 900 views.
As many of you know it was July 3 when I ended my 7 year career at DreamWorks to venture off on my own. It seems much longer ago then only 6 months, since I feel I made a lot of progress. Not only was I able to get one project in this time, but I was able to also get a second project. I have lined up several possible projects for the new year, but nothing set in stone. I have a lot of work to do internally next year to help get the company in a better position to find new clients, and avenues that I had not had the time to explore fully yet.
I have been able to make a lot of great contacts that I feel will help me move my business forward. I have also learned a great deal from the experiences I have had so far. These first two projects helped me iron out the kinks in many of my administrative processes, and I am better prepared to start up new projects.
If I was on the TV show Shark Tank they would not care about all of the above, and they would be asking me how the business did financially? Well, in the first 6 months in business I’m happy to say that the company had a total revenue of a quarter of a million dollars. It seems crazy to me that I had that much money come into the business. I would love to say that I got to keep all of that, but the majority of it went to pay the amazingly talented team of artists I work with. Some of it then went to pay for other business expenses including accountants, attorney fees, and equipment. And now Uncle Sam wants 40-50% of what is left for self employment taxes. I will still end the year with a profit, but my wife won’t be quitting her job anytime soon. I also don’t have any projects locked in for next year, so I don’t know how long the remaining money will need to last.
I got to finish the year with a brand new look for my business with the new logo and concept art piece done by Jason Scheier. I’m very excited about this, and hope to get other work like this done for the business. I will be personally updating my website soon with a new look, and putting together a demo reel to showcase the work we have done so far. All in all, it has been an amazing first 6 months, and I can’t wait to see what 2015 has in store for the company.
Whether you have been reading my blog from the very beginning, or just joining my journey, I want to thank you for taking this journey with me. I hope that this year was everything that you hopped for, and that 2015 will be the happiest, healthiest, and most fortunate year for you to-date.
If you have not already, please join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog. Also, if you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.
A New Look for Eric Miller Animation Studios
You may have noticed the beautiful artwork at the top of this page. If you remember from my previous post by the name “Logo“, I talked about how I designed my company’s logo, but eventually was going to get someone more talented to redesign it. Well, I was fortunate enough to get my extremely talented friend Jason Scheier to do the redesign as well as do this beautiful concept art. In the above mentioned post I talked about having a reoccurring vision, and that was where my logo came from. I never had the talent to bring it to paper, but I believe Jason did an amazing job at it.
The new logo he provided gives me several different options of what I can do with it, since different situations might require different looks. I’m very excited for the new look for my company, and have already made business cards with the new designs.
I think it would be nice to turn this into a nice motion graphic by adding some movement in the water, wind in the sails, and the ship slowly moving in front of the moon. There will be a lot of fun things I will do with this.
I’m a little behind on my post, since I had some technical issues with my WordPress site. When you are the owner of a company of one, you end up also having to wear the IT guy hat. It is one of those hats that does not fit to well, but with the help of a very nice support forum volunteer named James Huff I was able to get the site back up and running. Thank you Mr. Huff!
We are moments away from finishing the last work we have on the Toys”R”Us projects I have been working on since I started the company in July. I won’t know what to do with myself with all the extra time I will have. I think I will take the rest of the year off to relax, and meet up with some people I was not able to before. Starting in the new year I will be creating a demo reel with all the recent work I have had, and getting things in motion to find my next big client. I certainly have learned a lot from this first project that will help with my future projects.
I’m also planning on doing a big redesign of my website now that I have some beautiful artwork, and a pretty large amount of VFX work to show off.
Well, as Christmas Eve is almost here I will bring this post to an end. I hope you all have an amazing holiday(no matter what you celebrate), and enjoy your time with family and friends. I plan to write one more post in 2014 that will reflect on the year, and all that happened in the first 6 months in business.
If you have not already, please join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog. Also, if you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.
Thank you, 300 Twitter Followers!
We now have over 300 Twitter followers! Thank you to all that are following, and if you would like to follow us you can click the link below.
A Blank Canvas, and Endless Possibilities for an Animation Studio
We are in the last weeks of our second Toys”R”Us project, and when it is done we will have made around 40 commercials for them. These have been amazing first two projects for my company, and very fortunate to have had this opportunity. A big thanks to Hashi for thinking of me, and brining me on board to help with it back in July. Earlier this week after finishing one of the very important commercials we got a very nice email from the agency letting us know how happy the client was with our work. This is the kind of late night emails I actually enjoy getting. Hopefully we will get to work with this agency again on other future projects they might have.
As this project is coming to an end I have been kicking the search for my next projects into full speed. I’m currently in talks with a company that asked me to do some CG animation work for them that. I’m actually really excited about this project, since it is the kind of project I have been wanting to do. I will know more in the next couple weeks if I will get to be involved with this project. It would be perfect timing for me as I start to ramp down from the Toys”R”Us project.
I have also been doing a lot of thinking about how far my company has come so far, and where I want to go with it. When I left DreamWorks Animation 5 months ago I was expecting that the first 2 years I would not have any clients. I figured I would need at least that much time to put together a portfolio, and to build a brand for my company. I feel I’m already ahead of the game, so I could not be happier with how things are going. With that said though, I feel I have not done anything extraordinary. I’m positive that anyone that took a chance, and spent the time could be doing the same thing that I am doing. If I want to make my company great I will have to find a way to make it stand out from the rest. I will need to find what is unique and special to my company, and expand upon it. This of course is easier said then done, and I’m still trying to figure out what will set us apart from the crowd. Luckily this does not have to be figured out at this moment, and it might end up being a more organic discovery as the company grows.
What excites me about where I’m at with the studio are the endless possibilities, like an artist with a blank canvas. I have the opportunity to guide this studio in any direction that is seems best.
“The sky is a canvas, so paint your own life.” – Jada Berglund
If you have not already, please join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog. Also, if you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.
900 Facebook Likes! Why Social Networking is so Important for an Animation Company
It is a little after 4am, and I thought… “what a great time to write the blog post that I was not able to get to on Friday”. I took a quick power nap earlier, so I’m full of energy now.
I will start off by saying Thank You for all of you who have supported me in so many ways since I left my job at DreamWorks 5 months ago. Our company Facebook page now has over 900 Likes! I’m getting closer to my 1,000 Likes goal, and I will need all your help to get there.
You may ask why I care so much about the number of Likes I have on Facebook, but a strong social presence is extremely important these days. There are several reasons why I feel this is important. First off it gives me a direct line to people who are interested in what I’m doing with the company, and the work we are doing.
There are a lot of people doing some amazing work out there, and on occasion something goes “viral”. It is not always clear why one thing goes viral and another does not, but having a large social following certainly can help. It all depends on the right people seeing it at the right time, and sharing, and then it getting shared again, and again. If you are not reaching enough, or at least the right people your work may never be seen more then your own social network. The more people that I have a direct link to show our work the greater chance I will have of it being seen by the most people possible.
Another reason is that I would love to one day create my own content, and a popular way of raising money to do that is crowd funding. I have mentioned before about some very successful campaigns where the people raised far more then what they needed. I feel like having a way to communicate directly with people that are interested in your work is a great place to start in raising money, or getting the word out there.
Working in the commercial world it is important to always be bringing in new clients, but finding clients is not always easy. Often calling clients up directly does not seem to get a very good response. I think they have people calling them all the time trying offering their services, so they often put up these walls. A more natural way is for them to “discover” your work. When they find something they like they will reach out to you. Sounds simple enough, but if they never see your work, then don’t expect this to ever work. Once again, having your work being seen by more people you have a greater chance of an agency seeing your work. It also helps if they see that people are interested in your work, and you already have a large following.
So for my small company that does not have much of a marketing budget a strong social network is important. Of course this is only part of the puzzle, but it is not a part you should ignore. So once again thank you for Liking our page, following our blog, and supporting us in any way.
You might be saying “Eric, I have already liked your Facebook page, subscribed to your blog, and following you on twitter, so how else can I help support your company?” Well, I’m glad you asked! You can share with anyone in your network that you think might be interested in what I’m doing with the company. If you like a blog post, please share it on your Facebook wall. If you like a video we made then tweet it to your followers.
In all seriousness, I can’t thank you all enough for reading my blogs, and following along on this journey. It is hard to believe it was only 5 months ago that I left the port of DWA, and set sail on my own. It has been such an exciting voyage so far, and can’t wait to see what is on the horizon.
Last Monday I was invited to attend the DreamWorks Animation’s Home Leadership Dinner. They have these dinners when they are nearing the completion of a film to thank the show’s leadership for all their hard work. I actually was a little shocked when I got the invitation, but was excited that I was able to attend. It was really nice catching up with everyone, and sharing with them my experiences since leaving DWA. Many of them had no idea I started my own company, and were very surprised to find out. Some even thought I was still working at DWA. It was a very fun evening full of stories, reminiscing, and laughter. I really appreciated that they still including me in the celebration. I can’t wait to see how much the movie has changed since I left in July.
If you have not already, please join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog. Also, if you have any thoughts or advice I would love to hear what you have to say, so please feel free to leave me any comments below. Otherwise, be sure to stay connected with me on Twitter (@MillerAnimation). Only Time Will Tell.