Month: June 2015

Eric Miller Animation June Update

Leave a reply

I wanted to give everyone a June Update on everything I’m working on with the company.  Although I don’t currently have any client projects I’m working on I’m still pretty busy with many other tasks.  Here are some of the things I’m currently working on.

Animated Short
I mentioned in an earlier post I was working on a CG animated short.  We are making progress with it, but have been taking our time to make sure it looks great.  As I write this we are working on the design of the main character, as well as brainstorming the set location.  To keep costs down it will be in one simple set that we can reuse for the different episodes. Once we finish the character design phase we will start modeling the character, and then rig it for animation.  At the same time we work on the character rig we will also be surfacing it.

Motion Graphics Sizzle Piece
Since we are offering 3 main services, Animation, Visual Effects, and Motion Graphics, I wanted to make sure I had examples of the different styles of work we can do.  The Toys”R”Us commercials are great examples for VFX, and the Animated short will be the example of our animation work.  That leaves me needing something to show off what we can do with motion graphics.  I have been working on putting a sizzle piece together to help show clients what we can do.

I have been talking with some motion graphics artists about a piece that will show off what our crew can do with motion graphics.  We are still early in the discussions, but I’m excited about the direction that it is heading.  I will keep you updated as we move along with it.

Business Plan
I have been trying to find the time to put together a business plan, and I finally got started with it.  It seems silly that simply writing out your plan would have such an impact, but it has already helped me a great deal.  It got me thinking about things I have not thought about yet, and gave me some ideas on how to grow my business. I have not got to the mission statement section yet, but I’m looking forward to working on that.

S-Corp
My company is currently a sole proprietorship, but for some time now I have been looking into changing it into a S-Corp.  There are several reasons I’m planning on doing this, but the two main ones are limited liability, and tax savings.  It will also allow me to raise money by selling shares if I decide to go that route.  I have been talking with my CPA, and next plan to talk to an attorney about it.  As long as everything works out I should be moving forward with this in the next month.

LA Society of Creative Professionals
I mentioned in my last post about forming a society to plan monthly outings, and activities for networking and fun. Well I have setup a Facebook group for it, and plan on working on getting our first outing on the calendar.  If you are in the LA area, and in the animation, visual effects, or motion graphics fields please join the group to find out about our events.  I think this will be a lot of fun, and who knows it might help you find your next project, or new friends.  Visit the Facebook group.

Finding New Clients
Another thing that is a constant for me is looking for new clients.  This is by far the most difficult part of running your own company.  These are skills that you don’t learn while working for a large corporation, and has been a huge learning experience for me.  I have been cold-calling/emailing, but have not had much luck with that.  I have tried getting a commercial rep, but I have not found any that don’t already have a full roster of companies.  I have been doing a lot of networking, but still no leads.  The thing with networking is that you never know when someone in your network might turn into a project.

Although I will continue trying to contact clients directly I also want them to find me.  This is why I have been investing in my own projects like my animated short, and the motion graphic sizzle piece.  It seems to be a much more effective way to gain new clients.

I have also been reaching out to directors, and try and establish a relationship with them.  This way when they are working on a project that needs animation or visual effects they will hopefully reach out to me to help.  Often times directors have a lot of influence over the studios and agencies they are working for in bringing in their own people.

As you can see I have a lot of things on my plate, and a lot of work to get done.  I also always have work to do on my website, but that never really ends.  I hope you are enjoying following along with my progress, and if you ever want to know about anything specific please leave me a comment below.  I will answer to the best of my ability, and if appropriate dedicate a blog post to your question.  As always don’t forget to subscribe to get the blogs delivered directly to your email inbox.  Well, it is time for me to go back to work, so until next time.

 

If you have not already, I hope you will join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  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.

Society for Creative Professionals

Leave a reply

I have been thinking about creating a society for creative professionals in the entertainment industry.  Through the society we could put on a monthly networking event co-hosted with my company.  This would include artists, technicians, and production staff in animation, visual effects, motion graphics, and other similar professions.  This event would be open to members of the community from students that are trying to get into the industry to veterans who have been in the industry for years.  It could create mentorship opportunities to help the new members in the field to meet the experts.

It would be a fun way for people in the industry to network, or just hangout with others in similar professions.  As my company grows this will provide a way for us to give back to the creative community, and introduce people to our team.

The networking event would happen once a month, and will be held at different bars throughout Los Angeles(sorry for those of you not in the area).  Most likely starting around 7pm, and at locations close to the larger studios to make it easier for those getting off work to attend.  I’m thinking it could be held on the 3rd or 4th Thursday of each month, so people can plan for it.

The networking event is only the beginning of what the society could do.  It could help the members of the industry find work, and put on educational/training events.  The possibilities are endless.  I always thought it be fun to start a secret society, and while we won’t be doing anything secret this might be the next best thing.

I’m trying to think of an appropriate name for this society of creative professionals, so please let me know if you have any suggestions.  Also be sure to keep an eye out for the invites to the first event, and I hope you can all make it.

 

If you have not already, I hope you will join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  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.

Produced by Conference 2015

Leave a reply

This weekend was the Producers Guild of America’s annual Produced by Conference.  This is a conference for producers, and has a lot of really great panels, mentoring, and networking opportunities for members of the guild.  This was my second time going to the conference, and I wanted to share my experience with all of you.  If you are interested in reading about last year’s conference you can do it here.

Paramount-fountain-pga-pbcLast year’s conference was held at Warner Bros. Studios, but this year’s was held at Paramount Pictures.  It was nice to get back on the Paramount lot, and it reminded me of when I worked at DreamWorks Studios(DWS).  At the time DWS was owned by Paramount, so I had my new hire orientation on the Paramount lot.  They also had free weekly movie screenings at the huge 500+ seat theatre that I often took advantage of since I never had the money to pay for movies.

The conference opened on Friday night with a general meeting for the members followed by a really nice Hollywood style party.  The meeting was interesting, but of course it went longer then expected.  They had every committee get up and talk about what their committees where about, and what they were working on.  I think they could have done abbreviated updates instead of each of them taking 10-15 minutes each.  I also did not eat dinner, so I was ready to get out to the party.  When we finally got out of the meeting, and to the party I spent the first half hour just stuffing my face with all the delicious foods they had.

I did not attend the conference on Saturday, and only went to the conference on Sunday.  If you are interested to see what sessions they had you can check out the list here. The conference is open to non-Producer Guild Members, but you have to pay for it.  A member gets one day free, or they can buy both days at discounted rates.  Let me know if you are interested in going next year, and I can get you the information on it.

The sessions that I went to on Sunday were “The art and craft of pitching for television”, “Conversations with: Kevin Smith”, “Creating Meaningful Brand Partnerships to enhance your content”, and “Everything you wanted to know about games, but were afraid to ask”.

The pitching for TV was very interesting, and entertaining.  They had a panel of executives, and 5 producer/writers that took turns pitching their ideas to the executives.  The executives had fun with it, and did things like interrupt them, walk away, talk to people during the pitch, and so on.  The goal was to show you what you might expect to see when pitching to these executives, and how to keep your cool during your pitch.  After each pitch they would give pointers at how to make their pitch stronger.  It actually was very educational.  It was neat to see what worked, and what did not work.  It gave me a lot of great insight on ways to improve my pitches.

Kevin-SmithI signed up for the session with Kevin Smith more for the fun of it.  If you don’t know who he is he is the director/writer for movies “Clerks”, “Jay and Silent Bob”, and “Dogma”.  They had John Horn as the moderator, but I don’t think he got a word in after they started.  Kevin just talked about one story after another, and barely stopped to take a breath.  It was a fun time, and I think I laughed through the entire session.

The session on creating brand partnerships was interesting, but I was expecting something different.  When I signed up for it I thought it was more about creating meaning for brands from your intellectual properties.  Instead it was about partnering with Brands to have them in your TV show, or movies.  Things like product placements where you actor is drinking a coke, or driving a GM car in the movie Transformers.  It was interesting to hear about how much money can be made for adding in these products.  I think they were saying $100,000 for a product in a TV show, and millions of dollars for movies.

The last session I went to ended up being the one I got the most out of.  It is always interesting to hear about the $90 billion game industry.  It is such a rapidly growing industry, and there are so many different platforms for them. There are PC, console, mobile, tablet, and social/Facebook games.  You have the Pay-to-play, In-App purchases, free-to-play, and many other types of games.  Virtual reality is also an up and coming platform that I feel will continue to grow.  I wish this session was longer, because you could tell they were only scratching the surface.  I hope to reach out to some of the people on the panel to continue the conversations.

In addition to the sessions I also met a lot of really great people, and heard some very interesting stories.  The main reason I go to these conferences is to network, and create new relationships, and this year there was no shortage of that.  I will spend most of today reaching out to the people I met this weekend, and finding ways we can work together.

I hope you enjoyed hearing about the conference, and if you have any questions about the conference please let me know.

paramount_PGA_PBC

 

If you have not already, I hope you will join me on my journey by subscribing to my blog.  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.