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The World Animation and VFX Summit

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Last week I attended The World Animation and VFX Summit which was held at the California Yacht Club in Marina del Rey.  While it was my first time attending it was actually the 4th year the summit has been held.

I have been to a few different conferences now, and I found this one to be very interesting.  The reason I found it to be interesting was because its attendees were mostly producers, executives, and/or founders of animation companies, so all the discussions were geared towards topics I was interested in.  Most events I find are either for artists in animation, or producers in live action films, but not producers for animation.

This was a 3 day event, but I only attended the first two days.  The 3rd day was only classes, and I choose to start small this year to see if it was worth it.  It was a much smaller conference then I have attended and you did not have to choose which panel to attend since only one was going on at a time.  This was great, since you never felt like you were missing something, and you got to know the other attendees a lot better.

They had some really great panels through each day such as “The New Reality of… New Virtual Reality Revolution”, Animated Movie Spotlight: The Peanuts Movie”, “The Business of Show Business”, “Understanding the New Hybrid Studio Model”, “Understanding the Evolving Ecosystem of Global Feature Co-Productions”, “Building Your Company and Your Brand”, “Charting the Future of the Small Screen”, and others.

For breakfast and lunch each day you could sign up to eat with one of the panelists which was a great chance to talk and ask them questions you might not have asked in front of the group.

At the end of each day they had a cocktail party which gave us all another chance to meet and network with each other. I was surprised by how many people there were from all over the world.  I met people from Russia, South Africa, China, Malaysia, and all over South America to name a few.  Many of them looking for co-productions deals with US production companies.

AwardsOn Monday after the cocktail party they had the Awards Gala where they gave out 4 awards.  They were The Trailblazer of the Year Award, The Lifetime Achievement Award, The Creative Visionary Award, and Breakout Studio Award.

The Master of the Ceremonies was Candi Milo who did the voices for Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory, Sweetie Bird from Tiny Toon Adventures, and many other characters over the years.

It was entertaining to see Danny Jacobs (voice of King Julian) present the award for Trailblazer of the Year to Head of Television for DreamWorks Animation Margie Cohn.  I recorded a quick clip of it which I included below.

The Creative Visionary award went to Charles Schulz who created the comix strip Peanuts. The award was presented to Schulz’s daughter Jill Schulz by the director of The Peanuts Movie.  While at the cocktail party before the awards I was talking to Charles Schulz granddaughter.   I was a little shocked when she mentioned who she was, and I did not know what to say.  I responded something stupid along the lines of “I’m sure you liked your grandfather”.

Besides that moment of awkwardness it was a really great event, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to attend.  I hope to attend again next year. To read more about the Awards Gala check out the Animation Magazine article.

 

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.

Is it really almost November?

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Is it really almost November?  This year has been flying by, and will be over before we know it.  I guess that is what happens when you are having fun?  This year has been a very busy year with running the business.  I feel that I’m learning new things everyday, and there is always challenges to overcome.  To me the challenges are part of the appeal of running my own company.  There is no roadmap that will work for every company, and it requires you to constantly readjusting your strategy.  Below is a quick update on some of the things I have been working on lately.

Bink:

It is really great to see everything coming together.  All the models for the first episode are now built, and both Bink and the Hand are in-progress on the rigs. I have started to see very early surfacing work on Bink which is awesome to see.  I would share the renders, but I think it is a little early for that.  We should be able to start animation in November if everything stays on schedule.

The other big thing I have been working on is trying to line up the voice talent.  I’m looking for a female voice for a scientist that makes announcements over a PA system, things like “Ready to initiate testing”.  As well as the voice for Bink, and this has been much more challenging.  I think I have a few options for the female scientist, but nothing for the voice for Bink.  I’m looking for a unique voice that is similar to the way minions, or Stitch talks.  A unique language that you can’t really understand most of the time, but occasionally there are words you do understand.  I recorded my son “talking” to use as an example, since when he talks it is very cute and you can occasionally make out an actual word. If you are anyone you know might be interested please let me know.  Here is the link to the VO project.

LA Society of Creative Professionals:

This last Tuesday we had our 4th monthly society mixer, and it was another great turnout.  So far our attendance for our events have ranged from 10-50 people.  I have been meeting a lot of really great and talented people, and hopefully others are enjoying the events and getting something out of it themselves.  I feel that no matter what you do networking is a key to being successful.  Plus I just love meeting new people, and learning about their unique lives.  I always show up to the mixers early to get things setup, and there is always this fear that no one will show up.  So far that has not happened yet, and hopefully it never does.

Corporation:

This week I have been learning a great deal about authorized and issued shares.  I have been having a highly debated conversation with my CPA and my attorney on how many shares we should issue, and how many we should save.  According to the articles of incorporation for Eric Miller Animation Studios we are authorized to have 100,000 shares.  I learned that it is a good idea to not issue all of them, and save some for later.  For example my attorney suggested only issuing 100 shares to me.  Since there are only 100 shares issued I’m still 100% owner, but it gives me extra to bring on partners, or offer to employees.  The debate has been how many shares to issue, 100, 25,000, or some other number.  It seems my CPA and attorney had different opinions, so we had to work out each of their reasonings for me to make a decision.

Part of that discussion is also how much I should spend on those initial shares.  My attorney explained to me “The greater the capitalization, the stronger EMAS is against an attack that it should be disregarded as an alter ego. Alter ego is a judicial doctrine that says that people should not be able to hide behind a corporate form if the corporation is inadequately capitalized and fails to comply with corporate formalities. If the corporation is found to be your alter ego, then you will be personally liable for its debts. If “the corporate veil is pierced” then a creditor could get a judgment against you individually. This defeats much of the purpose of incorporating.”

So as you see I have some pretty important decisions I’m trying to make.  As I mentioned I’m learning so much each day about a variety of different things I would have never learned about if I did not start my own company.

We are having another baby:

My wife and I made the announcement yesterday on Facebook that we are expecting another baby in May of 2016. We are both very excited for the new family member, but it is also very scary.  It is very challenging to have one child so having another it will be more of a challenge.  Having a house payment, two kids and in the second year of starting my own company is enough to stress anyone out a little.  I’m positive we will find a way to make it all work as we did with our first one.

 

Well, there is a quick run down of some of the things I have going on in my life.  Thank you for reading about my journey in starting my business, and as always leave me comments below.  I love reading about what is on your minds, and your responses to my posts.

 

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.

Here or There: Outsourcing of Animation

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I wanted to talk about outsourcing of animation that many US companies are doing.  The main reason to outsource work and make the experience of producing animation more challenging is because of cost.  In my previous roles I had learned the Salary for one US-based artist could pay for 4-5 artists in India.  Even if it takes the overseas artist 3 times as long to complete the task it will still be a cost savings.

Outsourcing animation is by no means a new trend, and has been going on for decades.  In a 2012 interview Steve Hulett of the Animation Guild said “We instituted strikes over run-away production in 1979 and 1982, winning the first and losing the second.”  So you can see this is not a new issue.  I believe what we have seen in recent years is technology making it easier and more possible to do business in this way.  You can now easily have a video call with artists in India, Malaysia, or China which you could not do as easily a decade ago.

One of the popular arguments I would often hear is that the quality of work is not as good, and your value of production will go down.  Unfortunately, that is no longer as strong of an argument as the overseas artists get more talented and more efficient.

Outsourcing overseas is not the only worry for a US-based artist or animation/VFX company.  Our neighbors in Canada are also under bidding US animation companies. I’m sure you have heard of their amazing tax credits, and I have heard for every $1 spent on labor they get $0.60 back.  While I have not been able to find anything backing up that claim I have found the Ontario Computer animation & Special Effects Tax Credit is for 18% of eligible labor costs for a Canadian corporation that is Canadian or foreign-owned, has a permanent establishment in Ontario and files an Ontario corporate tax return. Being able to cut 18% of your costs would allow you to save a lot of money when you are talking about project budgets that are $100,000 to $500,000 or more.

The larger studios like DreamWorks Animation, and Disney are also outsourcing a lot of their animation work.  In animated TV production they will often have pre-production here in the US, but then outsource all the production work.  Many of the Disney Junior and Cartoon Network shows are done in this way.

All this really makes one wonder why anyone would open up an animation production company in the US.  These are things you have to come to terms with when we have a global market. There will always be someone that can do it faster, better and cheaper then you can.  Even with all the outsourcing the US animation industry is stronger then it has ever been.  The budgets for projects might be going down, and that is a reality we all have to come to accept.  Labor rates in other countries are increasing, and Canada’s tax credits are getting smaller.  I feel this is a natural balancing out that will take place over the next decade.  I don’t know if US rates will ever be as low as overseas, but it is not always about price.  Having an excellent business experience is a big factor.  There is a tipping point where the savings are not enough to give up working with someone next door to you, or at least in the same time zone.

While I plan to work with as many US-based artists as possible I have to be open to working with artists from all over the world. There are a lot of really talented people who live outside of the US, and it would be silly not to work with someone simply based on their location.  Hopefully the industry will change to making hiring decisions based on talent, and less about saving money. Regardless of where you are, you have to be able to offer great work, reasonable budgets, and an excellent business experience.

 

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.

Eric Miller Animation October 2015 Update

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Is it really October already?  Wow this year is flying by.  I’m already starting to see Christmas advertisements online and in my email inbox.  I have not been doing the best job at posting every week.  It is challenging to find the time to think, let alone write a post for my blog.  I will do my best to keep posting, so I thought I give you all a quick update on what is going on.

Animated Short:
In my previous post I mentioned I was considering naming the creature character and the short “Bink”.  I had a lot of very interesting reactions from different people.  While it still seems the majority of people like the name Bink I thought I share the other name I was considering.  The name I first I really liked was “Neap”.  I liked it because it was different, but also had reference to the ocean.  A neap tide is a tide that occurs when the difference between high and low tide is the least.  A neap tide comes twice a month in the first and third quarters of the moon.  I thought having a name that is in reference to the ocean would tie the creature to his back story about him being a seafaring species.  The main reason I kept looking for names was because the need version of the spelling meant “the remnant substance left over from vaporizing marijuana”.  I’m not sure how common this word is used, but was not sure it be a good way to go.  There is also a character called Meap on Phones and Ferb.  I’m still leaning towards Bink, but would love to hear what everyone thinks about Neap as a name option instead.

We are making some great progress with the short, and we have started rig wrecking and surfacing the creature character.  For those that don’t know what either of those are here is a quick and simple explanation.

rig_wreckA character TD will take the model and add a “skeleton” with joints to allow the model to move. Then they have to tell the geometry how to behave when a joint is moved.  Sometimes when a joint is moved in a certain way it does not look right.  Rig Wrecking is the process where an animator tests the rig trying to find things that don’t look right(Trying to wreck the rig).  This is then sent back to the Character TD with the animator’s notes of what issues need to be fixed.  This image is an example of things that were found during rig wrecking that were sent back to the Character TD to fix.  It is not uncommon for this back and forth to happen several times to get it working properly.

Surfacing is the process of adding a texture to the models so that when lighting is added and you render the scene everything looks amazing.  This can also be the stage where fur is added, where you define how shinny or reflective the surface is, and many other attributes that influence the final look of the characters and environment.

Both stages are very exciting because the characters become more and more realized.  We also will have a lighter that will be starting in November to start getting things ready to be rendered.  All surfacing, and animation has to be finished before lighting can do their final renders.

Company Update:
I mentioned earlier our company was changed from a sole proprietorship to an S-Corp, and the corporation started on July 24, 2015.  Once the corporation was formed then I needed to elect it to become a s-corp.  This process took a little longer, since we had to wait to hear back from the State.  I just received word that everything has now gone through, and the S-corp is completely setup.  Our first annual meeting will be held January 30, 2016.  I’m currently reading through the incredibly interesting corporate bylaws, so that I can sign them.  I’m reading sections at a time with breaks in-between to avoid falling asleep.

Client Projects:
I have not talked about client projects for a while now, and there is a good reason. While I’m still getting businesses contacting me about projects I’m not actively pursuing clients.  Instead all my energy has been going into the shorts.  I believe that it is important to have the shorts finished and in my portfolio before I spend marking money to find clients.  If they come to my website looking for 3D animation they won’t see much in my portfolio.  Once I have the shorts finished and on my website I will then invest in marketing to find new clients.  I’m also learning a great deal from making these shorts, and refining my processes and pipeline.

This is scary and a bit risky, since currently I’m spending more money then I’m bringing in, but I feel it is the smarter way to go.  Lets hope I’m right about this.

 

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.

Staying Healthy While Starting a Business

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When I worked at DreamWorks Animation my co-workers would often joked about the DreamWorks 50.  Similar to the Freshman 15, it is the idea that new employees often would gain weight after starting working at the company.  DreamWorks Animation is known for its free food they provide for their employees.  With copious amounts of food for breakfast, lunch, soft served ice-cream machines, cookie day, and snack kitchens all around campus it is hard to resist the urge to fully take advantage of your new employee benefits. Many new employees inevitably pack on a few extra pounds.  Eventually the excitement of free food wears off, and they learn to be more reserved with their eating.

When I left DWA to start my own company one of the things I knew I would miss would be the free food.  I joked with my DWA friends that the next time they saw me I was going to be nothing more then skin and bones.  The reality is that I actually gained weight since leaving my job at DWA.

You might ask “How could this be?”.  Do I have my own person chief?  Do we have a lot more food in my house then we had at DWA?  I can assure you that none of those are true.  There are several things that I’m sure played into me gaining weight, and not being as healthy as I once was.

While at DWA I would walk a lot more.  It was a big campus, so even walking to lunch was more exercise then what I get now.  Walking to and from the parking garage, going up and down stairs on my way to meetings.  I actually walked a lot while I was working there.  Now I sit in my office and the most walking I do is the 5 steps to the kitchen for lunch.  One of the things I have tried to get me to walk more is going on a daily walk around the neighborhood.  I’m really good at coming up with excuses not to do it including I’m to busy, or it is way to hot out, but I’m working on keeping it a priority.

Since I started working from home lunch is often something I forget about until the last minute.  With the busy entrepreneur schedule I have it never fails that at some point normally around 2pm I start feeling light headed, and my stomach starts yelling at me.  At this point I’m far beyond planning a meal, or even thinking clearly.  I want the quickest and easiest meal possible.  I had regressed to eating like a college student which often included Ramen Noodles and Mac & Cheese on the menu.  When I got sick of those tasty treats I would run to the nearest fast food place.  I realized this was not ideal, and I have been taking steps to eat healthier.

There are other things that could have contributed to my weight gain, and loss of energy.  Things such as a newborn that had a goal of keeping my wife and I from getting more then 3 hours of sleep at a time.  Even the best of us can’t function without a good nights rest.  Lucky for us our son is sleeping much better, so in turn we are finally starting to get more sleep at night.

I’m sure I could go on all day about reasons, but I’m more concerned about making changes.  In addition to the above mentioned changes I have been trying to find other ways to stay fit.  It is not just about losing weight, but also being healthier mentally and physically.  I have started doing a workout routine 3 days a week in the morning before I start working.  I set a bedtime for myself although I’m still really bad at sticking to this. I also became proactive about looking for ways to be healthier.

I found I’m not alone, and it is pretty common for people in my situation to put living a healthy life style on the back burner while starting their businesses.   I have read multiple articles that are directed on this very subject.  I’m sure some of you might be in a similar situation, so I thought I share some of the articles I have found.

Top 5 Methods To Stay Fit For An Entrepreneur

3 Ways to Stay Healthy and Sane as an Entrepreneur

12 Tips to Stay Healthy While Working From Home

STAYING HEALTHY AS AN ENTREPRENEUR

10 Things Every Young Entrepreneur Should Do to Stay Healthy, Fit And Productive

3 Simple Tips for Elevated Health in Less Than 15 Minutes a Day

The last article I read last night, and I started doing the 10-10-10 rule today.  Every hour do 10 pushups, 10 sit-ups, and 10 jumping jacks or squats.  I feel this will help me keep my energy up, since normally around 4pm I start getting sluggish.

Anyways, I hope some of this can help you, since staying healthy is extremely important.  I know this is not the typical topic I write about, but this is a huge part in starting and running your own company.  I want to be able to share all of my challenges, and this has been a big one for me lately. No pun intended.

 

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.

 

Techniques of Animation

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While talking to clients I often realize they don’t know the different techniques in creating animation.  This can create confusion when trying to explain what my studio does and does not do. I thought I would give a quick overview of some of the main techniques of animation.

While there are many different types, styles, and techniques of animation I wanted to focus on only 3 of the techniques.  It is understandable for someone not in the industry to be confused about the differences, since I have often heard people in the industry talk about them in different ways.  I won’t go into great detail about each, but instead will give you a general overview.  To get a little more details look up Animation on Wikipedia, and they have a great breakdown which I actually used as reference while writing this post.

Traditional Animation:

This is also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation.  It was originally created by drawing and/or painting each image on a piece of paper or a cel(short for celluloid).  With each image slightly different it would create the illusion of motion when captured on film.

The traditional cel animation process was eventually changed to scanning the images into the computer, or drawn directly into a computer system.  This would allow the inking and painting tasks to be done in the computer.

Some examples of traditionally animated films include Pinocchio, The Lion King, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, and most recently The Secret of Kells.

 

Stop Motion Animation:

Stop-motion is created by physically moving an object and capturing each frame one at a time to create motion.  I made some stop motion animation in college, and while it was fun for the first 2 hours the animation looked like something a kid could have done.  Stop-motion has a very unique look to it, and often more blocky in the movements.

There are also different types of stop-motion, and it is often based on what medium which is being used.  For example you have puppet animation that is used in movies like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline,  and Box Trolls. The puppets generally have armature inside to hold their poses for each frame.  There is cutout animation used in some earlier South Park episodes where they move two-dimensional pieces of paper or other material.  There is also Clay animation, often called claymation, that was used for The Gumby Show, California Raisins, and Wallace and Gromit.

There are of course many more styles, but this should give you a pretty good understanding of what stop-motion is.  I showed this time-lapse video in a previous post, but it is a great video showing the amount of work that goes into making stop-motion.

 

Computer Animation:

There are several different techniques that fall under computer animation, and I will touch on a couple.  My company does not do traditional animation or stop-motion, but we do computer animation.

Computer animation is any animation technique where it was created digitally on a computer.  I’m going to touch on both 2D and 3D computer animation.

To explain 2D computer animation I’m going to quote Wikipedia.

2D animation figures are created or edited on the computer using 2D bitmap graphics or created and edited using 2D vector graphics. This includes automated computerized versions of traditional animation techniques such as interpolated morphing, onion skinning and interpolatedrotoscoping. 2D animation has many applications, including analog computer animation, Flash animation and PowerPoint animation. Cinemagraphs are still photographs in the form of an animated GIF file of which part is animated.

While my company does some 2D animation our main focus is 3D animation.  This is the technique used by Pixar and DreamWorks in their movies.  Each asset is digitally created on a computer, and manipulated to create the animation.  Pretty much everything you see had to be created with digital paintings, and digital 3D models that are digitally surfaced.  Characters and props are rigged to allow them to move, and animators animate them using keyframe animation.

Motion capture can also be used to animate the characters.  With motion capture they record the movements of a live-action actor and use those movements to animate the characters. Polar Express, A Christmas Carol, and The Adventures of Tintin all used motion capture.

At my company animators use animation software like Maya to keyframe animate the characters. There also has to be digital cameras setup and framed to get the perfect shots, digital lighting to set the mood, and to light the scene.

You also have simulations to simulate fur, hair, and other effects such as fire, water, smoke, and more.  These digital simulations are referred to as 3D dynamics.

 

Hopefully this gives you a better understanding of the different techniques used to create animation.  In a future post I can dig deeper into all that goes into creating a 3D animation.  It will give you a better idea why animation is so expensive, and takes so long to make.

 

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.

My First SIGGRAPH

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IMG_6447I finally experienced my first SIGGRAPH conference.  I have always heard about SIGGRAPH, and while at DreamWorks Animation I would often have artists requesting time off so they could attend the conference.  While I had a pretty good idea about what it was I had never gone until this year.

SIGGRAPH is short for Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques.  It is an annual conference on computer graphics which you can imagine is pretty important for computer animation.

The conference was made up of one really large exhibits floor with all kinds of companies showing off their new technologies, and software.  It also included a job fair, panels, production sessions, discussions, art galleries, and parties every night.

IMG_6426It was a great experience, and I thought I would share some of my highlights from the week.  I took on the full conference this year, and went from Sunday until Thursday which might have been a little much for my first time.  Some of the talks were interesting, some where way to techy for me, and others I learned a great deal from.  I liked some of the conversations the best, since you really got to hear the challenges other people and companies in the industry where facing.

Lets start from the beginning… I first attended a presentation from the guys that started Aardman Animation, David Sproxton & Peter Lord.  It was interesting to hear how they started their company on a dining room table.  Aardman is known for the stop motion films; Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Chicken Run, and The Pirates.

I seemed to start the conference out with a Stop Motion Theme, since the next presentation was by LAIKA.  You might know them from the movies Coraline, ParaNorman, and most recently the Boxtrolls.  While stop motion is not something I would ever want to do I do appreciate the artists that do this kind of work.  Here is a Time-Lapse of the making of a scene.

Sunday was a lot of these types of presentations, since the exhibit floor was not open until Tuesday.  At the end of the day I went to a Fast Forward where they gave all the people who wrote technical papers on new technologies 30 seconds to introduce, and try and interest you to attend their full presentation later in the week.

IMG_6434I big thing at the conference was virtual reality, and they even had a whole section they called Virtual Village.  There are some really cool technologies coming out, and I’m excited to see where they take them.  One of the exhibits there was two boxes, and… I’m sure I will mess it up trying to explain how it works, but if you stuck your hand in one box you could feel and see the person’s hand from another box.  It is like a touchable hologram, and I’m interested to see where they take this tech.

IMG_6460I went to a really neat presentation for the 40th Anniversary of ILM.  Industrial Light & Magic is a VFX company that was started by George Lucas in 1975 to work on his movies.  Later they started doing work for other clients as well, and now have touched so many great films.  To name a few… Star Wars movies, Indiana Jones movies, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, The Abyss, Jurassic Park, Twister, Titanic, and most recently Ant-Man to name a few.  It is also interesting to note that they had a computer graphics devision that George eventually sold to Steve Jobs, and became Pixar.

Some of the talks I sounded interesting, but after they started going over the codes I realized I was in over my head.

I did find a very interesting discussion about cloud based rendering vs in-house rendering.  One of my goals of the conference was to learn more about rendering, and I got a lot out of this discussion.

I could go on and on, but I don’t want to bore some of you.  I did go to some fun parties.

On Tuesday evening I went to the DreamWorks Animation party.  As in true DreamWorks style it was a very impressive party, great food, beautiful location, and of course amazing people.  It was nice getting caught up with old co-workers, and meeting some new people.

On Wednesday I went to the Pixar Renderman party, and got to see their latest short.  I also learned about the world of collecting walking teapots.  I guess people go crazy about these things, and you can sell them on eBay for a decent price.  If you are interested to learn more here is a video from 2013 that gives a little more back story.

IMG_6428Overall it was a great time, and I learned a lot about new technologies coming out.  I plan to go next year, but not sure if I will go for the whole week again.  I got pretty behind on work, and have been spending most of this week trying to get caught up.

 

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.

Eric Miller Animation Studios Incorporated

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Eric Miller Animation Studios Incorporated!  That is right, as of July 24, 2015 my company has been reborn as its own entity.  I thought I talk a little about what this means without getting to technical and boring.

So now what?  You might be wondering what this means.  When I started my company it was a Sole Proprietorship, and basically myself and the company was one and the same. By incorporating it separates my personal assets from my business’ assets, and this basically gives me some legal protection and tax savings.

Currently the corporation is what they call a single-owner corporation, since I’m the only owner.  This makes for some interesting things to happen when operating as a corporation.  I’m now required by law to form a board of directors and have at least one meeting a year.  Since I’m a single-owned corporation the board can be one person… me.  This means I’m the chairman of the board, and the board of directors all at the same time.

If that is not crazy enough, the board also has to name the executive officers to run the company.  The 3 positions that have to be named are president, secretary, and treasurer.  I’m excited to announce who the board(me) has named for each of these positions.

President: Eric M. Miller
Secretary: Eric M. Miller
Treasurer: Eric M. Miller

I know, big surprise.  So yeah, how silly is that?  As long as I’m the only shareholder I have to have a meeting with myself, take notes, and vote myself in to all the above positions.  As the company grows, and if I take on investors this will all change, but for now this is how it is.  I mean I’m already wearing all those hats, but now I have to be officially named, and notes need to be recorded.

I’m also no longer considered self-employed, since I’m now technically an employee of Eric Miller Animation Studios.  I even have to start taking a paycheck.  The IRS says officers of a corporation have to take a “Reasonable Salary”, and give no real explanation of what that means.  If anyone can tell me what that means please let me know in the comments below.  This is a newer requirement to prevent officers of corporations from taking low salaries, and then get paid in dividends.  Dividends are taxed at a much lower rate, so this was being abused to save corporate officers a lot of money in taxes.  I remember hearing about Steve Jobs and Jeffery Katzenberg only getting paid $1 a year, and originally thinking they were doing it because they were cool guys.  I later started to think it was for tax savings, and it turns out I was right.  This new law is why Mr. Katzenberg now takes a $3 million salary, instead of his one dollar salary.  I sure hope that is not what the IRS considers “Reasonable”, or my company will be in debt within the first month.

The take away from all of this is that nothing really is changing for my business other then being a little more official in the eyes of the government.  There will be some tax savings, and added legal protection to me and my family, but that is really it for right now.  There are some other advantages, but I won’t bore you with all the details.

 

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.

A Decade Living in California, the Struggles & Success

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Tomorrow will mark a decade for me of living in California, so I thought it be appropriate to look back on my struggles & successes which brought me to where I am today.  On occasion I have been known to write in a journal, and when I first moved out here I did not have many people to talk to.  I ended up writing in my journal every night, and I read over it to help in writing this post.  I’m really glad that I wrote down what I was going through, since it was an eventful part of my life. I don’t write in my journal as much as I used to, but this blog has taken the place of documenting my life’s journeys.

Grand Canyon- Eric tapingMy California adventure began in Ohio on Monday, July 25th, 2005 as I drove away from my childhood home to head out to the west coast.  I packed my car with everything I could fit in it, and took a 5 day sight seeing trip across the country.  On Friday, July 29, 2005 I crossed into California from Nevada, and I remember thinking to myself that I finally made it.  Little did I know how challenging the next few years would be.  I drove to Redondo Beach where a high school classmate was living.  Ryan Smith agreed to letting me stay a month at his place until I was able to find my own place.  It was only a corner in his room, but that is all I needed.  It was thanks to him that I actually left Ohio to come to California.  I had been wanting to move out here, but had no idea how I was going to do it.  I was trying to find an apartment to rent from Ohio, but without seeing them it made it almost impossible.  There was also the fact that they were so expensive that I would need to find a roommate.  By him offering me a place to stay it gave me a destination, and a home base to operate from.  This gave me the opportunity I needed, and I took it.

Apple- Eric & Thomas at POS

Working at Apple with Thomas Orona

I only ended up staying with Ryan through the weekend, since on Monday I moved in to an extra bedroom a friend’s sister had in her apartment up in Newhall.  This gave me my own room, and inexpensive rent, so I upgraded my living situation.  While living there I was able to get a part time job as a sales specialist working at an Apple Store in Northridge, which is not far from where I’m living now.  This apartment was a great stepping stone, but I felt more like a guest then an equal roommate.  I also knew I needed to move closer to Los Angeles, but was not making enough money to pay the higher LA rents.  Instead of playing it safe I made the move anyways.

On October 30th, about 3 months after moving into the place in Newhall, I moved to an apartment in Sherman Oaks.  It was a 3 bedroom apartment that I got with a guy named John whom I met on roommate.com.  He was originally from Ohio, and also went to the same college as I did.  I did not know him, but knew he must be a good guy(at least I hoped) since he was from Ohio.  It also worked out that Ben, a friend of mine from college, was planning on moving out here, so we asked him if he wanted to be our 3rd roommate.

Kester-Apartment

Kester Apartment

We had everything in place, and this was a much better living situation for me then the previous apartment.  In 3 months, I have moved 3 times, and each time was an improvement.  The only problem was the ticking time bomb(aka my bank account), since I was now spending more money then I was making.  Based on my calculations I had enough money to make it until Christmas.

As the holiday approached, and my savings were almost completely gone I feared I would have to move back to Ohio in defeat.  It was in mid December when Thomas Orona, one of my co-workers at Apple, got me an interview at B1 Media.  It was a DVD menu design company, and the opportunity came at exactly the right time.  The interview went well, and I got the job which started when I returned from my holiday in Ohio.  I don’t know if Thomas knew what he did saved me from having to leave California, but it was an act of kindness I will never forget.  He now is a partner of a Technology consulting company called Band of Techs.  I highly recommend him and his company if you are looking for Technology consulting services.

B1Media

B1 Media

I started my job at B1 Media in January, and this also ended that thing called “a day off”, since I worked my days off at Apple.  I had very little free time, but all the working helped get some savings back into my bank account.  My position at B1 Media was for DVD menu quality control.  I spent hours going through all the menus on a DVD looking for errors.  I would also QC tape transfers, and would watch hours of footage from shows like Amazing Race and the Girls Next Door.  The latter being a bit embarrassing to be watching in a work environment.  I found myself constantly explaining to people walking by that it was for work that I was watching these completely uncensored shows about the playmates living in the Playboy mansion.  Luckily I worked the late shift(3pm-midnight) so after the first couple hours everyone in the office went home except me.

By mid June that freelance job ended, and I was once again without work living on my savings.  I could have picked up more hours at Apple, but felt embarrassed to do so, and kept working there on the weekends only.  I started to go on some interviews, but was not as motivated as I should have been.  I went on 3 interviews for AAA selling insurance, but after being offered the position I decided it was not the best fit for me.  I had an interview at Bunim/Murray Productions who did Real World, but it was for a tape logger.  At that time I had no idea what a tape logger did, but soon found out.  A tape logger is someone that watches hours of uncut footage from the reality show, and type what is going on every second with a description of the shot, and cataloging everything for the editor to be able to find what they are looking for when assembling an episode.  The interview process was them sitting me at a monitor with a keyboard, and headphones and actually logging shots for 15 minutes.  After a minute I took my headphones off, and told them “No thank you”.

I went on a lot of interviews, but was not having any luck with anything.  I was once again getting desperate, and was getting low on my savings.  I knew I had to start being less picky, and by September I was working as an assistant store manager at Walgreens.  This may have been one of the worst jobs I ever had, and less then 2 months later I quit.  The good news was that I made a decent amount of money in those two months, but was once again on the job hunt.

A few weeks later I had another job cold-calling people and trying and persuade them to refinance their mortgage with the company I was working for. If it is in your control try not to do a job that people hate you for doing it.  Yes, there was a lot of people(not including me) in that office that made a ton of money, but people hated us.  I was hung up on, screamed at, and called some really nasty names.  I knew I did not want to stay there long, so I started working with a temp agency that worked exclusively in the entertainment industry.  Through that company I was able to get some interesting temp jobs. At this time in my life I was working at 3 different companies at the same time.  I was still at Apple on the weekends, World Trade Lending(the mortgage sales company), and now at Friedman Temp agency.

Through the temp agency I got several different jobs, but some of the more interesting ones were Porchlight Entertainment, and Innovative Artist Agency. Porchlight was a neat little animation company that made shows like Jay Jay the Jet Plane, and Tutenstein.  It was mostly direct to DVD, or episodic TV shows that they worked on.  Innovative Artist I was in the mailroom of a talent agency for Christmas help to cover people on holiday.  It was one of the most cut-throat places I have ever worked at.  The people in the mailroom would wait for an assistant to mess up, and do their best to get them fired.  When an assistant got fired they would promote someone from the mailroom.  I was glad I was only there for the holiday, and did not get caught up in the politics of that place.

IMG_2592

DreamWorks Studios Co-workers at LA Dodgers Game

I went home again for Christmas, and when I returned I was not hearing anything from the temp agency.  I was getting nervous, because before leaving on holiday I requested the temp agency to only give me temp jobs that paid a higher rate.  I was scared that this might be the reason I was not getting any new jobs.  Finally a call from the agency came in, and I was given a temp assignment at DreamWorks Studios.  I instantly fell in love with the job, and wanted them to hire me on full time.  If DWS wanted to hire me on full time they had to pay a large penalty to the temp agency for a finders fee, and it was not clear to me if DWS would be willing to do that.  I eventually received the good news that DWS was hiring me on as a full time production assistant.  I feel this was a turning point for my career, and the instability of the last couple years was behind me.

I still was working at Apple on the weekends, and DreamWorks Studios full time during the week.  After working as a PA for around 3 months I was promoted to head PA, and was taken out of the field, and put behind a desk.  I worked at DWS until the end of September, and on October 1st I started my career at DreamWorks Animation.  I was at DreamWorks for almost 7 years until I left last July to start my own company.  If you don’t already know the rest of the story, and interested to find out I suggest you go back to the beginning of this blog.

Some of the more noteworthy milestones that happened during my time at DWA are meeting my wife Karen, buying a house, and having our son Kelton.  My time at DWA brought all kinds of great things into my life, and would not trade my time there for anything.  Looking back at how far I have come I’m very proud of my accomplishments.  There has been a lot of struggle in these last 10 years, but a great deal more success.

I have noticed two reoccurring themes in my adventures this last decade.  The first is that there has been so many people willing to help others, which kept me from failing to severely.  I owe a great debt of gratitude to so many people who reached out a hand to offer me support when I needed it the most. The other theme is that I tend to leap into situations before I feel that I’m ready.  It is important to point out that things are not always going to line up perfectly, and sometimes you have to get as close as you can, take a leap of faith, and hope for the best.  Chances are you will find a way to make it all work out.

“When you get to the end of all the light you know and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.”
― Edward Teller

 

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.

July 2015 Update

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This last week I have been mostly working on our animated short. Animation is a slow process, but we are making some great progress. It might be a month, but I do plan to get some fun concept art to share with all of you.

I have also been working on a bid for a potential client that will require a mix of a CG character in a CG environment, with a live action actor.  I’m collaborating with some other companies to do the live action, and sound, since those aren’t services we offer.  I will find out later this year if the project was awarded to us.

I’m also very excited that our followers on Twitter are growing.  We now have over 400 twitter followers.  I don’t always put as much effort into twitter, but I’m trying to give it a little more of my attention.

I talked to my attorney yesterday, and he finished drafting the articles of incorporation to make my sole proprietorship into a corporation.  He will be filing it with the state of California today, so now we just have to wait and see how long it takes to finalize everything.  I have never been the CEO of a corporation, so this is all very exciting to me.  I have a lot to learn, but I have some great advisors to help me along the way.

The big news for today is that this evening is our first Society of Creative Professionals Mixer.  Currently we have RSVPs for 46 people going, and 23 maybes, which is much more then I was expecting for our first event.  Typically half the people that RSVP actually show up, but I’m excited to see what the turnout ends up being.  Hopefully after the first event the word will spread about it, and we will have even more people at the next mixer.  This will be a great way for me to meet different artists in the area, and hopefully those that attend will also get something out of it. Event details and RSVP

It is a busy day, so I’m going to keep this post short.  As always, thank you for reading about my journey.

 

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.