Entrepreneur

Judging & Taxes

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Yesterday, I did my taxes which was the first time I did them with the business.  The business is still setup as a sole proprietorship, so personal and business taxes are done together.  DreamWorks Animation and my wife’s employer both took taxes directly out of our paychecks, but that was not the case for the business.  As a business owner it is my responsibility to pay the taxes myself each quarter.  I had an idea of how much they would be, so I made sure I set some money aside.  This was the first time I did not get a tax refund, but instead will have to pay Uncle Sam.  It is more obvious how much money you pay in taxes when you pay it all at once instead of having it taken out of your paycheck each week.

I’m looking into changing the business into a S-Corp for the tax benefits, but if I don’t make enough money it will end up costing me more then what it will save me.  I will see how the next month goes before making a decision.  I know there are other benefits to switching to an S-Corp, so I may just bite the bullet, and make the change.

I was contacted by the president of my alma mater’s Film/Video Society about being a judge for their annual Filmmakers Showcase.  When I was a student at the University of Toledo I always enjoyed attending this event, and would often have my own work in the show.  I was honored when they asked me to be a judge, and have been making my way through the 39 entries.  They include film, video, and animation projects that range from a couple of minutes to 30 minutes in length.  To be honest, some of them are pretty bad, but there are also a lot of really good ones in there.  I’m about half way through them, and still hoping for an amazing one.

This week I have still been doing a lot of work on my website.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I started with a website that I liked, and was trying to change it to be my own.  I realized that getting it to a point where I did not feel I was copying someone else’s work would require a lot more skill in web design & programing then what I have.  Although I was making a lot of progress, and learning a great deal I still had a lot of work to get done.  I already have spent more time on this then I wanted, so I needed a better option.

I typically try to stay away from the cookie-cutter website design programs, since they are often very limiting on what you could do with them.  After I had two friends mentioned using SquareSpace I thought I should check it out.  I was pleasantly surprised with the available options, and how simple it made it.  Realizing I was not progressing fast enough on my current course I decided to make a change.

I signed up for a SquareSpace account and started over with my website.  I already planned out the layout of my website, so with the SquareSpace tools I was able to quickly get back to where I was.  I now feel I have a functioning website that at the minimum shows our work, and gives clients a way to contact me.  I will continue improving the site, but the basics are there.  Please check it out and let me know what you think of it so far.

www.milleranimation.com

I hope to be finishing up the site this week, and starting next week I plan to focus on finding my next clients.  I feel I might have been dragging my feet on this with other projects, since I’m not sure where to start.  I have a couple avenues I can explore, and hopefully one of them will get me somewhere.

 

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.

MillerAnimation.com Coming Soon!

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I wanted to give a quick update on the progress of things.  I have been spending all my time working on my website, but it is finally starting to take form.  I have also been learning a great deal about web design.  Putting my site together is a slow process, since anytime I can’t figure something out I watch YouTube videos for the answers.  I started with the main page to get that looking the way I want, so I can then duplicate it to the other pages and change the content.

I started from another company’s website that I liked, and then started changing it to make it my own.  That helped me from having to figure out all the coding, but still enabled me to have some cool features on my site.  What this ended up mean though was that I had to dig through the code to find out how to do every little thing.  For example if I wanted to change certain text to a different color I would have to find what CSS code was effecting that text.  It was tedious, but I’m starting to understand all this css stuff.

You can check out my site in its current state at milleranimation.com.  Some of the images and text are still placeholders, most of the links don’t work, and none of the contact forms are working.  My next task is to learn how to set up the contact forms, so potential clients can actually get in touch with me.  Let me know your thoughts on how it is coming along so far.  If you have any cool ideas I would love to hear those too.

In an earlier post I mentioned that I was expecting this January to be my companies first month with a negative net income, but I actually had enough work that the month ended with a positive net income.  It helps that my expenses right now for the company are extremely low, but I will still take the victory. Maybe I will get lucky again in February, but my prediction is that February will be in the red.  I’m OK with that since I’m putting so much of my time and effort into getting the company setup properly.  This is something I did not have time to do when I first set off on my own.  As long as I’m making progress I’m OK with a few unprofitable months.

 

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.

Animation Industry is Feast or Famine

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Today we got the last shot of the Toys”R”Us project approved, so we are finally 100% finished with that project. It was a great first project to have, but now I’m ready for my next challenge.

I did not get much done on the business front last week.  I’m still struggling with updating my website, and trying to get that in working order.  I’m currently working on the design while I also try and figure out how to do the coding. Once I get my website updated I will use that to try and find my next clients.  I plan to go back to figuring out the government contracts, and trying to get some animation work through the government.

I have also been using this time to meet up with a lot of my business contacts.  Checking in with them to see how they finished out the 2014 year, and to see if there is anything either of us learned that might help the other out.  I found this to be a great way to accelerate your learning without having to make all the mistakes yourself.

I’m currently in talks with a few different people about projects they need help on.  They all seem like fun projects, so hopefully everything will work out. It seems like the number of projects out there is rather limited.  Feast or Famine.  I have been seeing a lot of Facebook posts by my artist friends that where busy at the end of the year, but are all now looking for work.

Other then that there is not much to talk about this week.  I wish I could tell you about some amazing new things that are going on, but this blog is about the real life journey I’m on to start my studio.  The truth is that sometimes the real life is not always that eventful.  If this was a “Lord of the Rings” movie this would be one of the many walking scenes.  Hopefully things will get more exciting soon for all of our sakes.

 

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.

Creating Our Animation Website & Demo Reel

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This last week I have been doing a lot of work on updating my website, and putting a demo reel together.  It has been a while since I have used DreamWeaver to make a website, and it is proving to be much more difficult then in the past.  Granted I normally did not try and do anything special or overly complicated with my website design as I am doing now.  I want my website to be simple and clean in the design, but I want it to have some more advanced features under the hood.  For example I want it to look great on all platforms, so no matter if you are looking at it on a desktop or mobile phone you will still have a great experience.

I have been trying to watch YouTube videos to learn coding for fluid grid website designs, and I think my head is ready to explode from trying to understand it.  I was working on it for several days until I eventually had to start working on something else to keep me from going crazy.  I have a new found respect for web designers and programers.  I won’t give up, and will soon be going back to it.

On a more productive note I finished editing the company’s first demo reel which includes some of the work we did for Toys”R”Us.  I included it in this post, but if you want to watch it in HD you will have to watch it on Vimeo.

Currently I’m 6 away from having 2,000 Facebook Likes on my company page.  The momentum I had in previous weeks has slowed down, but I’m still moving towards my goal of 10,000 likes by the year’s end.

As far as outside work, I currently don’t have any new projects lined up, but from what I hear that is typical for the beginning of the year in the commercial world.  The calm is refreshing after the last 6 months, and allows me to get caught up with other things.  I feel in a few weeks I will be ready for my next projects, but I will have to figure out how to get those projects.

 

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.

New Year’s Resolutions for an Animation Studio

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It’s a new year, and a fresh start. In the past a new year was simply trying to remember to change the last digit or two when writing the year, but for the most part little changed. With the business it seems to be much more abrupt of a change, because of the way things are setup with the IRS. Closing out your books for the year, sending out 1099’s, and getting ready for taxes.

Last year feels like I was just testing the water, since it was only half the year. 2015 will be my first full year in business, and that is both exciting and scary. I did not have any downtime last year, since as soon as I left my day job I had a project to work on. This is the first time with the business that I’m not making any money. There is a good chance that January will be the companies first month in the red. Hopefully there will not be to many months this year in the red, but only time will tell.

I plan to use this month to lay some groundwork to hopefully set the company up for success the rest of the year. I feel the most important thing is to get my website updated and looking professional. This includes getting my demo reel edited, and uploaded to the site. I will still mostly be focusing on client work this year as I don’t feel I have the money or reputation yet to start my own projects.

It being a new year I thought it would be appropriate for me to set some goals for the year, or New Year’s Resolutions if you will.

New Year’s resolution: From Wikipedia
The ancient Babylonians made promises to their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts. The Romans began each year by making promises to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named. In the Medieval era, the knights took the “peacock vow” at the end of the Christmas season each year to re-affirm their commitment to chivalry.

Below are some of my resolutions I make that I hope to accomplish in the next 12 months. Some of them are a stretch, but why set goals that are to easy to achieve?

Work-Life Balance:
These last 6 months have been crazy busy, and that was only dealing with 1 client at a time.  I need to find a better balance between the demands of the company, and my personal life and family.  I realize that the business will always take a lot of time, and these first few years might be the most time consuming.  That is why it is even more important that I find a way to balance my time between it and my personal life now.  After all, one of the reasons I wanted to have my own business was so I could enjoy life more.

3 new Major Clients:
This might seem counter productive to the previous goal, but that is why it is even more important to find a balance now.  Most companies want to continue to do better and grow their business, so growing my customer base should not come as a surprise.  My goal this year is to get 3 new clients with large projects to work on is going to be challenging, but I feel is important for the success of my business. Ideally I would like to have more animation projects, but I also enjoy VFX projects.

Grow Team:
Right now the company is just me, and when I have projects I bring on Freelancers to help out.  This is great in keeping costs down, but I want to bring on others that can help me grow the business.  People that are invested in the idea, and share my passion to grow the company.  This needs to be the right person, or persons that can add something to the team.  With Strengths that compliment my weaknesses.

Develop my own IP:
I know I’m not at a point to produce my own content, but I would like to start developing our own content.  Who knows if we get a great idea we might be able to find funding for it.

Continue to learn:
One of the best parts I experienced in running my own business is that I learn something new almost every day.  I want to continue to learn this year.  I want to continue to try new things, and push myself out of my comfort zone.  This keeps things interesting, and makes all the hard work worth it.  I never want to be stuck in neutral.

10,000 Facebook Likes:
At first this sounds like an unrealistic goal, but I feel this is actually attainable.  This week alone I have gained 512 new likes on my company Facebook page.  I’m currently sitting at 1,450 likes, and growing quickly.  I know this week is not the norm, and if it was I would achieve my goal around May or June.  Some weeks I don’t get any new likes, so I feel this goal is challenging yet attainable. I could use your help to reach this goal.  Share my page with your friends, and help me spread the word. Facebook Page  I also hope to grow my other social media sites, but I will focus on Facebook for this goal.

Do Good:
I want to find a way to give back to the community, a charitable organization, or help a cause.  I have not figured out the best way to give back, but this is something that is important to me.  It also does not have to be only one way.  I have always wanted to make an animated video to help kids that are bullied.  I know there are a lot of kids that struggle with bullies, and I want to show them how they can get help.  Even if it is just educating the kids that are bullying to make them realize what they are doing.

Government contract work:
I want to figure out how to get on these government contract lists.  I was way to busy last year to take the time to make sense of all the paperwork that is required to get on these lists to obtain government work.  Now that I have more free time I would like to figure it out.

Wikipedia Approval:
This might seem like an odd one, but hear me out.  I have this fun game I like to play with Wikipedia called “Lets see how long I can have an article on Wikipedia for”.  I play by adding a new article for “Eric Miller Animation Studios”, and see how long it takes them to remove it. They normally send nice uplifting messages like “The article Eric Miller Animation Studios has been speedily deleted from Wikipedia due to no sign of real notability.”.  Normally it is removed within seconds, but this last time I was able to keep it up for 7 days.  Progress!!!  So my goal is to do something that Wikipedia considers noteworthy enough to get my company in the “modern version” history books we call Wikipedia.

Well, these are just a few of the goals that I have for my business this year.  I will keep you updated on my progress on all these goals as the year goes on.  I expect all of you to hold me to these goals, and if I’m slipping on any of them to call me out on it.  Heres to an amazing 2015!

 

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 Blank Canvas, and Endless Possibilities for an Animation Studio

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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

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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.

DWA-Home-Leadership-Dinner-Photo

 

 

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.

An Amazing Experience at CTN Animation Expo

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I had a great time at the CTN Animation Expo this last weekend.  Not only did I get to see a lot of industry friends, but I also got to meet a lot of new people.  I also got to hear a lot of great discussions, and meet some of the animation legends.

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Ken Duncan

I had the pleasure to hear Ken Duncan talk about his studio that he started 8 years ago, and was excited to get to sit next to him in a “Meet Ken Duncan” discussion.  Ken worked at Disney for many years, and is best known for his female characters that he was supervising animator on.  This includes Meg from “Hercules”, and Jane from “Tarzan”.  I learned of Ken and his company Duncan Studio while working on the DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda DVD featurette.  We were doing the CG bookend animation, while his studio worked on the 2D animation part.  I’m hoping for a chance to get to meet him for lunch sometime, and to see his studio.  Fingers crossed.

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L to R: Eric Goldberg, Ron Clements, Bill Kroyer, Jerry Rees, John Musker

On Saturday morning I started my day out going to a tribute to the Late Robin Williams with film directors John Musker, Ron Clements, Jerry Rees, Bill Kroyer, and supervising animator Eric Goldberg.  They have all worked with Robin Williams, and they wanted to honor him by sharing their experiences working with him.

It was really great to hear them talk about their memories of Robin Williams.  When Jerry Rees was talking about his experience he talked about directing “Back to Neverland”.  For anyone that remembers the Animation tour at Disney/MGM Studios at Walt Disney World where you get to go on a walking tour through the animation studio you will have seen this.  Sadly the animation tour and the Florida animation studio is no longer around, but it was one of my favorite attractions.  It is also one that I worked at when I did the Walt Disney World College Program Internship my 2002 spring and summer semester in college.  The tour started out by everyone coming into a small theatre where they played “Back to Neverland”.  It had Walter Cronkite, and Robin Williams, and they turned Robin into an animated character to show you how animation works.  If you have not had the privilege of seeing it on the tour, I will include an extremely poor quality version I found on YouTube.

Working as a tour guide I had to introduce the film, and then watch it around 4 to 5 times a day.  I loved it and never got sick of it.  When I learned that Jerry Rees was the director, I was overly excited.  Later that day I ran into Jerry and John Musker, and told them about my animation tour guide days.  They were very nice, and I had a great conversation with them.  They were also kind enough to take a photo with me.

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The rest of the weekend was a mix of going to different workshops, some of which were ones taught by friends of mine, and walking around on the exhibition floor.  It was really nice getting to make a lot of new contacts with artists, and meet some extremely talented people.  It was interesting that majority of the people I met were trying to get jobs at one of the major studios, and I’m the crazy guy that had a studio job and left on my own free will.  Maybe that is a sign that I’m a little crazy, but I’m okay with that.

One of the best things of the week was seeing these amazing projects everyone was working on.  It really inspired me to want to try and pull a team together, and make an animated short.  There were several people there that got their projects entirely funded by crowd funding.  I met animator James Lopez that did a Indiegogo campaign to raise money to make an animated short.  He raised almost 1/2 a million dollars so far which is enough money to make 4 animated shorts if not more.  I’m sure that is the exception to the norm, but it is still a fun thought to play around with.  In closing I had a great time at the conference, and I’m looking forward to going again next year.  Who knows, maybe I will get a booth for my company next year.

 

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.